Mines of San Miguel, Batopilas

Batopilas silver medal

Batopilas, in southwest Chihuahua, was a prominent silver-mining centre from the early 18th to the early 20th century. 

The mines were bought by an American investor, John Riley Robinson in 1861. Robinson, a doctor, railroad superintendent, inventor and a future patent holder, was a gristmill operator in Mansfield in the 1850s, when he formed a partnership with several Wells Fargo financiers, including the president William K. Fargo, and directors Ashbel H. and Danford N. Barney, among others to buy silver mines in Mexico. By the late 1850s the discovery of new silver mines in California had come to a stop, but the legends of rich Mexican veins still abounded. The partners raised $50,000 to buy the mines in Batopilas, and John Robinson departed for Mexico in February 1861. On 25 May 1861, he was able to buy not only the San Miguel mines and the hacienda, but also the San Antonio complex for 27,700 pesos The newly acquired property was transferred to a newly formed Batopilas Silver Manufacturing Co. in 1862.

During his tenure as a manager of Batopilas Silver Manufacturing Co. Robinson manifested himself as a pragmatic businessman and a good diplomat. He made fairly minor improvements to the mining and smelting operations to improve efficiency. During the 1860s and 1870s silver and silver ore were transported south to the port of Mazatlán from where it was shipped to San Francisco, Asia, or New York City . Mexico received no taxes or duties from this procedure, which eventually forced President Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada in 1872 to require the company to ship all silver to a newly established mint in Chihuahua City.

Continued instability and political strife in Mexico wore Robinson down. He lost his two sons and two grandchildren to typhoid fever, and decided to return to the U.S. and sell the company in 1876. He finally succeeded selling it to a group led by the ex-Governor of Washington, DC Alexander Shepherd in 1879 for $600,000.

This medal celbrates the completion of some project in 1869. The quotation “Finis coronat opus”, traditionally attributed to Ovid, translates as “the end crowns the work”, i.e. the true value of an undertaking or a work of art cannot be fully discerned until it is finished.

The monogram 'BSMC' is for the Batopilas Silver Manufacturing Company.