Thursday, August 1, 1996

Santa Anna residents protest crumbling of mountain

By JASON NEWMAN
Staff Writer

SANTA ANNA - Debra Smiley is, in a sense, telling it on the mountain in an attempt to stop the further destruction of Santa Anna's unique hillside.

"It's been a very major landmark; it's what makes us stand out," Smiley said about Double Mountain, the hill overlooking Santa Anna that has been marred by years of mining.

"We're not trying to break any laws or start any trouble; we're just trying to save our home," she said.

The Santa Anna Chamber of Commerce, which Smiley serves as president, has begun a campaign called "Save Our Mountain," to try to stop any more gravel mining from the hill overlooking the town.

The chamber is asking citizens to sign petitions placed at various businesses throughout town requesting that the mining stop.

Those petitions will eventually be presented to the owners of the property where gravel is being mined - both of whom live out of town.

Smiley said the campaign began because people in town are fed up with seeing the effects that years of mining have had on the hill.

"We've had a lot of concerned citizens who have confronted us saying, 'Can't we please do something to stop this?'" Smiley said.

The mountain, which runs the length of the town, was originally scarred from mining that took place in the 1950s by the Santa Anna Silica Sand Company.

That mining left great bare patches on the side of the usually green, juniper scrub-covered hill.
For the past 15 years, Yates and Sons of Clyde has leased the land from its owners to mine gravel that is bought by the Texas Department of Transportation.

Though neither owner could be reached for comment, Wayne Yates, president of Yates and Sons, said the Save Our Mountain campaign is nothing new.

"That's an old sore down there they bring up every year or so," Yates said.

Yates said he thinks the townspeople are misguided in their efforts because the mining they do is inside the hill and doesn't hurt its exterior.

"I think they just don't know how we do it, and they just want to make sure we don't bust through," Yates said about the Save Our Mountain campaign.

Even though Yates and Sons claims it isn't defacing the mountain in any way, Smiley fears mining inside the hill weakens it and could lead to the collapse of certain areas.

Others in the community agree with Smiley that the mining should stop, including Montie Guthrie, who has lived in Santa Anna for 77 years.

Guthrie, a former rural mail carrier, wants to see the mountain preserved because of its unique place in history.

"I hate to see anything like that destroyed," Guthrie said. "It had the purest glass silica sand in the world and was a landmark in the beginning of the surveying of Texas."

Guthrie even recalls how in 1904 rock from the hill was graded the best limestone in the world at the U.S. World's Fair in St. Louis, Mo.

The Chamber of Commerce is determining what legal action, if any, it can take to stop the mining, Smiley said.