Gacad: Gold mining and the development of Baguio (Part 2)
THE physical transformation of Baguio can best be understood by recalling how it looked in the 1890s: “Baguio was formerly a municipality that comprised the following barrios: Pugo, La Union, San Pascual, Acupan; a part of Itogon; and Baguio proper. Baguio proper was a part of Guisad Valley, which was the main town during the Spanish days. Session road, old Igorot villages of yesteryears. The road entrance to the La Salle convent from Legarda road was a cemetery used during the Spanish and American times; Teacher’s Camp athletic grounds and the old Lucban were formerly cattle ranches of the Carantes family; the Cariño ranch extended from Camp John Hay to Burnham Park. Constabulary Hill was formerly owned by the Romeros during the Spanish rule and later sold to the government...”
With the establishment of road and other transportation networks in Baguio, the Burnham plan for the development of the city started to take shape, characterized by infrastructure that blended with the new landscape. Among the amenities which attracted the colonial bureaucrats and potential mining grabstakers was the Baguio Country Club established in 1905. The Country Club Corporation was organized two years later to supervise the operation of the newly built facilities. The exclusive club membership offered by the corporation to its rich clientele included sports and recreational amenities, not to mention the potential business opportunities generated by hobnobbing with the established businessmen and financiers. The establishment of the Philippine Military Academy in 1908 and Camp John Hay in 1906 brought in additional clientele for the growing business sector.
Other facilities were needed to respond to the needs of the burgeoning metropolis; more parks and recreational facilities, a race course, a public market, churches and schools. Public utilities included a telephone system inaugurated in 1903; a public market established in 1908; a water supply system in 1910; a garbage system in 1911; a slaughter house in 1911; an ice plant in 1912, a sewerage system and sanitary camp in 1913; a rock crusher in 1916; a vegetable market building in 1918; a concrete pipe factory and a city dispensary in 1920; a hydroelectric plant and the Baguio auditorium in 1924; an electric fountain in 1926; the Baguio Central School in 1924; and the extension of the sanitary sewer beyond Trinidad irrigation in 1929.
The booms in Baguio mining in the late 1920s and 1930s accelerated the pace of growth in terms of more road construction, more amenities built, the dispersal of communities, as well as employment generation in the newly created communities around the district. The opening of the Baguio-Bontoc road to automobile travel and the resulting influx of businessmen selling mine and mill equipment, shareholders in the new mines, prospectors, brokers and their customers infused new life into the languishing hotel industry.
Thousands of Americans trooped in to stake their respective mineral claims, most of them in the Baguio district. Pioneer prospectors included Major Harry Howland and Clinton Huebert in Acupan, property of Balatoc Mining Company; William Birch, James Chambers, W.F. Hale, Frank Johnson, Dan Ming, Charley Petit, Charles Nathorst, Tom Newcomb, Henry Reader, C.M. Thorndyke, Albert Wright, William Woodward, George Icard, J.E. Gaffney, Probosko, Alfred Hora, John Muller, Albert Petit, John Gillies, Victor Lednicky, Patrick Hoover, C.P. Dugan, and S.J. Douglas in the Mankayan-Suyoc area; and J.D. Highsmith, J.A. Hartwell, Calvin Horr, John F. Reavis, Nelson Peterson, P.J. O’Neill, H.H. Howard, C.P. Dugan, A.J. Reynolds, George Icard, Louis Hill Vaid, Tom Phillips, Carl Shneider, J.E. Kelly, and M.A. Clarke in Balatoc.
The dominant position of the Baguio mining district could be seen in the distribution of the 1938 total gold production of the Philippines: Baguio district accounted for 63 percent, Paracale-Mambulao, 16 percent, Masbate, 12 percent, Surigao, 5 percent and all the other gold mining districts, 4 percent.