Ophir, Ontario

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Coordinates: 46°27′48.00″N 83°43′44″W / 46.4633333, -83.72889 Ophir is a sparsely populated farming community in the Canadian province of Ontario, located 25 km north of Bruce Mines in Northeastern Ontario's Algoma District. It's centered at the intersection of the east-west and north-south portions of Highway 638.

Non-native settlers began farming in the area around the time the mines of Bruce Mines closed in 1875. In November, 1889, William Moor, a farmer prospecting after the fall harvest, found ore containing gold atop a ridge overlooking what was then Lake Ickta (now Havilah Lake). After some ownership dispute, American investors organized the Ophir Gold Mining Company (named after the biblical Ophir) to purchase the land in 1892. A small mining town was built, and gold mining operations commenced in 1893, producing 2489 tons of ore worth $8459. Operations ceased due to a financial panic in the United States and a fatal mining accident. The name of the mine and lake were changed to Havilah, another biblical reference, as mining resumed from 1910 to 1911, but the operation and its buildings were subsequently abandoned.

[edit] References

Third Report of the Bureau of Mines, 1893, Province of Ontario Bureau of Mines. Toronto, 1894.
Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Mines, 1910, Province of Ontario Bureau of Mines. Toronto, 1910.
Forty-fifth Annual Report of the Ontario Department of Mines, Province of Ontario Department of Mines. Toronto, 1936.

[edit] External links

v • d • e Algoma District, Ontario

Cities	Elliot Lake • Sault Ste. Marie

Towns	Blind River • Bruce Mines • Spanish • Thessalon

Townships	Dubreuilville • Hilton • Hornepayne • Huron Shores • Jocelyn • Johnson • Laird • Macdonald, Meredith and Aberdeen Additional • Michipicoten • North Shore • Plummer Additional • St. Joseph • Tarbutt and Tarbutt Additional • White River

Villages	Hilton Beach

First Nations	Garden River • Goulais Bay • Gros Cap • Missanabie • Mississagi River • Rankin Location • Sagamok • Serpent River • Thessalon

Unorganized areas	North (Batchawana Bay, Goulais River, Hawk Junction, Missanabie, Oba, Prince, Ranger Lake, Searchmont) • South East (Dunns Valley, Leeburn, Ophir, Wharncliffe)