HISTORICAL CONTEXT

FOR THE

CREEDE MINING DISTRICT

by Eric Roy Twitty Mountain States Historical 1999 CONTENTS

CHAPTER

1. Introduction…………………………………………………………. 2. Physical Setting……………………………………………………… 3. Economic Geology…………………………………………………. 4. Mining Technology During the Gilded Age and Great Depression… Prospecting: The Search for Ore………………………………. Deep Exploration and the Development of Ore Bodies………… The Mine Surface Plant…………………………………………. Surface Plants for Adits…………………………………………. The Adit Portal………………………………………….. Mine Transportation…………………………………….. The Mine Shop…………………………………………… Mine Ventilation…………………………………………. Surface Plants for Shafts…………………………………………. Shaft Form and Hoisting Vehicles……………………….. Hoists…………………………………………………….. Steam Boilers…………………………………………….. Headframes………………………………………………. Additional Surface Plant Components……………………………. Air Compressors………………………………………….. Electricity…………………………………………………. Architecture………………………………………………. Aerial Tramways…………………………………………. Ore Storage………………………………………………. Magazines and Change Houses………………………….. Ore Milling………………………………………………………..

5. The History of the Creede Mining Distirct…………………………. Silver is Discovered…………………………………………….. The Mines………………………………………………………. Mining at Creede Collapses……………………………………. Engineers Come to the Rescue…………………………………. Decline…………………………………………………………. Paradox: Boom During the Great Depression………………… The Last Boom-Bust at Creede………………………………… 6. Conclusion…………………………………………………………..

Bibliography………………………………………………………………….

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1: Dimensions & Duty of Mine Rail…………………………… Table 4.2: General Hoist Specifications: Type, Duty, Foundation………... Table 4.3: Boiler Specifications: Type, Duty, Age Range…………………... Table 4.4: Specifications of Headframes: Type, Material, Class………… Table 4.5: Air Compressor Specifications: Type, Duty, Foundation……… Table 4.6: Air Compressor Specifications: Type, Popularity Timeframe, and Capital Investment………………. Table 5.1: Summary of Mining on the Amethyst Vein……………………… Table 5.2: Summary of Mining on the Holy Moses Vein…………………… Table 5.3: Summary of Mining on Upper West Willow Creek……………… Table 5.4: Summary of Mining on the Alpha-Corsair Ore System………….. Table 5.5: Population of the Creede Mining District, 1890-1960……………

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

In the early 1890s the American Western history. Currently, the town of mining frontier began to exhibit signs of Creede, the district's historic commercial closure. The ever-hoped-for mining and social hub, thrives as a center for bonanzas and associated rushes were ranching, tourism, and recreation in the becoming increasingly rare, and the extant region. Dozens of historic sites lie above mining districts were either exhausted, or the town. The sites include settled and industrialized. Yet two predominantly abandoned mines, in mineral strikes made during this time addition to settlements, transportation ignited an excitement which captured the systems, and mill remnants. These sites attention of many miners, industrialists, retain importance as cultural resources and investors across the nation. Bob and as beacons that draw thousands of Womack made one of the strikes at what tourists to Creede. The mine sites, became Cripple Creek, Colorado. Parties however, face threats in the form of of prospectors including Nicholas C. environmental cleanup projects and mine Creede and John C. McKenzie made the closure activities. Studies, recordation, other strike at what became Creede, and evaluations of the sites are inevitable, Colorado. For several years the two and for that reason this historical context, districts vied for prominence, and when which discusses the factors important to legends of Creede's incredible silver mining in Creede, can serve as an wealth seemed to be eclipsing those of important frame for interpreting future Cripple Creek’s gold, the Silver Crash of cultural resource work. 1893 dramatically reversed the situation. Specifically, this context discusses The devaluation of silver struck a four fundamental topics useful in significant blow to Creede, as well as identifying, recording, interpreting, and silver districts throughout the West. evaluating Creede’s historic mine and mill However, Creede's ore bodies proved to sites. The physical setting constitutes the be so rich that mining continued unabated first factor, and it is important because it for almost a century. served as the environment that Creede’s Geologists have deemed the residents inhabited, it presented mining Creede Mining District to be one of operations with physical challenges that America's most significant producers of drew certain responses, and it included silver. In accordance, mining at Creede natural resources. The second factor was serious business, requiring capital, a consists of Creede’s geology, and it is highly skilled workforce, an efficient important because it governed how infrastructure, advanced technology and Creede’s mining companies equipped and engineering, and a vibrant population. developed their claims, and which While the sun has set on Creede's mining companies prospered. Mining technology industry today, the district retains many is the third and one of the most important vestiges of this fascinating chapter of factors included in this historical context.

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CHAPTER 2

THE PHYSICAL SETTING

The Creede Mining District covers Because the Creede Mining an area of approximately 47 square miles District is located in the eastern San Juan in Mineral County near the upper Rio Mountains, it lies within rain shadow, and Grande River in the east San Juan as a result, the ecological communities Mountains. The district encompasses adapted to dry conditions. The Rio much of the Willow Creek drainage Grande River Valley features stands of system, Miners Creek, and land along the juniper-pinion trees and areas of Rio Grande River's north side. The grassland, while the mountain slopes region's topography is predominantly bounding the valley support subalpine fir mountainous. Extremely rugged terrain and spruce forests. Lodgepole pines and rises along the north side of the Rio fir trees predominate the dry lower slopes, Grande River Valley and culminates in a and spruce trees replace the pines with series of 12,000-13,000 foot high peaks, increase in elevation. In addition, stands which form the Continental Divide. Both of aspen trees thrive on flat areas above the Divide and the Rio Grande valley 8,500 feet. Some of the groves are extend east-west in the vicinity of the natural, while many others grew in logged mining district. East and West Willow clear-cuts. Because the soil within the creeks, their tributaries, and Rat and district is well-drained, ground cover in Miners creeks dissect the mountainous the forests is limited to woody, drought- area within the district. East and West tolerant species such as mountain juniper, Willow creeks join to form Willow Creek, holly, and kinnikinnick. Subalpine Rat Creek drains into Miners Creek, and meadows thrive in open areas between they flow south into the Rio Grande. forests, and arctic willows line most of the Most of the activity in the Creede Mining area's stream channels. District occurred in the lower portions of The climate in the district is the Willow Creek drainage, while some typical of that in the drier, deep Rocky prospecting and limited mining occurred Mountains. The summers tend to be near Rat and Miners creeks. warm, however the temperatures during The terrain within the district is the day rarely exceed 85 degrees typical of that resultant from volcanic Fahrenheit, and the nights cool down to activity. Gently sloped terraces and the the 40s and 50s. The months of June and summits of table top mountains lie September are often dry, while between approximately 10,000 and thunderstorms punctuate the afternoons 11,000 feet, and the topography below is July through August. The Fall also tends steep and rocky. Further, volcanic rock to be dry, yet the weather has an element formations manifest as cliffs and pinnacles of unpredictability. At the least, the in the lower, eroded portions of the East temperatures during both day and night and West Willow creek valleys. are cooler than during the summer. Cold snaps, snow, and prolonged warm

3 weather are possible during September mountain canyons channel streams of through November. Winter usually frigid air, while the areas on the slopes commences during November and lasts above tend to be much warmer. The until late April. During wet years, prevailing winds in the area blow from the periodic storms can deposit up to several west, and they may carry in storm feet of snow at a time and send systems. Occasionally, summer storms temperatures plummeting below zero creep up from the south, and winter degrees. The San Juans occasionally storms may descend from the north. In experience dry years in which little snow all, the climate in the Creede Mining accumulates and temperatures rise into District is hospitable for much of the year, the 30s and 40s. Because the air is very however winter storms and wet summers dry, cold temperatures are often tolerable presented the early settlers with a with proper clothing. Because cold air formidable challenge. tends to sink, during the winter the

