History

Chinese working on the US transcontinental railway discovered gold on the Lovitt Mine property in 1865. They made ladders to reach the veins in the cliffs, then panned their rock chippings for gold in Squilchuk Creek in the valley below. Apparently they did well, because there are hundreds of pits in the cliffs of D reef as silent witness to their activity.

The mine property was first staked in the 1890’s and a small gold operation was run for about three years prior to 1900, about one thousand feet from the main ore body.

The property changed hands several times prior to Ed Lovitt appearing on the scene in 1949. Lovitt immediately recognized the potential of the property and in 1950 he raised the financing required to take the property to production. For eight years the company shipped ore grade rock averaging .5 to .9 oz of gold per ton to the Asarco smelter in Tacoma.

Lovitt employed contract miners who shared in the profits. In 1959, the miners discovered “Nellie’s Room” a very rich pocket of ore in a room of 15x15x20 feet.  In today’s dollars, about $ 30 million in gold and silver was recovered and the company was raided by the IRS before any payouts could be paid out to the miners. The Lovitt Mine mineralization is mostly epithermal micron gold, much like that found in the Carlin trend in Nevada, and a local Wenatchee World newspaper article quotes Ed Lovitt saying “the gold is so fine that it can’t be seen, even at 100 oz. per ton”.

 However, there were occasional zones of very high grade like Nellie’s Room where the gold was visible and Lovitt made a side business of selling the gold and electrum specimens discovered in the mine.

In 1960 Lovitt entered into a joint venture agreement with the Day brothers of Idaho, who were experienced mill operators. Lovitt felt that he could do better by milling the ore, then delivering the resulting concentrate to a smelter. The partnership was known as L-D Mines and the partnership was in effect until the mine suspended operations in 1967, with gold fixed at 34.00 per oz. and expenses rising. 

Historic records  show production of 410,480 oz of gold and 625,850 oz of silver between 1951 and 1967.

After the mine closed Cypress Anvil optioned the property, and spent about three years exploring for gold in the area. They were interested in developing the open pit potential of the Lovitt Mine, and they completely missed the potential of the Cannon Mine, which adjoins the Lovitt Mine to the north and produced over 1.1 million ounces of gold in the late 1980’s early 90’s.

The Cannon Mine was optioned by a Vancouver mining promoter in 1982, as a proximity play to the Lovitt Mine, and by 1984 they were achieving diamond drill results which indicated a possible gold camp. One diamond drill hole intersected 60 feet of over 1 oz gold per ton and the gold rush was on. Breakwater ‘s stock had closed at around 3.50, and after release of the news of the spectacular drill intersection, it  opened around 16.00 the following day. Breakwater brought in Asamera Minerals Inc., a more senior company with deep pockets to finance the infrastructure required to take the mine to production. Ultimately Breakwater owned 49% of the Cannon Mine, and Asamera owned 51%.

Breakwater is a candidate for the best gold mine promotion of all time, since the stock rose from 18 cents as a VSE shell to over $ 40.00 per share as a NYSE listed company, and this was accomplished in a falling gold market. At market highs, the price of Breakwater implied a value for the Cannon Mine and related Wenatchee gold belt assets at around $ 1,400,000,000. Over  its seven year production life, the Cannon Mine produced around 1.2 million oz of gold and about 600,000 oz of silver.

Back to the Lovitt Mine

Since the Cannon mine diamond drilling indicated a possible gold camp, mining major Teck Corporation became interested in the Wenatchee area and used our Vancouver  company Grange Gold Corporation, to finance a minority interest in the Lovitt Mining Company. Once again, the focus was upon developing an open pit resource. Teck spent several millions to finance an exploration program in the 80’s and in a follow up effort Asamera spent several millions exploring the Lovitt Mine property from between 1985 and 1996. BP Oil bought Asamera, and disbanded Asamera Minerals Inc. after the Cannon mine closed. Other well known mining companies explored the Lovitt Mine after operations were suspended, including Cyprus Anvil, United Mining, Newmont Mining and Tenneco. The data assembled by these companies is a major asset of Lovitt Resources Inc.

In 1994, consulting geologist A.A. Burgoyne wrote a non-compliant 43-101 summary of the Lovitt Mine mining data and concluded that the Lovitt Mine had a geological resource of over 400,000 oz of gold. Also Wright Engineers prepared multiple summary reports for Teck Corporation and Asamera between1982 and 1992. It would be impossible to duplicate the 7 miles of tunnels, over one thousand engineering drawings, diamond drill data and scores of engineering reports without a budget in excess of 40 million dollars.

In 2008 the Lovitt Mining Company commissioned an updating report by Watts Griffis and McQuat of Toronto, released in July 2009,  available on our home page.

Lovitt Mine data shows a terrific blue sky potential, since the history of the mine indicates numerous high grade gold pockets. There are hundreds of narrow veins that were never sampled. All early exploration involved long hole drilling of typically 80 feet, and most post 1967 drilling was directed to collect open pit information. The Lovitt hydro-thermal gold deposit is also open to depth, since the exploration focus post-1967 was mainly to develop broad shallow reserves. The current focus is on high grade gold and silver zones offering bonanza potential.

Grange Gold Corporation, the original public company, changed its name several times over 28 years to become Lovitt Resources Inc., currently focused on developing the Lovitt Mine asset.  In looking at potential future development, a large part of the permitting process may be bypassed or accelerated due to the fact that our mine workings are on patented mining claims. Lovitt Mines owns the patented Gold King and MacBeth mining claims subject to a 5% net smelter royalty interest in favor of former minority shareholders, plus 100% of the mineral rights in 200 acres and 70% of the mineral rights to 350 acres in the Wenatchee area, subject to the same net smelter royalty. Contained within the mineral interest is a freehold land inventory of approximately 270 acres close to the city limits of Wenatchee, which is a major off balance sheet asset of the company.

Recent work has concentrated on opening the 1250 level of the mine, exploring other levels where accessible, sampling prospective areas inside the mine, reviewing engineering maps and reports, and sampling material in the dumps outside the main portals. A geologist has been commissioned to place the engineering data into a modern 3D format to simplify the exploration process.

The Lovitt Gold Mine has a very rich history dating from its incorporation in 1949, and its best days are yet to come, led onward and upward by its parent, Lovitt Resources Inc.