New Jersey Mining Co., of Coeur d’Alene, which owns and operates the New Jersey Mill, in Kellogg, Idaho, says it has bought 13 patented mining claims covering 220 acres near Elk City, Idaho, from Vancouver, British Columbia-based Premium Exploration Inc., for $425,000.

The property formerly was called the Red Elk claim group, but New Jersey Mining says it has renamed it the Eastern Star Project. It includes the Bennett Lumber Co. mill site, a former industrial property that the company says is well-suited for mining infrastructure, and amenities that it says include industrial water rights and highway access. 

The Elk City Mining District is a historic gold mining region about 120 miles east of Lewiston that dates back to the 1860s. The district supported more than 20 mines, including the Eastern Star, as well as placer dredging operations. Modern exploration in the district by other companies has been focused on near-surface bulk tonnage potential, while the smaller-scale, high-grade gold occurrences largely have been ignored, New Jersey Mining says in a press release. 

John Swallow, New Jersey Mining president, says the acquisition provides the company with considerable flexibility within its business plan. 

“We have thorough knowledge of the area, which lies within trucking distance to our mill in Kellogg,” he says in the release. “It fits our near-term objectives of evaluating high-grade systems for production potential as well as our longer-term vision of possibly building a new mill capable of servicing an emerging mining district as local operations are developed.”

The company says high-grade samples have been collected from three separate locations at the site across a half mile of property. Of 25 samples acquired by Premium in 2011, nine had greater than 0.493 of an ounce of gold per ton. 

New Jersey Mining also says it plans to build a new circuit to recover visible gold, or gravity recoverable gold in ores processed at the New Jersey Mill, which includes  a fully-permitted 360-tonne per day flotation mill and concentrate leach plant. The mill currently produces only a flotation concentrate. The company says it expects the addition of a gravity circuit to produce another saleable product and increase overall gold recovery within the plant.

The Company also owns a 48 percent interest in Golden Chest LLC, which controls the Golden Chest Mine, an historical gold producer in Murray, Idaho, north of Kellogg, near the Idaho- Montana border, with more than 12,000 feet of underground workings. Since 2003, it says, more than $6 million has been spent on exploration, drilling, and development at the Golden Chest Mine, including more than $5 million by Marathon Gold since 2010.  Golden Chest LLC recently leased a portion of the Golden Chest Mine to Juniper Resources, a mine development and production company based in Boise.

New Jersey Mining employs a total of eight people, including four at its offices at 201 N. Third in Coeur d’Alene and four in Kellogg, says Del Steiner, company CEO.

The Company’s common stock trades on the over-the-counter market under the symbol NJMC.

Many smaller mining concerns such as New Jersey Mining are publicly traded, but their shares usually aren’t listed on major stock exchanges. Rather, they’re traded in the over-the-counter markets. Analysts consider such stocks to be speculative and sometimes volatile, so generally only experienced investors trade in them.

The Journal reported last December that PennStarter, a newly formed division of Coeur d’Alene-based stock brokerage Pennaluna & Co., had raised more than $1 million funding for New Jersey Mining. 

Pennaluna launched the website in November as an online equity funding portal enabling people to invest mainly in startup companies, and New Jersey Mining was one of three companies that the division initially included on the PennStarter website for potential investments. A PennStarter spokeswoman said the division would be specializing in the mining and natural resources industry.