Nickel Mines is a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

in Bart Township,

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Lancaster County (; Pennsylvania Dutch: Lengeschder Kaundi), sometimes nicknamed the Garden Spot of America or Pennsylvania Dutch Country, is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located in the south central part of Pennsylvania. ...

, USA. The area now has a sizable

Amish The Amish (; pdc, Amisch; german: link=no, Amische), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsatian origins. They are closely related to Mennonite churches ...

community. The zip code is 17562 and the

area code A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunication to assign telephone numbers to subscriber telephones or other telephony endpoints. Telephone numbers are the addresses of participants in a telephone network, rea ...

is 717.

History

The

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...

mines that give the town its name were worked in a deposit of

sulfide Sulfide (British English also sulphide) is an inorganic anion of sulfur with the chemical formula S2− or a compound containing one or more S2− ions. Solutions of sulfide salts are corrosive. ''Sulfide'' also refers to chemical compounds lar ...

ore, principally

millerite Millerite is a nickel sulfide mineral, Ni S. It is brassy in colour and has an acicular habit, often forming radiating masses and furry aggregates. It can be distinguished from pentlandite by crystal habit, its duller colour, and general la ...

. The mines were originally opened in the early 18th century for

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

, but were given up as unproductive. In 1849, the Gap Mining Company attempted to work the mines for copper, again unsuccessfully, but discovered the presence of nickel in late 1852 or early 1853. (The ore had previously been misidentified as

iron sulfide Iron sulfide or Iron sulphide can refer to range of chemical compounds composed of iron and sulfur. Minerals By increasing order of stability: * Iron(II) sulfide, FeS * Greigite, Fe3S4 (cubic) * Pyrrhotite, Fe1−xS (where x = 0 to 0.2) (monocli ...

). Gap Mining then worked the mines for nickel until 1860, when they were closed as unprofitable. It sold the mine to

Joseph Wharton Joseph Wharton (March 3, 1826 – January 11, 1909) was an American industrialist. He was involved in mining, manufacturing and education. He founded the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, co-founded the Bethlehem Steel comp ...

in late 1862. Between 1862 and 1893, 4.5 million pounds of nickel were extracted from the site, up to 25 percent of world production in some years. Wharton refined the nickel in

Camden, New Jersey Camden is a city in and the county seat of Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Camden is part of the Delaware Valley metropolitan area and is located directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the 2020 ...

and was the first industrial producer of malleable nickel. He was influential in persuading the

United States Mint The United States Mint is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury responsible for producing coinage for the United States to conduct its trade and commerce, as well as controlling the movement of bullion. It does not produce paper money; tha ...

to issue the first five-cent nickel coins in 1866, using nickel produced from his mines. An Episcopal Church was built in 1857 to serve the mining community at the time. In 1883, the town consisted of the superintendent's mansion, 23 miners' homes, a store with dwelling, and five outbuildings. The mine closed in 1893 because of competition from the new nickel mines in Sudbury,

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. No trace of the mines remains today, except for a few waste dumps. The area is now entirely agricultural.

2006 school shooting

On October 2, 2006, the community became the subject of national media attention after a lone gunman, identified as Charles Carl Roberts IV, took ten girls hostage for nearly an hour at a one-room

schoolhouse serving the community. He then shot all ten hostages, killing five of them, and later committed suicide as responding police officers tried to breach the schoolhouse. The emphasis on forgiveness and reconciliation in the response of the Amish community became a topic of wide discussion in numerous national media outlets.

Demographics

As of 2016 there are 16 households.

References

External links

History of Bart Township

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Unincorporated communities in Pennsylvania 1849 establishments in Pennsylvania