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Why only two mints are needed in this country - from an 1866 book
Dennis88
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From a book I bought today, Across the Continent: A Summer's Journey to the Rocky Mountains, the Mormons, and the Pacific States, with Speaker Colfax - By Samual Bowles, 1866.
"Of all the government institutions in San Francisco, the Mint is the most interesting and important. Already it is the great manufactory [sic] of coin in the Nation, and its comparative importance in this respect is destined to increase. It coins now about twenty millions of gold and silver a year, against five millions coined at all the other government mints in the country, including the parent mint at Philadelphia. The coinage here for June and July was nearly three millions a month, and the aggregate for this year is likely to go up to twenty-four millions. Mints elsewhere on the Pacific Coast, and in the mining regions, are utterly unnecessary. There is one at Denver in Colorado, but it has nothing to do,-the gold of Colorado and Montana mines goes right by it, in dust or bars, to New York and Philadelphia. Efforts are making to get mints in Nevada and in Oregon, but they would only prove a waste of money. No local clamor of politicians, seeking home popularity or contractors' jobs for friends, should induce Congress to yield to such demands. Two mints are only needed for the whole country, at New York or Philadelphia, and at San Francisco."
An interesting tidbit, I thought.
Dennis
"Of all the government institutions in San Francisco, the Mint is the most interesting and important. Already it is the great manufactory [sic] of coin in the Nation, and its comparative importance in this respect is destined to increase. It coins now about twenty millions of gold and silver a year, against five millions coined at all the other government mints in the country, including the parent mint at Philadelphia. The coinage here for June and July was nearly three millions a month, and the aggregate for this year is likely to go up to twenty-four millions. Mints elsewhere on the Pacific Coast, and in the mining regions, are utterly unnecessary. There is one at Denver in Colorado, but it has nothing to do,-the gold of Colorado and Montana mines goes right by it, in dust or bars, to New York and Philadelphia. Efforts are making to get mints in Nevada and in Oregon, but they would only prove a waste of money. No local clamor of politicians, seeking home popularity or contractors' jobs for friends, should induce Congress to yield to such demands. Two mints are only needed for the whole country, at New York or Philadelphia, and at San Francisco."
An interesting tidbit, I thought.
Dennis
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There was a lot of resistance (both political and from the Mint Director) to the Carson City mint (and several partially successful efforts to shut it down) and the New Orleans mint.
The New Orleans mint was very useful in minting part of the flood of Morgan dollars (the main reason it was reopened in 1879) but there were efforts to close it in the early 1890's and again after mintage of the Morgan stopped in 1904.
You can read the comments of the Mint Director in the Mint Annual Reports and in the transcripts of the testimony of the Congressional budget hearings (much of which is available on the Internet).
Check out the Southern Gold Society
My Adolph A. Weinman signature
The US Government purchased Clark, Gruber & Co.'s facilities in 1863 and established the Denver Mint, even though it functioned only as an assay office until the first coins were minted in 1906 (in a new building that had been completed in 1904).
Check out the Southern Gold Society