Cyprus Mines Corporation
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The Cyprus Mines Corporation was an early twentieth century American mining company based in Cyprus. In the first decade of the 1900s, Americans came to the island of Cyprus after reading in ancient books that the island was rich in copper, a valuable metal.
Initially the mine struggled, but eventually obstacles were overcome and the mine produced money. Cypriots (citizens of Cyprus) were hired, and the town of Scouriotissa became a hub because so many miners moved there. The corporation took an old style view of workers based on capitalist paternalism. This included union busting, a 'blame the worker' attitude towards fatal accidents (there were many), corporation funded housing & institutions, and so on. One interesting feature was a milk factory, followed by an educational campaign about the benefits of milk, for a population that had a genetic predisposition to not be able to digest milk.
The owner of CMC was Harvey Seely Mudd. He claims his experience with the Cyprus Mines Corporation influenced him to push humanities in the engineering college he started, Harvey Mudd College.
The Cyprus Mines Corporation provided copper to Nazi Germany, right up until the start of the World War II. It was clear they knew they were giving aid to the Nazi military. However the owner of the mine claims he didn't want to put the Cypriots out of jobs by shutting off shipments to Hitler.
Eventually the Cyprus Mines Corporation pulled out, but the mines were left standing. As in most mines, the left-behinds, such as tailings, are an environmental disaster. There are no plans to clean up the tailings. The people of Cyprus are left without the income from the mines, and without the use of the land surrounding those mines, because it is polluted and they have no way to pay for cleanup. It has been said yields from neighboring fruit farms have been lowered by contaminated dust blowing in.
Much of this is documented in the book 'The History of the Cyprus Mines Corporation', available in the US through interlibrary loan.