4 CHAPTER 3

ECONOMIC GEOLOGY

To gain a full comprehension and deposited thousands of feet of andesitic appreciation of mining in Creede, a brief and conglomerate rock strata that account of the district's geological history geologists have termed the San Juan and fabulous ore bodies is important. The Formation. When the volcanic activity San Juan Mountains began to rise abated, natural forces make significant approximately 100 million years ago, headway eroding the strata. Two more during the Cretaceous Period, when violent eruptive periods subsequently powerful forces in the earth's mantle occurred, in which the Silverton Volcanic forced the region up out of an ancient sea Group formed, followed by the Potosi floor. A dome of magma intruded the Volcanic Group. Andesite tuff comprised Earth's crust and the heat and pressure the Silverton Group and rhyolite caused the overlying sedimentary rocks to comprised the Potosi Group. The portion metamorphose, fracture, and dome of the Potosi Series in our area of study is upward. This intense activity abated and known as the Creede Formation. After the Ancestral San Juan Mountains were the explosive volcanic activity, the San eroded almost totally flat, resorting back Juan region subsided, creating expansive to a sea floor. The importance of these fault systems. Further, subsidence of the geological events lay not in the creation of many caulderas associated with the lasting topography, but in the deposition volcanic activity resulted in localized of the minerals sought by miners during radial faulting. The Creede area was the nineteenth century. As the magma subjected to both types of faulting, laying body intruded into the overlying the groundwork for the formation of the sedimentary formations when the fabulous ore bodies mined during the Ancestral San Juans formed, the rock nineteenth century.ii strata became fractured and superheated Even though the volcanic activity fluids, mostly water, deposited metal ores largely ceased, the San Juan region was in the form of veins and chimneys in the by no means geologically quiet. The area cracks and areas of weakness. These ores experienced periodic upheavals followed were not the bodies worked by Creede's by settling, and superheated fluids began miners, but their impact on Creede was infiltrating the fault systems. In many crucial, because they initially drew the areas the fluids deposited veins of silicic prospectors who eventually located rocks such as gabbro, diorite, quartz, Creede's rich deposits. Several million monzonite, and pegmatite in the fractures. years would pass before the ore systems In the Creede area, the fluids deposited at Creede formed. i silver, lead, zinc, and minor amounts of After the Ancestral San Juans had other metals in some of the fractures. been uplifted and eroded to their base, the Over thousands of years, great area became the focus of intense volcanic fluctuations in the region’s groundwater activity which created the mountains that redeposited the metalliferous materials, exist today. The first eruptive period enriching the zones near the water table.

5 This factor was the primary reason that matrix of plain and amethyst quartz, Creede’s ores were located relatively chlorite, barite, fluorite, and additional close to ground surface.iii sulphates. This mineral blend filled the The Creede district became host voids created by faulting in the hard to four principal vein systems resulting volcanic country rock. Alteration to the from the millions of years of geological country rock abutting the veins was processes. The veins were oriented minimal, and as a result the ore broke primarily north-south, and they dipped away easily and cleanly. In addition, the steeply eastward. The eastern-most vein ores tended to be soft, making drilling and system, termed the Mammoth Vein, lay blasting easy, and in some places it was so under Mammoth Mountain on the east soft that miners extracted it with pick and side of East Willow Creek. Unfortunately shovel. In many places the country rock for some of Creede’s prospectors and maintained integrity, resulting in sound mining companies, the Mammoth Vein hanging and footwalls. Several mines on proved to contain only limited quantities the Amethyst Vein experienced of economic ore. The Soloman-Holy catastrophic cave-ins, which were Moses Vein, the second principal system, probably a result of poor engineering and lay underneath Campbell Mountain on the oversight, rather than inherently unstable west side of East Willow Creek. The geology.v Soloman-Holy Moses proved to one of The shallow natures of Creede’s the district’s richest ore bodies, and its vein systems lent themselves well to initial discovery by Nicholas Creede and exploration through adits. However, as associates in 1889 stimulated greater mining companies developed the ore at exploration for Creede’s mineral wealth. depth, they realized that shafts were The Last Chance-Amethyst Vein, the necessary to profitably extract the district’s third important vein system, payrock. Hence the mine workings in the proved to be an unequaled bonanza for district tend to include both adits and mining companies. The system consisted shafts, and most of the workings on each of one main vein flanked by minor vein system tend to be interconnected. stringers, and it extended uninterrupted Engineers joined mine workings for three for over two miles along the west side of main reasons. First, it allowed for West Willow Creek. The Amethyst Vein thorough exploration of consolidated proved to be the district’s richest ore mineral claims. Second, interconnected system, and it experienced activity for workings provided access and escape almost 100 years. The district’s last routes in the event of danger. However, significant ore system, the Alpha-Corsair the most important factor proved to be Vein, lay along the east side of Miners ventilation. Like other mining districts in Creek. The Alpha-Corsair Vein was the volcanic geology, Creede’s miners first to be discovered in the district and it encountered gases such as nitrous ranked third in importance.iv compounds at depth. The gases displaced Miners found the ores in these breathable air, which impeded the veins to be quite favorable for extraction extraction of ore. As a result, mining and milling. Most of the ores consisted of companies were forced to link workings zinc compounds, galena, pyrites, to stimulate the movement of natural air argentite, native silver, and gold in a

6 currents where possible, and to employ and geologists pooled their knowledge ventilation fans where necessary.vi and searched for additional veins, which The ore systems at Creede they periodically encountered from the presented a curious variety of 1920s to the 1960s during underground opportunities and obstacles for mining exploration. In addition to new companies. The Soloman-Holy Moses discoveries, mining companies found that and the Amethyst veins contained huge Creede’s seemingly exhausted principle quantities of silver-rich compounds which veins offered low-grade ores left by early produced up to $80 to $100 per ton. operations as unprofitable. By working Once mining companies exhausted the new and old veins, mining companies in shallow ores in the principal veins by the Creede and their workers profited from end of the Gilded Age, mining engineers 1891 until the early 1980s. ______

End Notes

i Burbank, WS; Eckel, EB; and Varnes, DJ "The San Juan Region" Mineral Resources of Colorado State of Colorado Mineral Resources Board, Denver, CO 1947, p399. Cross, Whitman; Howe, Earnest; and Ransome, F.L. Geologic Atlas of the United States: Silverton Folio, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1905, p2. ii Burbank, Wilbur S. and Luedke, Robert G. USGS Professional Paper 535: Geology and Ore Deposits of the Eureka and Adjoining Districts, San Juan Mountains, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1969, p7. Cross, Whitman; Howe, Earnest; and Ransome, F.L. Geologic Atlas of the United States: Silverton Folio, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1905, p2. Emmons, William H and Esper, Larsen S. USGS Bulletin 718: Geology and Ore Deposits of the Creede District, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1923, p12. Ratte, James C. and Steven, Thomas A. "Ash Flows and Related Volcanic Rocks Associated with the Creede Caldera, San Juan Mountains, Colorado" USGS Professional Paper 524: Shorter Contributions to General Geology U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1965, p32. Ransome, Frederick Leslie USGS Bulletin No. 182: A Report on the Economic Geology of the Silverton Quadrangle, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1901, p13. iii Burbank, WS; Eckel, EB; and Varnes, DJ "The San Juan Region" Mineral Resources of Colorado State of Colorado Mineral Resources Board, Denver, CO 1947, p402. Cross, Whitman; Howe, Earnest; and Ransome, F.L. Geologic Atlas of the United States: Silverton Folio, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1905, p2. Emmons, William H and Esper, Larsen S. USGS Bulletin 718: Geology and Ore Deposits of the Creede District, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1923, p126. iv Emmons, William H and Esper, Larsen S. USGS Bulletin 718: Geology and Ore Deposits of the Creede District, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1923, p98. v Emmons, William H and Esper, Larsen S. USGS Bulletin 718: Geology and Ore Deposits of the Creede District, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1923, p98. Kemp, James F. The Ore Deposits of the United States The Scientific Publishing Co., New York, NY 1896, p243. vi Emmons, William H and Esper, Larsen S. USGS Bulletin 718: Geology and Ore Deposits of the Creede District, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1923, p134.

7 CHAPTER 4

MINING TECHNOLOGY DURING THE GILDED AGE AND GREAT DEPRESSION

When the miners of Creede began without advanced technology and to pursue silver underground in the early engineering, mining there would have 1890s, the American hardrock mining failed. Second, most of Creede’s historic industry had attained a high state of mine and mill sites feature archaeological development. Capital, a willing remains and standing structures workforce, transportation systems, representative of mining during the Gilded technology, and engineering shared the Age and the Great Depression. A symbiotic relationship necessary to win discussion of conventional mining mineral wealth from a rugged wilderness. methods employed during those eras lends The topics of technology and engineering important context for the examination and are of considerable importance to the interpretation of Creede’s historic mine history of Creede in two ways. First, sites. ______

Prospecting: The Search for Ore

Mining in the West has been soil obscured visibility of bedrock, popularized in the form of vignettes in prospectors also scanned the landscape which individual or pairs of prospectors for anomalous features. Water seeps, arbitrary hacked holes into the earth with abrupt changes in vegetation and pick and shovel in hopes of “striking it topography, and changes in soil character rich”. Few things were farther from also hinted at the underlying geology.i reality. During mineral rushes Seasoned prospectors understood prospectors rarely worked alone for the that the lands of the West were vast and a sake of survival, economy, efficiency, and person could have spent a lifetime the likelihood of finding ore. They also examining bedrock outcrops and puzzling practiced planned, systematic approaches over landscape form. Instead, they for finding ore bodies in a group effort. employed sampling strategies as a primary Over several decades of mining in the means of exploration in areas they felt West prospectors learned to identify held promise. One of oldest and simplest geological and topographical features sampling strategies, popularized during suggestive of ore bodies. They often the California Gold Rush, consisted of examined visible portions of bedrock for testing steam gravels for gold. The seams and joints, for outcrops of quartz premise was that the natural process of veins and dykes, unusual mineral erosion freed gold from bedrock sources formations, and minerals heavy in iron. In and deposited it in a stream. Water action many regions where vegetation, sod, and moved the gravel and the heavy gold

