Big Thunder Mining Company

“From the first nugget discovered in its heart, to the booming economy that Big Thunder Mountain ensures for the town of Thunder Mesa, we, at Big Thunder Mining Co., are forever grateful for Nature's Wonders”

―H. Ravenswood, Founder

Big Thunder Mining Company
Background Information
Attractions	Big Thunder Mountain Railroad Phantom Manor
Group Information
Founded	September 23 of 1848/1849
Occupation	Colonial mining company
Leaders	Barnabas T. Bullion Henry Ravenswood Willard P. Bounds
Members	Costas A. Lott G. Willikers Liddy Stockley Old Prospector
Affiliations	Society of Explorers and Adventurers T.W. Bullion Silver Mine Iggy Knight (formerly)
Headquarters	Western River Valley, Arizona: Thunder Mesa (formerly) Thunder Mesa

The Big Thunder Mining Company is a fictional organization central to the backstory of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Description

Mission

The Big Thunder Mining Company is a colonial mining-company which was active during the 19th century. Operating out of the Western River Valley of Arizona, the Big Thunder Mining Company mined gold from the stolen Indigenous Shoshone land of Big Thunder Mountain. The company was known to be highly amoral, greedy and negligent to the land, Indigenous peoples, and its own employees. The company's crimes upset the Spirit of Big Thunder, causing accidents and natural disasters to plague the company.

Employees of the company were prohibited from drinking, fighting, and whistling. These miners were underpaid, forced to buy equipment from the company store with their own equipment or belongings being forbidden, kept working in dangerous conditions, and had to live in the Big Thunder Boarding House. The company also utilized a variety of advanced (albeit oftentimes dangerous) equipment and technology in the 1890s. This included drilling machines, and the AutoCanary air quality analyzer.

Bases

• Rainbow Ridge: The Big Thunder Mining Company moved to the town of Rainbow Ridge in 1879, a decade after it was founded in 1869.
• Thunder Mesa: Thunder Mesa is the original town established by the Big Thunder Mining Company, founded by Henry Ravenswood from a trading-post which he forced Indigenous Shoshone people off of.
• Tumbleweed: In the 1890s, the company's headquarters was located in the town of Tumbleweed.

Divisions

• Big Thunder Boarding House: This boarding-house was where miners of the company were required to stay with no exceptions. Meals were provided daily and baths weekly while fees were deducted by the miners' pay. This boarding house was run by Mrs. Liddy Stockley.
• Big Thunder Iron Works:
• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad: The Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is a mining-train system which passes through Big Thunder Mountain. The paranormal occurrences of Big Thunder Mountain caused the trains to become haunted and run out of control.
• B.T. Bullion Company Store: Miners were required to purchase their equipment, clothing and personal belongings from this company store with other items not being permitted by the company. All sales were final, and fees were deducted by the earnings of miners. This store was run by Costas A. Lott.

Members

Leaders

Multiple presidents have been identified as running the company at different points in time, often overlapping or seemingly contradicting one-another.

• Barnabas T. Bullion: Barnabas T. Bullion was greedy tycoon of the Bullion mining family whom believed gold to be his birthright. He is identified as having received the land-grant for Big Thunder on the September 23 of 1848, and most prominently ran the company from Tumbleweed in the 1880s-1890s. Bullion was also a notable member of the Society of Explorers and Adventurers, a secret-society of colonial aristocrats.
• Henry Ravenswood: Henry Ravenswood was founder of the Big Thunder Mining Company. He was a deeply evil man who lead a double-life as a serial-killer up until his death in an 1860 earthquake, after which he became a murderous spirit. Even following his death, Henry would assume the form of an elderly man to pose as a representative of the Big Thunder Mining Company.
• Willard P. Bounds: Willard P. Bounds was a retired U.S. Marshall and blacksmith who was president of the company in Rainbow Ridge. He was also the father of one Lillian Marie Disney.

Managers & Foremen

• "Big Jack" O'Ferges: Big Jack was mine foreman in Thunder Mesa. He also ran the Huntington Mill, established in 1872.
• Costas A. Lott: Costas A. Lott was manager of the B.T. Bullion Company Store which miners were required to purchase all of their belongings from.
• G. Willikers: G. Willikers was the greedy foreman of the company in Thunder Mesa who cooked the books to underpay employees and overpay himself. He would also punish employees with threat of graveyard shifts if they were found taking lunch-breaks.
• Jake: Jake was foreman in the 1950s-1860s and started a romance with Henry Ravenswood's daughter Mélanie Ravenswood. After Henry's death, he aimed to marry Mélanie in Ravenswood Manor, only to be murdered by Henry's ghost.
• Liddy Stockley:
• N. Bretcher: Mr. N. Bretcher was director of the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad operating out of Thunder Mesa in a train-shed.
• "Rusty" John Burke: The manager of the Big Thunder Iron Works.
• T.N. Tee: A blaster working in Thunder Mesa who misplaced TNT.
• U.B. Patient: U.B. Patient was company interim foreman. When Bullion renovated the company, Patient was to be addressed for complaints.

