2
THE BOND LEGACY
Part 1. Before Allis-Chalmers, 1899–1930
“Who knows what’s good and what’s bad?”
An anonymous farmer.
James Bond emigrated from Devonshire, England, arriving
in Philadelphia in 1846. His son, Frank J. Bond, and Harriet
L. (Songer) Bond, were Colorado ranching pioneers of the
1860’s. Their son, Fred Chester Bond, was born June 10,
1899, at Belcher Hill, now Jefferson County’s White Ranch
Park, near Golden, Colorado. He had two younger sisters,
Grace and Dorothy. As a child he suffered a shoulder injury
from a fall. It was not treated properly, resulting in a per-
manent dislocation that slightly affected range of motion.
While not bothersome, nor even noticeable, it neverthe-
less limited him athletically and, although he registered for
the draft during World War I, excluded him from military
service. Thus, Fred Bond was more inclined towards intel-
lectual pursuits, both scientific and spiritual.
Bond attended the Fruitdale primary school, gradu-
ating at the top of his class (of eight) in 1913. His time
at Wheatridge High School, where he graduated as
Salutatorian in 1917, included a field trip to a gold mine,
and was highlighted by being part of the school competitive
drill team. With the aid of a scholarship, he attended the
University of Denver from 1917–18, focusing on chemis-
try, at which, along with mathematics, he enthusiastically
thrived. He transferred to the Colorado School of Mines
(CSM), again focusing on chemistry and now also met-
allurgy, and working as a lab assistant, to obtain the B.S.
degree of Engineer of Metallurgy in 1922. His summer job
in 1921, his first in the mining industry, was as a surveyor
for the Radium Luminous Materials Corporation mine in
Naturita, Colorado. He wrote a graduating thesis paper
(not required) on the concentration of radium ore by flota-
tion (1922).
Upon graduation he accepted a job as assayer for a new
gold mine owned by Barton Gulch Mining Company near
Virginia City, Montana. This was at the request of a new
manager who also graduated from the Colorado School of
Mines. His assay results soon revealed the mined material
to be essentially worthless, and the operation shut down
two months after Bond’s arrival.
Bond quickly found a new job as silver assayer for the
U.S. Mint in Denver, but the routine and bureaucracy were
stifling. He soon left and took a fellowship (instructing labs
and taking classes in chemistry) back at the Colorado School
of Mines. This lasted for only about one semester when his
previous manager at Barton Gulch, who was now starting
up a new silver and gold property at Sabana Grande in
Honduras for the New York and Honduras Rosario Mining
Company, hired him once again as assayer. It was late 1922
when he left for Honduras on a two-year contract.
The job went well for Bond at the new Sabana Grande
property, where he learned about the flotation circuit and
began to learn Spanish, in which he became fluent. He
was soon called on to replace the retiring head assayer at
the nearby and same company-owned Rosario property, a
major world class silver producer. The number of samples
could total a hundred or more a day, and assays were the
key inputs to the financial performance of the mine and
the mill, and the keen competition between them. Here
he also learned about the cyanide plant, and witnessed the
operation of around fifty Allis-Chalmers stamps followed
by tube mills. He noted that these mills were converted
from the use of imported pebbles to those sourced from
hard rock from the mine, for enormous cost savings (and
much later also noted them as early autogenous grinding
mills). He was encouraged to write about the mill pumps,
which writing was incorporated into an article on the oper-
ation that was published in Engineering and Mining Journal
Press (E&MJP) in 1923. This marked the birth of his inter-
est, and skills, for technical writing, and he authored or
co-authored five articles related to precious metals recovery
by cyanidation for the same journal by 1926.
Collecting and weighing tiny gold residue particles
at Rosario contributed to Bond developing eyestrain and
Figure 1. Fred C. Bond, student in metallurgy
(The Prospector 1923, Annual of the CSM)
THE BOND LEGACY
Part 1. Before Allis-Chalmers, 1899–1930
“Who knows what’s good and what’s bad?”
An anonymous farmer.
James Bond emigrated from Devonshire, England, arriving
in Philadelphia in 1846. His son, Frank J. Bond, and Harriet
L. (Songer) Bond, were Colorado ranching pioneers of the
1860’s. Their son, Fred Chester Bond, was born June 10,
1899, at Belcher Hill, now Jefferson County’s White Ranch
Park, near Golden, Colorado. He had two younger sisters,
Grace and Dorothy. As a child he suffered a shoulder injury
from a fall. It was not treated properly, resulting in a per-
manent dislocation that slightly affected range of motion.
While not bothersome, nor even noticeable, it neverthe-
less limited him athletically and, although he registered for
the draft during World War I, excluded him from military
service. Thus, Fred Bond was more inclined towards intel-
lectual pursuits, both scientific and spiritual.
Bond attended the Fruitdale primary school, gradu-
ating at the top of his class (of eight) in 1913. His time
at Wheatridge High School, where he graduated as
Salutatorian in 1917, included a field trip to a gold mine,
and was highlighted by being part of the school competitive
drill team. With the aid of a scholarship, he attended the
University of Denver from 1917–18, focusing on chemis-
try, at which, along with mathematics, he enthusiastically
thrived. He transferred to the Colorado School of Mines
(CSM), again focusing on chemistry and now also met-
allurgy, and working as a lab assistant, to obtain the B.S.
degree of Engineer of Metallurgy in 1922. His summer job
in 1921, his first in the mining industry, was as a surveyor
for the Radium Luminous Materials Corporation mine in
Naturita, Colorado. He wrote a graduating thesis paper
(not required) on the concentration of radium ore by flota-
tion (1922).
Upon graduation he accepted a job as assayer for a new
gold mine owned by Barton Gulch Mining Company near
Virginia City, Montana. This was at the request of a new
manager who also graduated from the Colorado School of
Mines. His assay results soon revealed the mined material
to be essentially worthless, and the operation shut down
two months after Bond’s arrival.
Bond quickly found a new job as silver assayer for the
U.S. Mint in Denver, but the routine and bureaucracy were
stifling. He soon left and took a fellowship (instructing labs
and taking classes in chemistry) back at the Colorado School
of Mines. This lasted for only about one semester when his
previous manager at Barton Gulch, who was now starting
up a new silver and gold property at Sabana Grande in
Honduras for the New York and Honduras Rosario Mining
Company, hired him once again as assayer. It was late 1922
when he left for Honduras on a two-year contract.
The job went well for Bond at the new Sabana Grande
property, where he learned about the flotation circuit and
began to learn Spanish, in which he became fluent. He
was soon called on to replace the retiring head assayer at
the nearby and same company-owned Rosario property, a
major world class silver producer. The number of samples
could total a hundred or more a day, and assays were the
key inputs to the financial performance of the mine and
the mill, and the keen competition between them. Here
he also learned about the cyanide plant, and witnessed the
operation of around fifty Allis-Chalmers stamps followed
by tube mills. He noted that these mills were converted
from the use of imported pebbles to those sourced from
hard rock from the mine, for enormous cost savings (and
much later also noted them as early autogenous grinding
mills). He was encouraged to write about the mill pumps,
which writing was incorporated into an article on the oper-
ation that was published in Engineering and Mining Journal
Press (E&MJP) in 1923. This marked the birth of his inter-
est, and skills, for technical writing, and he authored or
co-authored five articles related to precious metals recovery
by cyanidation for the same journal by 1926.
Collecting and weighing tiny gold residue particles
at Rosario contributed to Bond developing eyestrain and
Figure 1. Fred C. Bond, student in metallurgy
(The Prospector 1923, Annual of the CSM)