American Gold Mining in Korea's Unsan District

Abstract

Information on the operation of these mines has remained largely obscure. They received occasional notice in the diplomatic papers of the period;' Edwin Mills published an important monographic article on them in 1916,' and Fred H. Harrington, in his illuminating study, has shown that the political maneuvering of American official Horace N. Allen was important to their acquisition and initial development. But recently discovered memorabilia and unpublished materials provided by erstwhile members of the mining community' now make it possible to explore the techniques, operations, and development of American gold mining at Unsan from inception to end. The origin of gold mining in Korea is shrouded in antiquity, but the peninsula has held the reputation of possessing great mineral wealth since early in the Christian era. Chinese sources record that gold and silver were used at Korean funerals in the third century,' and that Koguryo (37 B.C.-668 A.D.) was paying a revenue of gold and jade as a vassal state of the Wei Chinese emperor in the sixth century; and gold