8 slowly sifted to the bottom of the stream and it sank below the soil in rainy regions, channel, where it awaited the prospector’s complicating the search. Greenhorn shovel and pan. By periodically panning prospectors may have shambled around samples of stream gravel, a prospector an area in disorder searching for float, could track the gold upstream, and when while experienced prospectors targeted he encountered the precious metal no drainage floors where heavy material was more, he knew he was near the point of likely to accumulate. If the prospectors entry. encountered ore specimens, they then Gold veins usually cropped out at walked transects back and forth across a some distance from watercourses, hillslope, narrowing the boundaries of the necessitating that prospectors extend their float scatter until they reached the apex. sampling system. After following traces With high hopes they sank several of gold up a stream channel, they turned prospect pits down to bedrock and toward one of the stream banks and began chipped away at the material to expose excavating test pits and panning the soil fresh minerals. Locating a source of float immediately overlying bedrock. They was an unsure undertaking at best, and in tested soil samples horizontally back and the process of narrowing the search area, forth across the hillslope in attempts to parties of prospectors excavated many define the lateral boundaries of the gold worthless pits and trenches. Yet, this flecks. Afterward, the party of method had proven itself successful many prospectors employed a similar sampling time over, as it did at Creede.iii strategy to find the upslope deposit Modern legends highlight the few boundary, under which should have examples of prospectors who traced hypothetically been the hardrock gold scatters of float directly to glorious ore source. Employing such a sampling veins in bedrock outcrops, and those strategy occasionally paid off, but the individuals who literally stumbled across party of prospectors had to undertake gold or silver-bearing rocks in search of considerable work in the form of digging lost burros and the like. In reality prospect pits with pick and shovel, prospecting was hard, laborious, dirty hauling soil samples to a body of water work requiring excavation of numerous over rough terrain, and panning in cold pits two to fifteen feet deep over the span streams.ii of many days. Digging pit after pit in One of the greatest drawbacks to pursuit of subtle hints of ore only to find systematic panning was that it only the promising lead vanished soured detected gold, while areas such as Creede greenhorns with get-rich-quick abounded with other precious and expectations, and the reality of repeated semiprecious metals. In addition to failures at striking ore proved enough to searching stream gravels, prospectors completely discourage even experienced scanned the ground surface for what they prospectors. The landscapes of many termed float, which consisted of isolated Western mining districts, including that fragments of ore-bearing rock. As with around Creede, are dotted with hundreds free-gold, over centuries natural to thousands of prospect pits for every weathering processes fractured ore bodies successful mine. and erosion transported the pieces On rare occasion parties of downslope. Metalliferous ore was heavy prospectors dug pits and struck mineral

9 deposits worthy of further investigation. the presence or absence of ore at depth. The next step in subsurface exploration Yet, in many cases shallow adits or shafts involved driving either a small shaft or failed to prove or disprove economic adit with the intent of sampling the quantities of ore, in which cases parties of mineral deposit at depth in hopes of prospectors often elected to drive drifts, confirming its continuation. After horizontal internal tunnels, along the clearing away as much fractured, loose suspected mineral body. In most cases bedrock as possible with pick and shovel, such exhausting efforts proved, in fact, a pair of prospectors began boring blast- that the mineral claim was worthless, but holes with a hammer and drill-steels. The in a few exceptions the party of drilling team made between 12 and 18 prospectors uncovered enough ore to holes, 18 to 24 inches deep, in a special warrant the development of a proper pattern designed to maximize the force of mine. Until economic ore had been the explosive charges they loaded. Prior proven, the operation could have been to the 1880s prospecting parties often classified as merely a glorified prospect used blasting powder, and most had adit or prospect shaft. At this point the converted to stronger but more expensive need for capital, equipment, organization, dynamite by the 1890s. and a labor force became apparent, and Within approximately 30 days the the party of prospectors either sold their party of prospectors had driven their holdings to a capitalist, or formed their tunnel or shaft deep enough to confirm own company. ______

Deep Exploration and the Development of Ore Bodies

The methods by which engineers and died early deaths. Once prospectors and miners searched for and extracted ore determined the existence of ore, the and equipped their mines to do so were activity at the mineral claim shifted at first universal throughout the West. The to quantifying how much ore existed, then mines and prospects in Creede were no to profitable extraction. exception, and they fell into several In efforts to address the above common patterns. A prospect differed two ore production issues, mining greatly from a mine. A prospect was an companies hired crews of miners who operation in which prospectors sought proceeded to enlarge the small adit or ore. The associated workings ranged shaft and systematically block out the from shallow pits to adits or shafts with mineral body. Generally ore bodies hundreds of feet of horizontal and vertical tended to take one of two forms; miners workings. A mine, on the other hand, and engineers recognized the first form as consisted of at least hundreds of feet of a vein, and they defined the other as being workings and a proven ore body. All massive and globular. Typically, free mines began as prospect operations. gold, telluride gold, and tungsten tended Most prospect operations, on the other to be deposited in veins while industrial hand, failed to prove the presence of ore metals such as copper and iron were

10 deposited in massive form. The silver and shafts were in fact best because industrial metals in Creede formed as a maintenance and upkeep on them cost vein. At the point where a tunnel or shaft less. Vertical shafts had to be timbered penetrated the mineral body, miners merely to resist swelling of the walls, developed the body with internal while timbering in inclines had to also workings consisting of drifts, crosscuts support the ceiling, which was more extending off the drifts, internal shafts expensive, especially when the passage known as winzes which dropped down penetrated weak ground. Inclined shafts from the tunnel floor, and internal shafts also required a weight-bearing track for known as raises which drove up. Drifts the hoist vehicle, which, including and crosscuts explored the length and maintenance such as replacing rotten width of the ore, and raises and winzes timbers and corroded rails, consumed explored its height and depth. money. Miners and prospectors In light of the collective consciously sank a shaft or drove an adit experience gained during five decades of in response to fundamental criteria. First, mining in the West, by the 1900s most a shaft was easiest and less costly to keep mining engineers recommended that open against fractured and weak ground. vertical shafts be sunk in the footwalls of Second, a shaft permitted miners to stay ore veins. Experience had taught the in close contact with an ore body as they mining industry, often through expensive pursued it to depth, and they were able to and dangerous lessons, that the hanging sample the ore periodically. Third, in wall overlying the vein was likely to settle cases where miners sank a shaft on and shift after ore was extracted, profitable ore, the payrock they extracted throwing the shaft out of plumb.iv provided the company with almost instant Despite the hypothetical income, which pleased stockholders and advantages of sinking a shaft over an greased the skids of mine promotion. incline or adit, several factors beyond Last, a shaft lent itself well to driving a miners’ or engineers’ control governed latticework of drifts, crosscuts, raises, and the actual choice of shaft versus adit. In winzes to explore and block out an ore many cases geology proved to be a body. deciding criterion; steep hillsides, deep Mining engineers discerned canyons, and gently pitching ore bodies between the purposes of sinking vertical lent themselves well to exploration and versus inclined shafts. One contingent of extraction through adits. In many cases engineers preferred inclined shafts prospectors who had located an outcrop because, as they correctly pointed out, of ore high on a hillside elected to drive mineral bodies, especially veins, were an adit from a point considerably rarely vertical, and instead descended at downslope to intersect the formation at an angle. As a result vertical shafts were depth. If the ore body proved ineffectual for intimate tracking and economical, then the mining company immediate extraction of ore. In addition, carried out extraction through the adit. inclined shafts needed smaller, less One of the most problematic aspects of expensive hoists than those used for driving an adit was that miners had to vertical shafts. The other camp of labor at considerable dead work, drilling engineers, however, claimed that vertical and blasting through barren ground, with

