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Mines/United States

Climax Mine

Climax Mine, United States, underground, mining molybdenum.

Why Climax Mine is famous

Senter found ore in 1879, it came online in 1917 and the Climax Molybdenum Company formed in 1918. It restarted in 1920 and supplied 80 percent of world molybdenum in the Second World War.1,2,3

Story cards

Timeline

  1. 1878 to 1879Leadville silver boom4

Climax Mine today

Where molybdenum is mined todayMining in United States

Where next

Mines

ExamplesHendersonColorado molybdenum: Climax came online in 1917 and Henderson in 1976.5

Events

Came out ofLeadville silver boomNear Leadville, Climax came online in 1917 and later supplied 80 per cent of world molybdenum.1

Places

Located inLeadvilleClimax Mine is about 17 km from Leadville.1

Sources

  1. Climax company timeline Climax Molybdenum (Freeport-McMoRan)
  2. Temple Israel, Leadville US National Park Service
  3. Wikidata entity Q5133646
  4. Leadville Colorado Encyclopedia
  5. Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025 Freeport-McMoRan Inc (SEC)

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Super Pit, Kalgoorlie by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0; Chuquicamata from the ISS by Alexander Gerst (ESA), CC BY-SA 2.0.