Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc. - Specimen Stock Certificate

Specimen Stock printed by American Bank Note Company.

Freeport-McMoRan Inc., often called Freeport, is an American mining company based in the Freeport-McMoRan Center, in Phoenix, Arizona. The company is the world's largest producer of molybdenum, is a major copper producer and operates the world's largest gold mine, the Grasberg mine in Papua, Indonesia. The current company was created in 1981 through the merger of Freeport Minerals, formerly Texas Freeport Sulphur Company and McMoRan Oil & Gas Company, becoming Freeport-McMoRan Inc. Freeport Sulphur Company was founded July 12, 1912, by the eldest son of Svante Magnus "E.M." Swenson, banker Eric Pierson Swenson, with a group of investors, to develop sulfur mining at Bryan Mound salt dome, along the US Gulf Coast. Freeport, Texas was also established in Nov. 1912 to house workers, and serve as a port for Houston, rivaling Galveston and Corpus Christi. Freeport mined sulfur along the Gulf Coast using the Frasch Process, the patents for which had expired in 1912. Previously, Union Sulphur Company founder and patent-holder Herman Frasch had enjoyed a monopoly on the process. The company became known as Freeport Sulphur, later changing its corporate name to Freeport Minerals. In 1922, Freeport started producing sulfur from Hoskins Mound in Brazoria County, Texas. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeport-McMoRan