On May 17, 1943, the men and women of the Bradley Mining Company in Stibnite, Idaho, received an unexpected telegram. It came from Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Commander and Chief of Allied Forces in Africa. Following allied victory, he wrote to express his appreciation for the work done on the home front that kept his troops equipped, saying, “there is glory for us all in the achievement.”
The men and women of Bradley Mining produced the tungsten and antimony used to harden Allied armor and munitions. So important was the discovery of tungsten at Stibnite in 1942, and the mining effort that followed, that the U.S. Munitions Board estimated it “shortened World War II by at least one year and saved the lives of a million American soldiers.”
The U.S. once again finds itself in an all-out-battle. The enemy is different, but the mining industry is ready to do its part to make sure we not only win but come out stronger.
As an essential U.S. industry, mining continues to produce the materials that are the building blocks of American life — and that the American people rely on, including the nation’s medical and healthcare sectors.
Antimicrobial metals, like copper, silver, gold and zinc, are found in every hospital room and in much of the equipment and medicines that help the nation’s doctors and nurses save lives. As a recent study from researchers at the National Institutes of Health concluded, while the coronavirus can live for days on hard surfaces like plastic or glass, copper’s passive antimicrobial properties begin killing the virus almost immediately. Within four hours of contact, virus levels are undetectable.