Helen Lundwall has recently published her latest book is "Copper Mining in Santa Rita, New Mexico, 1801-1838," which is authored by her, with Terrence Humble.

She will be doing a book signing at the Silver City Museum at 2 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 20.

"About 25 or more years ago, I read an article by Al Cooley in Chinorama, a monthly publication by Kennecott Copper," Helen said. "The article talked about documents from the Janos Fort, which was in charge of the area where the Santa Rita Mine was. The documents were discovered in the basement of a church in Mexico. That got me interested."

She got in touch with El Paso Library, where microfilms of the documents were housed. Helen said she could only borrow two rolls at a time.

"About that time, I found Terry Humble, who said he would be happy to translate the documents," Helen said. "We had no idea what we were getting into. There were hundreds of documents, pertaining to the Santa Rita Mine. I had planned to do a book about Grant County history, but the book is all about Santa Rita. I never got around to the county."

The book ends in 1838, which is the end of the Mexican period at the mine. The Mexicans had to abandon the mine because of Indian attacks.

"After we started getting the documents off the microfilm," Helen said. "I got a letter from a fellow in Flagstaff telling me the University of Texas at Austin had the real documents. They were actually different, but they filled in gaps and provided new information to what I had.

"I love the research, it was at least 25 years because I hate to write," Helen said. "The main thing I was aiming for was accuracy, so the book has thousands of footnotes. It turned out to be more of a story than I expected. There was so much more activity here in those years than we think."

The book is published by Sunstone books as A New Mexico Centennial History Series Book.