Fusers

• Buckaroo Burke:
• Calamity Clem:
• Jolley the Kid:
• Little Big Gibson:
• Mama Hutchinson:
• Matchstick Marc:
• Skittish Skip:
• Wild Wolf Joerger:

Miners

• Old Prospector:

History

Background

Pre-Earthquake History

The early history of the Big Thunder Mining Company has some dubiousness. The story is said to start in 1849, when an evil prospector named Henry Ravenswood found gold in the rocks of Big Thunder Mountain, and in his greed forced the Shoshone out of the vicinity to mine the gold for his company the Big Thunder Mining Company. The other primary leader of the company known was Barnabas T. Bullion of the wealthy east-coast Bullion mining-family and who was a greedy man that believed gold to be his birthright. On the September 23 of 1848, Barnabas T. Bullion received a land-grant from the U.S. government to mine in Big Thunder Mountain.

Henry Ravenswood became one of the founding-fathers of the colonial mining-town of Thunder Mesa with the Shoshone being forced outside of the town's walls. In this town, he had his family's home of Ravenswood Manor built overlooking the manor, where he kept his daughter Mélanie locked away from the world. Using his wealth and influence, Henry became a serial-killer who murdered a man outside his manor in a rigged duel, and four men in the 1850s who courted his daughter; one of whom (Iggy Knight) he seemingly even killed within a cavern of Big Thunder Mountain which he lined with dynamite. All the while, the Big Thunder Mining Company's exploitation of Big Thunder's stolen land angered the Spirit of Big Thunder.

In the year 1860, the Spirit of Big Thunder caused a massive earthquake to hit Thunder Mesa. This earthquake collapsed a portion of the town into a canyon, killing everyone within; including Henry Ravenswood and his wife Martha along with the town's mayor and sheriff. However, those who died within the earthquake became undead, with Henry's ghost returning to Ravenswood Manor to murder her newest lover in the rafters and trap her within the house where she herself died. In the years to come, the mansion became nicknamed, "Phantom Manor", and the collapsed portion of the town, "Phantom Canyon".

Post-Earthquake history

The earthquake of 1860 caused mining in the mountain to be slowed down when not stopping. In Henry Ravenswood's death, the sole president of the Big Thunder Mining Company was Barnabas T Bullion. Throughout all of this, the trains of the mining company ran on their own, as if they were haunted. Nine years later, in 1869, another mining-town was established along Big Thunder Mountain known as Rainbow Ridge. The Big Thunder Mining Company did not expand from Thunder Mesa to Rainbow Ridge until the year 1879. Rainbow Ridge was nicknamed, "The Biggest Little Boom Town in the West" and had a population peaking at 2,015 citizens, though earthquakes and accidents caused by the mountain's fury lead to it steadily decreasing to only 38.

In the year 1880, Barnabas T. Bullion oversaw a revitalization of the Big Thunder Mining Company at which point the company headquarters were moved to the mining-town of Tumbleweed. For assistance, Barnabas reached out to his peer Jason Chandler, president of the Society of Explorers and Adventurers, an aristocratic secret-society of which Bullion was a member. Chandler sent Bullion technology to assist in mining though also consulted with one Madame Zarkov at the Museum of Weird who insisted he stop mining; something which Bullion refused to do.

Tumbleweed's population maxed out at 2,015 citizens, until it was hit by an extreme drought. This drought, "Dried out" the population, causing it to drop-down to 13 residents. In their desperation, the townsfolk turned to a travelling con-artist named Professor Cumulus Isobar who claimed to be a, "Rain-Maker". Isobar planned to steal the townsfolk's money and skip Tumbleweed, but overnight the spirit sent a flash-flood to hit the town. While the remaining townspeople seemed to enjoy the water, it caused Isobar's caravan to become stuck and fill up with water, trapping him in the town.

Appearances

Disneyland

Phantom Manor

This attraction revolves around the haunted estate of the late Henry Ravenswood, with assorted allusions to his activity in Big Thunder Mountain. When the ride reopened in 2018, Henry made an appearance, claiming to be a representative of the Big Thunder Mining Company while reopening Ravenswood Manor.

Walt Disney World

Frontierland

A bulletin board has a flyer from the company, searching for new gold miners.

Trivia

• The logo's initials are initials of Tony Wayne Baxter, though the W is flipped to be an M.
• Certain members have hidden references to other properties:
  • One of the birds caged by the company was Rosita from Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room.
  • Mrs. Liddy Stockley comes from the film The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975).
• Many of the fusers' names reference different Disney imagineers:
  • Little Big Gibson is Blaine Gibson.
  • Buckaroo Burke is Pat Burke, also the namesake for "Rusty" John Burke.
  • Wild Wolf Joerger is Fred Joerger.
  • Matchstick Marc is Marc Davis.
  • Calamity Clem is Clem Hall.
  • Skittish Skip is Skip Lange.
  • Jolley the Kid is Bob Jolley.
• Henry Ravenswood's statement about, "Nature's wonderland" is a tribute to Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland.
• Their Grizzly Gulch counterpart is the Big Grizzly Mountain Mining Company, which was founded in 1888 and appears to be significantly less amoral.

Gallery