According to local lore, Fred threw his hammer at what he thought were the glimmering eyes of a curious fox peeking at him from behind a rock and instead struck a vein of silver. Earlier that year two lumbermen, J.H. McKinley and Earnest Darragh, were exploring the timber limits when they spotted metallic flakes in the rock at the south end of Long Lake. The men extracted some samples and sent them away to be analyzed. The results specified silver values of 4,000 ounces to the ton. The site was staked on August 4, 1903. This discovery was to spark one of the richest silver booms Canada had ever seen. It gave rise to many additional discoveries that ultimately became a billion-dollar Canadian mining industry. News of the discovery of silver brought Dr. Willet G. Miller, Ontario’s first provincial geologist, to the site. He soon set up a sign beside the railway tracks that read COBALT STATION. A mining rush was on and people from around the world came to reap their share of the riches.
