Occasionally large accumulations of native gold occur but usually gold occurs as minute grains.(More at Wikipedia)

Gold and Diamond Mining:
1869: The first mining company

Possibly the first mining company in Liberia was
'The Mining Company of Liberia'. This company was founded by Liberians, after the return of the Liberian explorer Benjamin Anderson from the interior in 1869, and was granted a concession in the same year, during the (first) Administration of President James Spriggs Payne and only a few years after the formal establishment of a ‘closed door policy' by the introduction of the 'Port of Entry Act'. In 1881 the company was transformed into the 'Union Mining Company' but information on it is scarce. It is known that is was an English-owned company, which operated in conjunction with sixteen Liberians, among whom there were several Government officials (1).

The company’s mining rights were in 1901 transferred to the 'West African Gold Concessions, Inc.' which is in fact the first real indication that gold and, for instance, not diamonds were involved. Later the company name was changed to that of the 'Liberian Development Chartered Company'. (2)

(1)This Liberian involvement aroused a storm of protest around the turn of the century, culmunating in a group of citizens threatening the then President Garretson W. Gibson, Coleman's successor. (Source: Abayomi Karnga, ‘History of Liberia’,
1926). However, Sir Harry Johnston reported that the Union Mining Company was completely Liberian owned, as was its predecessor, The Mining Company of Liberia. (Source: Sir Harry Johnston, 'Liberia', 1906).

(2) In 1906 the company apparently had mining rights over the counties of Montserrado and Maryland, as well as general banking, railway, telegraph and otherwise throughout the country. (Source: Sir Harry Johnston, 'Liberia', 1906).

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