Collection: Willard Dickerman Straight and Early U.S.-Korea Diplomatic Relations, Cornell University Library

Title: Taracol camp

Date: ca. 1908

Place: Asia: North Korea; Unsan

Type: Photographs

Description: Americans Leigh S.J. Hunt and J. Sloat Fasset formed Oriental Consolidated Mining Company and bought Korean Mining and Development Company in May 18, 1898. The Oriental Consolidated Mining Company owned 10 gold pits in Unsan, Pyongan-pukto. Taracol was one of the pits in Unsan Gold Mine. Unsan previously was a small village with only a few households, but it evolved into a very different place through the mining business association with the American entrepreneurs. Between 1903 and 1938 the annual profit from the gold mining reached more than $12,000,000, but the backward Korean Royal government sold the Korean Mining and Development Company for only $100, 000. Had the Korean government not sold the mining owning right for a lump-sum payment, it could have achieved a price as high as $3,000,000. The mining by the Americans continued until they were forced to relinquish operations to the Japanese in 1939 Source: Yi, Pae-yong. Ku Hanmal kwangsan ikwon kwa yolgang, 1984. Hapter 2.

Inscription/Marks: Inscribed in pencil on verso: 'Taracol camp.'

Identifier: 1260.63.38.11

Persistent URI: hdl.handle.net/1813.001/5xqf

There are no known U.S. copyright restrictions on this image. The digital file is owned by the Cornell University Library which is making it freely available with the request that, when possible, the Library be credited as its source.