History
The town, settled in the late 1860s by Irish miners, was at first called Young Ireland. When residents petitioned Governor Schuyler Crosby for a post office in 1883, they were told that the Post Office department disapproved of two-word names. Instead Crosby agreed to register the town as Rimini, from a play aboutWar dog training at Camp Rimini
Camp Rimini, Montana trained sled and pack dogs for use as war dogs in World War II. Between 1942 and 1944, 263Mining district and Superfund site
The Montana Department of Environmental Quality describes the Rimini Mining District as follows:The Rimini district is about 13 miles west of Helena on the east side of theAccording to theContinental Divide A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not ...at the terminal point of a branch of theNorthern Pacific Railroad The Northern Pacific Railway was an important American transcontinental railroad that operated across the northern tier of the Western United States, from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest between 1864 and 1970. It was approved and chartered b .... It is on Tenmile Creek with Red Mountain on the east and Lee Mountain on the west. It is probably the oldest lead-zinc camp in Montana ... The Lee Mountain Lode was discovered in 1864 and the Eureka Mine in 1865. However, little mining occurred until 1885 when the Northern Pacific spurline was constructed to the district. During the 1880s a number of mines were developed with the most productive ones being the East Pacific, Lady Washington, John McGraw, Eureka and Porphery Dike. Some of these mines were opened to depths of up to 500 or 600 ft. One of the deepest, the Lee Mountain, has produced more than $1.5 million and the Valley Forge, which is 325 ft deep, has produced more than $200,000. The district shipped 400 tons ofore Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically including metals, concentrated above background levels, and that is economically viable to mine and process. The grade of ore refers to the concentration ...per week in 1891 with most of the ore being sent to thesmelter Smelting is a process of applying heat and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to extract a desired base metal product. It is a form of extractive metallurgy that is used to obtain many metals such as iron, copper, silver, tin, lead and zin ...at Wickes.
EPA added the Upper Tenmile Creek Mining Area to the Superfund National Priorities List on October 22, 1999, due to mining waste problems in the 53-square-mile watershed ... The Upper Tenmile Creek Mining Area site is located in the Rimini Mining District, southwest of Helena, Montana. It consists of numerous abandoned and inactive hard-rock mine sites that producedThe Susie Mine was one of the mines in the Upper Tenmile Creek Mining Area.gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...,lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...,zinc Zinc is a chemical element; it has symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodic tabl ...andcopper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) 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 pinkish-orang .... Mining began in the district before 1870 and continued through the 1920s. Little mining has been performed there since the early 1930s ... The site includes thedrainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...of Tenmile Creek upstream of the Helena water treatment plant and includestributaries A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream ('' main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which the ...that supply water to the plant's five intake pipelines. EPA identified 150 individual mine sites within the watershed boundary, of which 70 have been prioritized for cleanup. Many of these mine features are above the five City of Helena drinking water intakes, which supply about 50 percent of the city's water.
The Susie mine was a gold, silver, and lead mine, and has significantly high acid drainage polluted withThe EPA made significant progress on the cleanup in Rimini in FY 2011:arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol As and atomic number 33. It is a metalloid and one of the pnictogens, and therefore shares many properties with its group 15 neighbors phosphorus and antimony. Arsenic is not ...andheavy metals upright=1.2, Crystals of lead.html" ;"title="osmium, a heavy metal nearly twice as dense as lead">osmium, a heavy metal nearly twice as dense as lead Heavy metals is a controversial and ambiguous term for metallic elements with relatively h .... The drainage from this mine is a major source of the heavy metal contamination in streams that flow into the water sources for Helena, Montana.
*The main road through Rimini was completely excavated and backfilled to remediate contaminated material. Approximately 18,000 cubic yards of waste were removed from one mile of Rimini Road. Removal of this waste reduces the potential for residents to be exposed to contamination as well as prevents future erosion and distribution of wastes via the adjacent Tenmile Creek. *Nearly all of the residential yards were remediated, with new septic systems installed and landscaping completed; four yards remain to be remediated. Approximately 6,000 cubic yards of waste were removed from the yards in Rimini and 9,000 cubic yards from the Lee Mountain site.
Education
Helena Elementary School District and Helena High School District are the respective school districts.See also
Race to the Sky, a dog sled race to remember the dogs that trained at Camp Rimini.References
Further reading
* David W. Armstrong Jr.: ''Camp Rimini and Beyond: WWII Memoirs.''