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shafts for developing deep ore bodies, surrounding territory with claims. In because interior hoisting and ore transfer most districts the recognized hardrock stations had to be blasted out, which claim was restricted to being 1,500 feet proved costly and created traffic long and 600 feet wide, which left limited congestion. One other problem, work space, both above and below significant in districts where the rock was ground. In Colorado prospectors were weak, lay in the enormous cost of legally obligated to drive an adit or shaft, timbering adits and tunnels against cave- or sink a pit to a minimum depth of 10 in. However, much to relief of Creede’s feet to hold title to a hardrock claim. mining companies, the district featured They had to conduct $100 worth of labor sound rock requiring little support.v But in other states. A small adit or pit was the most fundamental consideration in not adequate to fully explore the depths deciding whether to drive an adit or sink a bounded by a 1,500 by 600 foot plot of shaft lay with economics. Driving an adit ground, let alone extract ore, forcing was easier, faster, and required prospectors and mining companies to sink significantly less capital than sinking a shafts.vii shaft. Some mining engineers had The Creede Mining District serves determined that the cost of drilling and as an excellent example of how crowded blasting a shaft was as much as three conditions forced mining companies to times more than excavating an adit. sink shafts to work at depth within their Prospectors and mining engineers alike claim boundaries. The Amethyst and understood that adits were self-draining, Soloman-Holy Moses veins were they required no hoisting equipment, and blanketed with claims during the district’s transporting rock out and materials into heyday, few of which mining companies the mine was easier than it was in shafts. consolidated in the early years. Regardless, in many cases prospectors, Prospectors and mining companies were those with the least access to capital, sank forced to sink shafts because they lacked small shafts to explore ore bodies for the the surface space necessary to explore and reasons cited above, and for one develop ore bodies at depth through additional significant factor.vi tunnels. In districts where competition Historians of the West have aptly for space was not as severe, mining characterized mineral rushes to heavily companies had greater latitude to drive promoted mining districts as a frenzy of tunnels. prospectors who blanketed the ______

The Mine Surface Plant

The driving of underground among miners and engineers of-the-day as workings associated with both mines and the surface plant, these facilities were deep prospect operations required equipped to meet the needs of the work support from on-site facilities. Known underground. Large, productive mines

14 boasted sizable surface plants while small arteries permitting the free movement of prospect operations tended to have simple men and materials into and out of the facilities. Regardless of whether the underground entry. Miners moved operation was small or large, the surface materials at adit operations in ore cars on plant had to meet five fundamental needs. baby-gauge mine rail lines, while shafts First, the plant had to provide a stable and required an additional hoisting system to unobstructed entry into the underground lift vehicles out of the workings. workings. Second, it had to include a Materials and rock at shaft mines were facility for tool and equipment usually transferred into an ore car for maintenance and fabrication. Third, the transportation on the surface. The plant had to allow for the transportation surface plants for both adits and shafts of materials and waste rock out of the included a blacksmith shop where tools underground workings and supplies in. and equipment were maintained and Fourth, the workings had to be ventilated, fabricated, and large mines often had and fifth, the plant had to facilitate the additional machining and carpentry storage of up to tens of thousands of tons facilities. Most of these plant components of waste rock generated during were clustered around the adit or shaft underground development, often within and built on cut-and-fill earthen platforms the boundaries of the mineral claim. made when mine workers excavated Generally, productive mines, as well as material from the hillslope and used the complex and deep prospects, had needs in fill to extend the level surface. Once addition to the above basic five enough waste rock had been extracted requirements, and their surface plants from the underground workings and included the necessary associated dumped around the mouth of the mine, components.viii the facilities may have been moved onto The basic form of a surface plant, the resultant level area. The physical size, whether haphazardly constructed by a degree of mechanization, and capital party of inexperienced prospectors or expenditure of a surface plant was relative designed by experienced mining to the constitution of the workings below engineers, consisted of a set of ground. components. The entry underground In addition to differentiating usually consisted of either a stabilized between surface plants that served tunnels shaft collar or an adit portal. While the from those associated with shafts, mining exact differentiation between a tunnel and engineers further subdivided mine an adit is somewhat nebulous, mining facilities into two more classes. Engineers engineers and self-made mining men have considered surface plants geared for shaft referred to narrow and low tunnels with sinking, driving adits, and underground limited space and length as adits. exploration to be different from those Passages wide enough to permit incoming designed to facilitate ore production. miners to pass outgoing ore cars, high Engineers referred to exploration facilities enough to accommodate air and water as temporary plants, and as sinking plants plumbing suspended from the ceiling, and when associated with shafts. Such extending into substantial workings have facilities were by nature small, labor- been loosely referred to as tunnels. Most intensive, energy inefficient, and most surface plants featured transportation important, they required little capital.

15 Production plants on the other hand adequate only for meeting immediate usually represented long-term investment, needs. and they were intended to maximize Mining engineers and self-made production while minimizing operating mining men understood that temporary costs such as labor, maintenance, and plants consisted of light-duty, energy consumption. Such facilities inexpensive, and impermanent emphasized capital-intensive components. Many engineers classified mechanization, engineering, planning, and the duty of these components, especially scientific calculation. machines such as hoists, boilers, blowers, Mines underwent an evolutionary and air compressors by their size, energy process in which discovery of ore, the efficiency, performance, and purchase driving of a prospect shaft or adit, price. Machine foundations, necessary to installation of a temporary plant, upgrade anchor and stabilize what were critical to a production plant, and eventual plant components, also fell under this abandonment of the property all were scope of classification. Because of a low points along a spectrum. Depending on cost, ease of erection, and brief whether prospectors or a mining company serviceable life, mining engineers found ore and how much, a mine could considered timber and hewn log machine have been abandoned in any stage of foundations to be strictly temporary, evolution, as many in Creede had been. while production-class foundations Of course, the ultimate goal of most consisted of concrete or masonry. The mining companies, capitalists, and structure of wooden foundations usually engineers was to locate, prove, and consisted of cribbing, a framed cube, or a develop fabulous ore reserves, and to frame fastened to a pallet, all of which install a surface plant large and efficient were assembled with bolts and iron pins, enough to arouse accolades from the and buried in waste rock for stability and Western mining industry. Mining immobility. The construction and engineers and mining companies usually classification of machine foundations is of took a cautionary, pragmatic approach particular importance, because they often when upgrading a sinking plant to a constitute principal evidence at Creede’s production plant. Until significant ore mine sites capable of conveying the reserves had been proven, most mining composition of the surface plant in terms companies minimized their outlay of of structures and machinery.ix capital by installing inexpensive machines ______

Surface Plants for Adits

The surface plants for adits and patterns and characteristic for each were shafts shared many of the same different. The typical surface plant components. Yet, because of the layouts for Creede’s adit-based operations fundamental differences between the mirrored those erected throughout the nature of the two mines, the layout

16 West, and here we will examine their common components.

The Adit Portal

The adit portal was a primary carpentry tools. They cut square notches component of both simple prospects as into the cap member, nailed it onto the well as complex, profitable mines. tops of the posts, and raised the set into Professionally trained mining engineers place. Afterward, the miners hammered recognized a difference between prospect wooden wedges between the cap and the adits and production-class tunnels. adit ceiling, and between the posts and Height and width were the primary adit walls to make the set weight-bearing. defining criteria. A production-class Because the adit usually penetrated tons tunnel was wide enough to permit an of loose soil and fractured rock, a series outgoing ore car to pass an in-going of cap-and-post sets were required to miner, and headroom had to be ample resist the heavy forces, and they had to be enough to house compressed air lines and lined with lagging to fend off loose rock ventilation tubing. During the latter and earth. In areas penetrating swelling portion of the Gilded Age, some mining ground, the bottoms of the posts had to engineers defined production-class tunnels be secured to a floor-level cross-timber or as being at least 3½ to 4 feet wide and 6 log footer to prevent them from being to 6½ feet high. Anything smaller, they pushed inward. claimed, was merely a prospect adit. Wood used for the purposes of Many of these engineers reflected an supporting wet ground decayed quickly attitude post-dating the adoption of and had to be replaced as often as several compressed air powered rockdrills which times a year, and as infrequently as every had reduced the costs of drilling and few decades in dry mines. Professionally blasting.x trained mining engineers claimed that Mining engineers in Creede, like dimension lumber was best for timber sets those at other districts in the West, paid because it decayed slowly and was easy to due attention to the adit portal, because it frame, but a relatively high purchase price guarded against cave-ins of loose rock and the cost of transportation discouraged and soil. Engineers recognized cap-and- its use where cheaper alternatives were post timber sets to be best suited for available. Most down-to-earth miners supporting both the portal and areas of and engineers favored using hewn logs for fractured rock further in the adit. This their timber sets and lagging because they ubiquitous means of support consisted of cost less than milled lumber, and they two upright posts and a cross-member, could be harvested from nearby forests, which mine workers fitted together with which abounded in Creede.xi precision using measuring rules and

17 Mine Transportation

Miners working underground at Outfits driving substantial Creede generated tons of waste rock that underground workings required a vehicle had to be hauled out, while tools, timbers, with a capacity greater than the few and explosives had to be brought in. As a hundred pounds that a prospector could result, both prospect operations and large, have trundled in a wheelbarrow. The paying mines had to rely on some form of vehicle most mining outfits chose was the a transportation system. The conveyances ore car - today the immortalized symbol used by prospectors had to be of hardrock mining. The ore car inexpensive, adaptable to tight workings, commonly associated with metal mining and capable of being carried into the consisted of a plate iron body mounted on backcountry. To meet these needs a turntable that was riveted to a rail truck. prospect outfits often used the old- Cars were approximately 2 feet high, 4 fashioned wheelbarrow on a plank feet long, and 2½ feet wide, they held at runway. A wheelbarrow cost as little as least a ton of rock, and they had a swing $12, it was easy to pack on a mule, and it gate at the front to facilitate dumping. fit into tight workings. Mining engineers Further, the body pivoted on the turntable recognized the functionality of to permit the operator to deposit a load of wheelbarrows, but classified them as rock on either side of or at the end of the strictly serving the needs of subsurface rail line. While iron ore cars were prospecting because of their limited load extremely durable, often outlasting the capacity, awkwardness of handling, and mining companies that purchased them, propensity for being crushed.xii the iron components were heavy.

