On account of water conditions and large improvements only amount to $2,334,472.83. Total dividends, $31,035,198.27.

The Great Portland Mill

The dividend record for the year just closed is not as large as many had hoped it would be, but the reason for the small amount, compared with the preceding year, can easily be explained.

The Portland company is a case in point. Instead of paying $720,000 to its stockholders, it paid but $270,000. The company constructed a large chlorination mill. The expense was enormous, and the directors decided to pass dividends until the mill was in perfect running order.

During the last quarter of the year the directors met and declared a 3-cent dividend, amounting to $90,000. The money spent in erecting the mill was wisely and judiciously expended. The company is now enabled to treat the product of the mine and make an enormous saving over the milling and smelting charges they formerly paid.

This year the stockholders will see the wisdom of the Portland directors' action. The Portland company could have easily paid the dividends and erected the mill at the same time, but their action was for the best interests of the stockholders.

Investors often gauge a mining district by the dividends paid, and so it has been with the Cripple Creek district. The dividend record to date is close to $30,000,000 - not a bad record for a camp just ten years of age.

A combination of circumstances, chief among which was the water, compelled a couple of companies to suspend dividends.

Many of the shafts of the mines have attained the water level of the district and until a drainage tunnel is driven and the water level lowered, certain mines cannot hope to pay dividends.

Scene in Ophelia Tunnel

The drainage tunnel is assured now. It is simply a matter of detail, and the actual work of driving the tunnel will shortly be under way. It will take at least six months to gain relief, but the coming year will show a greater amount of money paid in dividends than the year just closed.

Much of the money distributed in dividends the preceding year was derived from the sale of properties, so it would not be fair to make a comparison of the dividends for the past two years.

The profits paid by the stock companies, which is public property, does not in any manner represent the profits from the mines.

There are any number of close corporations operating here who refuse to give any information. Besides the lessees, too, make thousands of dollars, but do not care to make the matter public.

The ore bodies of the district were never blocked out so thoroughly and systematically as at the present time. Managers of the various companies can count on considerable and from the amount of ore now in sight the assertion is warrant that last year's dividend record will be by far the smallest known in a great many years to come.