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The Chino Mine ("Chino" is Spanish for the "Chinese"), also known as the Santa Rita mine or Santa Rita del Cobre, is an American open-pit mine porphyry copper mine located in the town of Santa Rita, New Mexico east of Silver City. The mine was started as the Chino Copper Company in 1909 by mining engineer John M. Sully and Spencer Penrose, Penrose interests- Retrieved 2012-01-12Stuckwisch, Michelle., Patricia Padilla, Gretchen Dickey and Ruth Vise. "Mining Became Big Business in Southwest". - El Paso Community College. and is currently owned and operated by Freeport-McMoRan Inc. subsidiaries. The area where the mine is located is at an average elevation of .
, , Mexican people, and Americans have all obtained native copper and copper ore from this site. The present-day open-pit mining operation was begun in 1910. It is the third oldest active open pit copper mine in the world after the Bingham Canyon Mine and Chuquicamata.
Santa Rita was located in the heart of Apache country and was plagued by Apache raids. Historians often state that an infamous massacre of Apache by John Johnson in 1837 took place at Santa Rita, although it is more likely that the incident took place further south, near the Animas Mountains.Strickland, Rex W. "The Birth and Death of a Legend: The Johnson 'Massacre' of 1837" Arizona and the West, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Autumn 1976), pp. 257-286 (See Apache-Mexico Wars) Johnson's attack incited rather than intimidated the Apache. Mangas Coloradas and his followers were especially menacing. Twenty-two fur trappers were killed nearby, and the mine was cut off from supplies. In 1838, the 300 to 400 inhabitants of Santa Rita fled south toward the presidio at Janos, Chihuahua, 150 miles away, but the Apache killed nearly all of them en route. After that, Santa Rita was only occasionally operational until 1873 when Apache chief Cochise signed a peace agreement with the US and the mine was reopened.Bowden; http://newmexicohistory.org/people/santa-rita-del-cobre, accessed 2 Nov 2016; Cooper, James E. (1975) "Santa Rita" Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of New Mexico University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, pp. 188-191, Apache raids in the area continued until 1886 when Geronimo surrendered.
A mill to process the ore grade copper ore was established in 1911 in nearby Hurley but was replaced by a new (current) Ivanhoe concentrator facility in 1982. Milling operations restarted in January 2004 at the Chino Concentrator after a three-year hiatus caused by low copper prices. Solvent extraction and electrowinning (SX/EW) operations started in 1988 and have run continuously since. Reserves of copper ore at Chino are expected to last until 2015.
A smelter in Hurley was commissioned in 1939 and was modernized in 1985 to increase capacity and achieve compliance with the Clean Air Act. In 2005, the smelter was permanently closed.
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