Table 4.1: Dimensions & Duty of Mine Rail

Rail Type Rail Width of Width of (pounds per Height Base Head Duty of Rail yard) Strap Rail 4 in. 1 ½ in. 1 ½ in. Rail consists of iron strap nailed to the top of 2x4 boards. Such rail is temporary. 8 lb 1 ½ in. 1 ½ in. ½ in. Temporary: for use with hand-pushed ore cars. 10 lb 1 ¾ in. 1 ¾ in. ¾ in. Light duty: for use with hand-pushed ore cars. 12 lb 2 in. 2 in. 1 in. Light duty: for use with hand-pushed ore cars. 16 lb 2 3/8 in. 2 3/8 in. 1 3/16 in. Light duty: for use with hand-pushed ore cars and short ore car trains drawn by draft animals. 20 lb 2 5/8 in. 2 5/8 in. 1 3/8 in. Moderate duty: for use with short ore car trains drawn by draft animals or locomotives weighing 8 tons or less. 25 lb 2 ¾ in. 2 ¾ in. 1 ½ in. Moderate duty: for use with ore car trains drawn by draft animals or locomotives weighing at most 10 tons. 30 lb 3 1/8 in. 3 1/8 in. 1 ¾ in. Moderate to heavy duty: for use with ore car trains drawn by draft animals or locomotives weighing at most 13 tons. 35 lb 3 1/4 in. 3 1/4 in. 1 ¾ in. Moderate to heavy duty: for use with ore car trains drawn by locomotives weighing at most 16 tons. 40 lb 3 ½ in. 3 ½ in. 1 7/8 in. Heavy duty: for use with ore car trains drawn by locomotives 15 tons or less, and for narrow-gauge railroad spurs. 45 lb 3 3/4 in. 3 3/4 in. 2 in. Heavy duty: for use with ore car trains drawn by locomotives, and for narrow-gauge railroad spurs. 50 lb 3 7/8 in. 3 7/8 in. 2 1/8 in. Heavy duty: for use with ore car trains drawn by locomotives, and for narrow-gauge railroad spurs. (Copied from Twitty, 1999, p140).

18

Ore cars ran on rails sold in a warrant hiring mine laborers known as variety of standard sizes by mine supply muckers to load empty ore cars, and houses. The units of measure were based trammers to push the cars about the mine. on the rail’s weight-per-yard. Light-duty Productive mines and deep prospect rail ranged from 6 to 12 pounds-per-yard, operations usually had rail spurs medium-duty weight rails included 12,16, extending off the main line underground 18, and 20 pounds-per-yard, heavy mine to other headings in feeder drifts and rail weighed from 24 to 50 pounds-per- crosscuts where drilling and blasting yard, and anything heavier was used for teams were at work. Spurs also branched railroad lines. Prospecting outfits off into stopes and ore bin stations. installing temporary plants usually Substantial mines with extensive surface purchased light-duty rail because of its plants also featured spurs off the main line transportability and low cost.xiii Mining on ground-surface that extended to engineers erecting production-class different parts of the waste rock dump, to transportation systems had miners lay a storage area, and to the mine shop. track using at least medium-duty rail, Many large mines built special stake-side, because it lasted longer. flatbed, and latrine cars for the The specific type of rail system coordinated movement of specific installed by a mining operation reflected materials and wastes. the experience and judgement of the The general rule of thumb engineer, or superintendent acting as followed by both self-made and such, as well as the financial status of the professionally educated engineers company, the extent of the underground working at small operations was to spend workings, and whether the mine produced little capital improving the rail system, much if any ore. The basic rail system provided it already consisted of steel used in nearly all Western mines was fairly components. Typically, at small and simple and straightforward. The track medium-sized operations miners installed consisted of a main rail line that extended lines consisting of rail no heavier than 16 from the areas of work underground, pounds per yard spiked at 18 inch gauge though the surface plants, and out to the to ties spaced every three feet. Further, waste rock dump. Miners in the the ties usually consisted of hewn logs or underground drilled and blasted, and salvaged lumber ranging from 2x4 to 6x6 shoveled the resultant shot rock into an inch stock. In efforts to save money, ore car, and a miner then pushed the miners often reused the ties several times loaded car out of the adit and onto the over. This type of line was ubiquitous edge of the waste rock dump where he throughout the West because it discharged the car’s contents. As the accommodated hand-pushed ore cars, and drilling and blasting crew advanced the it was relatively inexpensive to build. adit, they laid rails in the new space to Many self-made engineers saw no reason facilitate bringing the car close for for subjecting the company to the loading. Large mining companies, such as considerable expense of installing heavier the Amethyst, Bachelor, and Holy Moses rails and possibly a broader gauge as the operations at Creede, generated enough mine underwent significant expansion. rock and ore car traffic underground to Instead, they merely extended the line

19 with the same weight of rail already in power from overhead trolley lines strung use. Academically trained engineers along the mine’s ceiling. working at large mines, however, had The spread of the electric mules to miners replace light-duty rails with hardrock mining in the West proved slow. heavier, lasting rails as the iron Locomotives required special mechanical succumbed to corrosion, or they had and electrical engineering, which was in a miners replace only the trunk portions of nascent state during the 1890s and 1900s. the main rail line with heavy rails, leaving In addition, electric mules were too big alone the lighter ends and spurs.xiv for the tortuous drifts typical of most Many professionally educated metal mines, and they required mining engineers understood that hiring considerable capital to purchase, install, miners to hand-tram single ore cars was and operate. During the first decade of the most cost-effective means of the twentieth century the electrical system transportation at small and medium-sized necessary to power a locomotive included operations. But at large mines, where a steam engine, a generator, electrical high volumes of materials had to be circuitry, plumbing for the engine, handled efficiently over great distances, installation, and an enclosing building. they strongly recommended the use of ore The system alone cost around $3,100, and trains pulled by a motive source greater a small locomotive cost an additional than one or two struggling miners. $1,500. Further, an electric locomotive Mining companies at Creede, like others cost approximately $7.50 per day to throughout the West, turned to the use of operate. A mule, on the other hand, cost draft animals. As hardrock mining only $150 to $300 to purchase and house, matured through the nineteenth century and between 60? and $1.25 to feed and miners learned that mules were the best care for per day.xv animals suited for work underground Upgrades to the rail line necessary because they were reliable, strong, of to accommodate a heavy locomotive even temperament, and intelligent. presented the engineer with additional Mining engineers, seeking to put science costs. Mules were able to draw between and calculation behind the use of mules to three and five ore cars that weighed improve efficiency, defined 16 pound rail approximately 2,500 pounds each, and for as being best weight in conjunction with this 16 pound rails spiked at an 18 inch small ore trains because it resisted wear. gauge proved adequate. But electric The electric locomotive, termed locomotives and their associated ore an electric mule by some miners, arrived trains usually weighed dozens of tons, and in the West during the 1890s. Mining as a result they required broad tracks engineers working for coal mines in the consisting of heavier rail. Mining East and in the Appalachians introduced engineers recommended that at least 20 the first electric locomotives in 1887 or pound rail spiked 24 inches apart on ties 1888 to move the immense volumes of spaced every two feet be laid for small to the fossil fuel produced by coal medium-sized locomotives. Heavy companies. The early machines consisted locomotives required rail up to 40 pounds of a trolley car motor custom mounted per yard spiked at 36 inch gauge. The onto a steel chassis, and they took their reason for the heavy rails and closely spaced ties was that the heavy machines

