Description:
Plot 6 is the 1 argest of 16 pIots ( claims) of a 229 .14-acre vanadium Iease that was issued in 1942.
This lease was named the West Reservation Lease by the lessee, the Vanadium Corporation of
America (VCA). The mines on this lease were called Rattlesnake, not for the reptiles, but for the
blotchy pattern of yellow uranium and black vanadium minerals in the ore that resembled a
rattlesnake's back (Earl Saltwater, oral communication, 1954).
The purpose of this report is to record the best estimate of total ore production from this 52.36-acre plot and to point out an error in the official ore production records of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), (DOE, 1992). These records are available to the public at the
National Archives, Rocky Mountain Region, Bloomfield, Colorado.
Included in this report are the production histories of mines on Hoskie Henry's Navajo Tribal
Mining Permits, adjoining Plot 6. Ore on one of the permits was mined from Plot 6.