What do 1872 and 1,866 have in common?

What they have in common is Otis Gold Corporation, the Canadian gold-mining company that plans to tear into the Idaho side of the Centennial Mountains, in Clark County.

A Kilgore Project access road in Clark County, Idaho.

As for those numbers ... 1872 is the date of the U.S. General Mining Act. This obsolete, Reconstruction-era law -- cherished by mining companies who are plundering Western public lands under the free-for-all declared by Donald Trump -- continues to govern the giveaway of American minerals, even to foreign mining companies like Otis Gold. And it does so without requiring royalty payments to the American treasury.

The second number -- 1,866 -- is the number of mining claims that Otis Gold has acquired in Clark County for its flagship project, the Kilgore Project. The project is named for a nearby village that is a gateway to the Centennial Mountains in Clark County, which the U.S. Department of Labor reports has virtually no unemployment.