20 pressed down on the rail line and Western hardrock mines beginning in the perpetually worked uphill against the 1890s. This interesting contraption downward-flexed rails. This wasted much consisted of a compressed air tank of the locomotive’s power and energy, fastened to a miniature steam locomotive and engineers sought to minimize the sag chassis. The tank forced air under with stiff rails on a sound foundation of extremely high pressure into drive closely spaced ties. In addition, light rails cylinders that powered wheels in a fashion presented a greater chance of derailment, almost identical to steam railroad engines. which proved to be a logistical and Eastern mining engineers disliked the economic disaster in the confines of a locomotives, criticizing their need for an haulage tunnel.xvi expensive three to four stage compressor, Some academic mining engineers valves and fittings for charging the tank criticized the fact that electric with air, and a limited range of travel. locomotives were tied to the fixed route Western mining engineers rebuffed the defined by the trolley wires. To remedy complaints, claiming that the machines this problem, electric machinery makers were well-suited for their mines. The introduced the storage battery locomotive locomotives were able to negotiate tight around 1900, which had free reign of the passageways, they had plenty of motive mine’s rail lines. Despite its power, they spread fresh air wherever independence, very few Western hardrock they went, some of the machines were mining companies employed battery- able to operate on the ubiquitous 18 inch powered locomotives because they were rail gauge, and they did not require costly, they required a recharging facility, complex electrical circuitry. However, and they too were physically inhibited by compressed air locomotives were not the mine’s tight passageways. In general, inexpensive, costing as much as their electric locomotives required wide electric cousins. True, the little engines tunnels, and because they had long wheel- required a costly compressor capable of bases and ran on broad-gauge track, they delivering air at pressures of 700 to 1000 were unable to negotiate the tight corners pounds per square inch. But most metal typical of Western hardrock mines. While mines large enough to warrant a the mighty machines were able to pull locomotive required a high-pressure significant numbers of loaded cars and compressor to run rockdrills and other increase a mining company’s economy of air-driven machinery anyway. Such scale, the physical limitations presented by arguments were a moot point for most locomotives required engineers to western mines, which continued to rely virtually preplan expansive underground primarily on the efforts of struggling workings with broad curves, side tracks, trammers, and occasionally on mules for and areas to turn the locomotive around. moving the heavy materials of mining. While such efforts were conducive for, During the Great Depression, even typical of, coal mining, they were greater numbers of well-financed mining not appropriate for the piecemeal work companies relied on mechanical endemic to Western hardrock mining. locomotives in hopes of producing ore in A few prominent academic mining the high volumes necessary to make a engineers espoused the compressed air profit at that time, while many outfits locomotive, which saw limited use in working medium-sized mines continued

21 the tradition of employing mules. For locomotives and the necessary mining companies with capital, electric improvements to the rail lines were well trolley locomotives remained popular beyond their financial means. These while compressed air and battery- companies continued the ages-old method powered locomotives saw increased use. of relying on the power of miners to move Echoing the arguments of mining cars. During the capital-scarce times of engineers past, Western mining companies the Depression, these outfits constructed operating during the Depression felt that rail lines out of whatever rails and ties compressed air locomotives had the they were able to salvage. They advantage of being able to run on track straightened bent rails, they used large constructed with heavy rail spiked at 18 nails instead of proper rail spikes, and inch gauge, while electric trolley they fashioned ties from a variety of locomotives required an expensive broad pieces of lumber. To save materials, gauge and heavier rail. Mining machinery impoverished mining outfits spaced the makers had reduced the costs and physical ties far apart, they spliced rails of varying sizes of battery-powered locomotives, lengths and weights into a single line, and permitting them to also run on 18 inch they broke connector plates that usually gauge track. featured four bolt holes in two to make The West’s small mines did not them join twice as many rails. have to worry about such issues because

The Mine Shop

During the Gilded Age, every buildings to shelter the shop. The shop prospect operation and paying mine structure tended to be small, simple, and required the services of a blacksmith who rough, and operations lacking capital maintained and fabricated equipment, often relied on local building materials tools, and hardware. Most small prospect such as hewn logs or dry-laid rock operations lacked the capital and volume masonry. Prospecting and mining outfits of work to hire dedicated specialists, and almost invariably located the blacksmith as a result one of the crewmembers shop adjacent to the adit portal to comprising the outfit served as a miner minimize handling heavy batches of dull when not working in the shop. The drill-steels. common rate for driving a prospect adit Sharpening drill-steels was a with hand-drills and dynamite in hard rock delicate and exacting process that was approximately one to three feet per required an experienced mine blacksmith. 10 hour shift. Over the course of such a Drill-steels, specialized tools that day miners drilled numerous blast-holes withstood the brutal work of mining, were and blunted drill-steels in substantial of the utmost importance for driving quantities. For this reason, the underground workings. Miners used blacksmith’s primary duty was to sharpen them to bore blast-holes, which was the the steels.xvii primary method of breaking ground in To permit the blacksmith to work Western mines. These unique tools were in foul weather, mining companies erected made of hardened hexagonal or octagonal

22 ¾ to 1¼ inch-diameter bars of high- bellows or slowly turned a hand-blower quality steel, and miners always used them connected to the tuyere, which fed in graduated sets. Starter-steels, also oxygen to the fire. As the fire grew hot known as bull steels, were often twelve- and began consuming fuel, he used a inches long, but numerous trips to the forge sprinkler to create a perimeter of blacksmith’s forge reduced them to as wet coal to stop the fire from spreading. short as eight inches, and the rest of the Blacksmiths often made forge sprinklers steels followed in successive six to ten- from food cans by perforating the bottom inch increments. With each increase in with many small holes. The smith placed length, a steel’s blade decreased slightly in the ends of several drill-steels in the width, ensuring that it did not wedge tight center of the fire until they grew almost in the drill-hole. Generally, drill-steels for white-hot. One by one he extracted them, single jacking were no longer than three hammered the blade against the step feet, and the longest steels used for between the heel and top face of the anvil double jacking were usually four to six to reform the drill’s sharp angle of attack, feet long. placed the steels back in the fire, and Sharpening drill-steels began at repeated the process using a special the forge, where the blacksmith carefully swage fitted into a socket in the anvil. arranged a layer of fuel over the gravel The swage had a better-defined crevice, bed surrounding the tuyere. The choice which gave the final steep profile to the of fuel for working iron was limited to a sharpened blade. The steels went back few sources that were clean-burning, into the fire yet again, and the denizen of fairly inexpensive, and easily sacked for the shop extracted them one-at-a-time for transportation. Prior to the 1870s quenching in a small tank of cool water. blacksmiths heavily used wood charcoal, Quick submersion hardened the steel so it but they substituted coke and would remain sharp. A second, slower metallurgical coal, also known as forge immersion tempered the steel, adjusting coal, by the 1880s. Metallurgical coal the softness of the blade tip after included anthracite, semi-anthracite, and hardening, which prevented fragments unusually pure bituminous coals, all other from spauling off in the drill-hole. In the grades of coal having too much sulfur and event the miners had managed to crack or other impurities. While metallurgical coal damage the drill-steel blade, the burned relatively cleanly, over time it left blacksmith heated it white-hot and upset deposits of ash and clinker in the forge. the steel before sharpening, meaning he Clinker is a residue which appears dark, used a cold chisel to cut off the damaged vitreous, and glassy. Further, clinker end. After upsetting the tip, the smith had possesses a scoria-like texture which to reform a fresh cutting end. formed in nodules up to three-quarters of To temper a drill-steel, the an inch in diameter. The soot-smudged blacksmith extracted it from the fire again blacksmith had to periodically clean this while it was in a white-hot state and nuisance out, and he either dumped it on briefly immersed the blade in the the shop floor or threw it out of the quenching tank, quickly extracted it, and building’s doorway. permitted the steel to cool in the open air. After the blacksmith received a The incandescent colors of the steel load of dull steels, he either pumped a changed as it cooled, and when it reached

23 the desired temperature, as indicated by was built. The shops at small mines color, the blacksmith plunged it into the typically featured a forge and blower in quenching tank to arrest the cooling. one corner of the structure, an anvil and During the time the steel lay in the open, quenching tank next to the forge, a work the skin cooled faster than the core and bench with a vice located along one of the turned brown to gray, masking over the walls, and a lathe and drill-press. Rarely steel’s true incandescent colors. To did shops at small mines include power examine the colors of the inner steel, the appliances; instead, most of these shops blacksmith rubbed the blade on either a were equipped with manually operated brick or whetstone, which scratched off machinery. the grayish scale. A greater availability and Blacksmiths at small operations affordability of steam engines, air required few tools and much skill for their compressors, and electricity during the work. A typical basic field shop 1890s brought power appliances within associated with prospect operations reach of modestly funded mining consisted of a forge, bellows or blower, operations. By the time mining anvil, anvil block, quenching tank, several commenced at Creede, typical shops at hammers, tongs, a swage, a cutter, a medium-sized hardrock mines featured chisel, a hacksaw, snips, a small drill, a traditional labor-intensive facilities workbench, iron stock, hardware, and occasionally augmented with between one basic woodworking tools. Prior to the and several power appliances. Such 1910s some mining outfits working deep shops were equipped with at least one in the backcountry far from commercial forge, an accompanying blower, an anvil, centers dispensed with factory-made a quenching tank, two stout workbenches, forges, both to save money and because a lathe, a drill-press, and array of machine they were cumbersome to pack, and used and carpentry tools. Because medium- local building materials to make a sized mines had materials handling needs vernacular forge. The most popular type exceeding those at small mines, associated of custom-made forge consisted of a forges were typically either a 4 by 4 foot gravel-filled dry-laid rock enclosure free-standing iron pan model, a gravel- usually 3 by 3 feet in area and 2 feet high. filled iron tank 4 feet in diameter and 2 Miners working in forested regions feet high, or a 3 by 3 foot gravel-filled substituted small hewn log walls for rock. wood box. Blacksmiths often lined their A tuyere, often made of a 2 foot length of pan forges with firebricks and poured a pipe with a hole punched through the thin cap of grout over their tank and box side, was carefully embedded in the forges, which provided a sound bed for gravel, and its function was to direct the the fuel, focused the flow of oxygen air blast from the blower or bellows toward the fire, and facilitated removal of upward into the fire in the forge.xviii residue and clinker. The lathes and drill- The shops that served prospect presses may have been power-driven at operations were inadequate to handle the mines in developed mining districts, and materials of larger, productive mines. manually powered at remote mines. In The size of a shop and its appliances were addition to the above appliances, many functions of capital, levels of ore shops at large mines were also equipped production, and the era during which it with a mechanical saw, a grinder, and a

