The University of Arkansas Press is pleased to announce the forthcoming publication of The Metal of a Thousand Uses: Mercury Mining in Arkansas, 1930–1946 by John T. Reynolds.
In 1930, a remote corner of southwest Arkansas witnessed the discovery of cinnabar, the ore from which mercury is extracted. Upon the arrival of “the metal of a thousand uses,” a wave of hope and ambition swept through the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains as mercury mining promised economic revival for a struggling state. Despite the known dangers of the industry, Arkansans greeted the prospect of a mercury boom with unbridled enthusiasm, seeing it as a potential solution to the state’s economic woes of the 1920s.
In The Metal of a Thousand Uses: Mercury Mining in Arkansas, 1930–1946, Terry S. Reynolds charts the dramatic rise and fall of the state’s mercury mining industry, from the euphoria of discovery to the logistical and financial challenges of industrialization. Drawing on deep archival research, Reynolds explores the experiences of the miners, managers, and townspeople whose fates became bound to the industry and to the companies that sought to commercialize mercury refining in the Ouachita Mountains. The result is a vivid account of a little-known chapter in American resource history.
Terry S. Reynolds is professor emeritus of history at Michigan Tech and author, co-author, or editor of several books dealing with aspects of the history of technology, from the early history of waterpower to the mining of iron ore in the Lake Superior region.
The Metal of a Thousand Uses will be published in the spring of 2026.