For more than 25 years, Tom L. Lee, founder and president of Montana Gold Inc., has searched for, discovered and acquired long-lost, forgotten 19th century gold mines in the remote mountains of western Montana. To date, Lee has discovered and acquired 301 such 19th century gold mine sites. Each mine site contains from one to five gold-bearing mine tailings dumps, on the surface, ranging in size from 5,000 tons to more than 100,000 tons. The tested tailings dumps contain gold content upwards of 0.51 ounces per ton. The 19th century miners were unable to recover this gold, but it can be recovered from the tailings today with modern heap leaching processes.
During June, privately held Montana Gold will begin processing and heap leaching its tailings dumps. Lee projects the company’s tailings gold recovery undertaking will continue for eight to nine years. The company will not consider mining the underground gold resources, until it has completed the tailings dump gold recovery.