24 pipe threader, which may have been earlier as supposed. The conversion power-driven.xix evolved over the course of 30 years, The physical composure of a shop progressing more rapidly among well- building reflects the financial state of a financed mining companies than at small mining company. Outfits with limited operations. During the conversion period financing used local building materials, blacksmiths became proficient in while well-capitalized mining companies sharpening both hand-steels and machine with access to commercial centers often drill-steels, each of which had specific erected dimension lumber frame buildings. requirements.xx One trait shared by most shops was the The large volume of dull rockdrill use of windows to afford natural light to steels, machine repair work, and the permit the blacksmith to see what he was manufacture of fittings constituted a doing through the smoke and soot. Due heavy workload for shop workers. In an to the risk of fire started by loose embers, effort to facilitate the completion of the floors of most blacksmith shops at adit projects in a timely manner, mining mines were earthen. The blacksmith companies usually hired a blacksmith and arranged the shop interior to suit the a helper for metalwork, and a carpenter cramped space, usually scattering his and another assistant for woodwork. In tools on the workbench and forge, terms of metalworking, the blacksmith’s arranging iron stock and hardware inside helper proved to be particularly and outside the shop building, and he kept important. Blacksmiths had traditionally his coal either in a sack or wood box near sharpened hand-steels alone because the the forge. implements were relatively short, light, In the tradition of Western mining, and easily managed. But this was not the the primary function of shop laborers at case with machine drill-steels, which were substantial mines continued to be drill- made of heavy iron rods up to eight feet steel sharpening. But the mechanization in length, and blacksmiths quickly found of mining during this time period required them to be ungainly to handle.xxi the sooty blacksmiths to change their Before discussing the specific sharpening methods, as well as their processes blacksmiths employed for materials handling processes. The most sharpening machine drill-steels, it is significant changes came about as a result important to become familiar with the of the widespread embrace of basic forms commonly used by Western compressed-air powered rockdrills to mines prior to World War II. Simon bore blast-holes underground. While the Ingersoll and the Rand brothers machines proved to be a mixed blessing introduced the first commercial rock for their operators, generating silicosis- drilling machines in the early 1870s. causing rockdust and being backbreaking Termed by mining machinery makers the to handle, they were a boon for shop piston drill, the early rockdrills consisted workers. The noisy and greasy machines of a compressed air-powered piston in a produced volumes of dulled steels and tubular body, with a drill-steel chuck cast broken fittings. Contrary to today’s as part of the piston. As the piston popular misconceptions, rockdrills chugged back and forth at the rate of replaced hand-drilling wholesale in several hundred cycles per second, it Western mines by the late 1910s, and not repeatedly rammed a drill-steel against the

25 rock in a manner similar to a high-speed drills, Leyner’s drill employed a loose battering ram. When in operation the piston known as a hammer which cycled mechanical drill also imparted a spinning back and forth inside the drill and struck motion to the piston and drill-steel to the butt-end of the drill steel, which rested keep the hole round and prevent the steel loosely in the chuck. Like most rockdrill from wedging tight. makers, Leyner designed his drill for It may be apparent to the reader positive chuck rotation to make round that drill-steels used in conjunction with holes and to keep the drill-steel from the heavy machines were specialized jamming. Leyner patented the first implements that had to withstand marketable hammer drill in 1897 and tremendous forces. As early as the 1870s began producing an improved version in machine runners, also known as machine 1899.xxiii men, found that single-blade cutting bits During the 1900s and into the like those used for hand-drilling dulled 1910s Leyner’s drill began finding great quickly, impeded progress, and interfered favor with the hardrock mining industry. with the rotation imparted by the Time and again miners demonstrated that machine. The most effective bit proved to hammer drills bored holes faster than be a cruciform shape where two chisel piston drills, and miners found them easier blades crossed in dead center. This star to work with in terms of changing steels. bit better withstood the punishment of All the chuck tender had to do was give being rammed against rock, it cut faster, the dull drill-steel a twist to unlock it, and and was conducive to rotation. The butt twist in a fresh drill-steel; no longer did of rockdrill steels was round to fit into the miners have to deal with clumsy shackle drill chuck, and the steel was usually bolts. Leyner’s steels were made of 1¼ made from 1 to 1½ inch hexagonal steel inch round bar stock, and they featured rod stock.xxii star-shaped cutting bits like piston drill Many miners found that piston steels. A crew of two miners was drills had severe limitations and necessary to handle Leyner’s machine, inconveniences. For example, every time and it too had the drawback of running the chuck tender, the machine runner’s dry like the old piston drills. To this assistant, changed a dull steel for a fresh regard Leyner devised a hollow drill-steel one, he had to use a heavy wrench to which jetted water into the drill-hole unbolt the chuck shackle, trade steels, and while the drill was running, allaying rock refasten the nuts using tremendous dust. Leyner’s technology gradually strength. In addition, miners were ready caught on throughout the mining industry to admit that the monstrous piston drills until, by the mid-1910s, drill companies were exceedingly heavy, often weighing were curtailing the manufacture of piston between 200 and 350 pounds without drills in favor of the hammer drill. accessories, and their drilling speeds were During the time spanning 1897 to limited. George Leyner, Denver 1912, mechanical engineers introduced a machinist and former Colorado hardrock number of new types of rockdrills utilizing miner, invented a superior rockdrill in Leyner’s hammer principle. The first new 1893 that was based on a mechanical drill was the stoper, which was a light- simulation of double jacking. Instead of weight machine designed to bore holes repeatedly ramming the rock as did piston upward. The stoper’s main significance

26 lay in that it was the first self-contained from, the blacksmith had to confront the power drill portable and operable by one problem of sharpening the star cutting bit. man. Early stopers lacked a chuck As with hand steels, the blacksmith had to rotation mechanism, and as a result the place the machine steels in the forge to miners running them had to use a long heat them to the proper temperature. He handle that extended out of the machine’s simply laid short steels on the forge, but body to turn the unit side to side to keep he had to use either a special stand or a the drill-hole round. Miners and stoper long hook suspended from the building’s manufacturers found that the best type of roof rafters to support drill-steels in drill-steel proved to be cruciform in excess of three feet long. When the shape, which prevented the steel from blacksmith extracted a steel from the twisting and jamming in the machine. forge with the intent of dressing the bit, In 1912 Ingersoll-Rand, formed by he used a tool known as both a swage, the 1906 merger of the Rand and and as a dressing dolly, to resurface the Ingersoll companies, developed a star’s cutting edges. If the drill-steel revolutionary hammer drill for boring arrived in the shop with a chipped or down-holes. Known among miners cracked bit, the blacksmith upset the generically as a plugger, shaft sinker, and damaged portion by using a chisel to cut as simply a sinker, Ingersoll-Rand named it off, and he hammered out a new end its model the Jackhammer, which is the with enough flare to facilitate creation of origin of the slang name used today. The a star bit. The blacksmith also ensured machine consisted of a gracile hammer that he had centered the star, that the drill fitted with handles, and a mechanism blades were uniform in width, and that the for rotating the chuck. The relatively butt of the steel was smooth and small hand-held machine required a drill- symmetrical. After he had dressed the bit, steel lighter than those used with the the blacksmith filed imperfections out of larger Leyner hammer drill, and Ingersoll- the blades, followed by tempering and Rand and subsequent manufacturers hardening. All through this process the found that 7/8 inch hexagonal bar steel helper assisted the blacksmith when proved best. The butt of sinker steels was handling long steels.xxiv hexagonal and featured a collar that fit Some companies running medium- into a special hinged clamp. Like all of sized mines supplied their blacksmiths the other types of drills, miners used with an appliance known as a backing graduated sets of drill-steels in block to ease the difficulties of sharpening conjunction with the sinker machines. unwieldy machine drill-steels. Ordinarily, During the 1910s hammer drill technology the blacksmithing team had to act in close had mushroomed, and as a result drill concert when sharpening machine steels. manufacturers experimented with several The helper leaned the red-hot drill-steel alternative forms of drill-steels. against the anvil located adjacent to the Manufacturers settled on round, forge and braced it with both hands while hexagonal, and square varieties. By the blacksmith dressed the bit with a around 1930 they ceased production of dolly. However the propensity of the cruciform steel. steel to slide, sway, and move under the Regardless of the specific type of blacksmith’s blows, and the giving nature stock that a drill-steel had been made of the shop’s earthen floor presented

27 problems that often resulted in poor Machinery Company in San Francisco. sharpening. A backing block provided a The early drill-steel sharpeners, similar in sound platform for drill-steels, permitting appearance to large horizontal lathes, blacksmith teams to better dress bits in consisted of a cradle approximately eight less time. Backing blocks consisted of a feet long and a tall sharpening mechanism long rectangular bar of iron, often 4x4 which stood on several legs bolted to a inches in cross-section and up to 8 feet substantial foundation. A blacksmith long, divoted with 1½ inch diameter holes operated the sharpener by clamping a red- spaced every half foot. The iron bar was hot drill-steel into a small sliding carriage firmly anchored in the ground and it on the cradle, he pushed the steel under extended outward from the anvil block. the sharpening mechanism, and locked it To use it, the blacksmith’s helper placed in place. The shop worker threw a lever the butt of a red-hot drill-steel in one of that activated a modified piston drill fixed the block’s divots and leaned the steel’s onto the machine’s end, which hammered neck against the anvil to permit the the red-hot end of the dulled steel with a blacksmith to dress the bit. The backing special swage. Most of the early drill- block provided sound resistance to the steel sharpeners also featured a second blacksmith’s heavy blows while holding piston drill mounted overhead, which the drill-steel in place. Each divot in the used a special chisel bit to upset the dull backing block accommodated a different steel, should it have any significant length of drill-steel, from two foot starter- defects. steels to ten-foot finishing steels. These Manufacturers advertised their ingenious appliances began appearing sharpeners as streamlining the sharpening during the 1890s in the shops of medium- process while reducing costs. Drill-steel sized and large mines where rockdrills sharpeners were operable by one man, were used. Mining companies with they had the capacity to replace the sufficient capital purchased factory-made traditional crew of blacksmith and helper, cast-iron models, while penny pinching and with a change of dies they could have outfits engaged their shop workers to been used to sharpen hand-steels and pick forge their own from scrap iron such as tines. Even though the drill-steel salvaged railroad rail.xxv sharpeners cost in the hundreds of dollars In the first decade of the twentieth at turn-of-the-century prices, they proved century the largest of the Western mines, economical and grew in popularity. where up to hundreds of miners dulled Leading rockdrill makers, carloads of drill-steels per shift, attempted including the Sullivan Machinery to mechanize the sharpening process in Company of New Hampshire, the hopes of drastically increasing the Ingersoll-Rand Drill Company, and the efficiency of the harried shop crew. The Denver Rock Drill Company introduced well-financed mining companies competing units during the early 1910s purchased, seemingly on an experimental that had abandoned the lathe-like sliding basis, compressed air powered drill-steel track and large piston drill swages. The sharpening machines, which had just new drill-steel sharpeners instead featured been released onto the market by a heavy compressed air-powered clamp manufacturers such as T.H. Proske in capable holding drill-steels of any length, Denver and the Compressed Air and they had small, light hammer drills to

28 work the swages. In addition, backed by significant capital, were able to manufacturers supplied interchangeable afford the costs associated with building dies that permitted shop workers to highly mechanized and heavily equipped sharpen any of the varieties of drill-steel shops. Progressive mining engineers and types used in the West at that time. The shop superintendents suggested that shop net result of the changes in the form and facilities be arranged according to the function of drill-steel sharpeners was a stages drill-steels underwent during reduction in the amount of floor space sharpening. The bulk of the appliances, they occupied, from at least 10 by 2 feet according to the engineers, should have in area to between 5 by 2 feet and 2.5 by been in order of forge, drill-steel 2.5 feet. The labor saving machines sharpener, another forge for tempering, primarily made themselves of value to quenching tank, grinder, and finally mining outfits because they drastically finished drill-steel rack. Such an reduced the time required to sharpen dull arrangement of shop appliances required a drill-steels. They reduced the process to spacious building, at least 50 by 30 feet in less than one minute per steel, with the area, and particularly large shops included potential to retouch up to 1015 dull drill- multiple sharpening circuits. These shops steels in a nine hour shift. It stands as a were also equipped for heavy machine curious fact that many of these machines work, and in accordance they featured had been designed in Denver; Sullivan power appliances, a mine rail line running purchased the Imperial sharpener from through the interior, and one to several T.H. Proske, Ingersoll-Rand used a small boom derricks for moving heavy design manufactured by George Leyner, items.xxvii and the Denver Rock Drill Company Mining engineers and shop produced the third machine.xxvi superintendents at large mining operations The reduction of size and price of also installed power hammers to permit a the new drill-steel sharpeners, and their single blacksmith to do some types of ease of use made them attractive to a fabrication work that usually required a broad spectrum of medium-sized and team of two. Shop superintendents large mines. Both moderate and well- overseeing the best mines in the West financed mining companies with an installed factory-made steam or expectation of longevity installed the compressed air-powered models, which improved drill-steel sharpeners with consisted of a heavy plate iron table fixed increased frequency through the 1910s. to the top of a cast iron pedestal, and a Most small mining companies with limited piston hammer that pounded items with funds, on the other hand, did not purchase tremendous force. These hammers were drill-steel sharpeners because such outfits expensive to purchase and transport, they lacked available capital, their miners were occupied the same area as a drill-steel unlikely to generate enough dull steels to sharpener, and they weighed several tons. justify the expense, and they did not Many engineers, especially seasoned self- possess adequate air compressors. made individuals, were unwilling to spend Instead, they relied on traditional forge the considerable quantities of capital sharpening methods. required to install expensive factory-made Particularly large and highly hammers, yet they recognized the profitable mining companies, usually usefulness of such a power appliance.

29

Mine Ventilation

The use of explosives for blasting, and ingenious, most prospecting outfits open flame lights, and the respiration of declined to take the trouble of setting it laboring miners turned the atmosphere in up.xxix underground workings into an intolerably Some Western prospecting stifling and even poisonous environment. operations were adamant about providing Ventilating mine workings was not an adequate ventilation, and they used easy proposition, but it was necessary. primitive mechanical systems. These Many mining outfits completely ignored outfits installed large forge bellows’ and the problem until the workings attained small hand-turned blowers at the mouths significant length, and even then efforts of adits, and used stovepipes or canvas were feeble at best. Mining engineers tubing to duct the air into the workings. approached the ventilation problem by Bellows’ effectively ventilated shallow relying on one or a combination of two workings, but they lacked the pressure to basic systems. The first, passive clear gases out of relatively deep adits and ventilation, relied on natural air currents shafts. Hand-turned blowers cost more to remove foul air, but it proved marginal money and took greater effort to pack to to ineffective in dead-end workings. a prospect operation, but they forced foul Mechanically assisted systems, the air much more surely from workings. second, were expensive and intended for The simple windsocks and hand- production-class plants. As a result they turned mechanical blowers that had were rarely used at prospect adits. worked for prospect operations were not Necessity being the mother of effective for the workings comprising invention, prospecting outfits employed medium-sized and large mines. Mining several variations of ventilation systems engineers applied several better methods that cleverly combined passive and for providing the miners with fresh air. mechanical means. One of the simplest One of the most popular systems involved semi-mechanical ventilation systems relying on passive ventilation, which consisted of a canvas windsock fastened required an incast air current balanced by to a wooden pole. The windsock an outcast current laden with the bad air. collected air wafted by breezes and Multiple mine openings proved to be the directed it through either canvas tubing or most effective means of achieving a stovepipes into the underground flushing current, and temperature and workings. The obvious drawback to the pressure differentials acted as the driving system was poor performance on calm forces that moved the air.xxx days, forcing miners to work in In most busy mining districts suffocating gases. Prospecting outfits where operations were spaced close employed another semi-mechanical together, such as at Creede, mining system in which they linked the air intake companies ordinarily at odds with one on a stove or furnace to tubing ducted another cooperated in terms of ventilation into the workings. A surface worker and linked their workings together to stoked a fire in the stove, which drew foul attain multiple openings. But at isolated air out of the underground through the operations with no neighbors this was not ducting. While this system was simple an option, and instead some mining

34 engineers put drilling and blasting crews the shortest path through the mine. To to work driving air shafts upward from address this problem, miners installed air- deep within the underground workings. control doors at strategic intersections Such shafts both improved the air flow within the mine, and at the adit portal. through the mine, and they served as Miners customarily made the doors with secondary entrances for efficient boards, they hinged them to vernacular movement of miners and materials into jambs, and they filled the gaps with the upper levels. When an adit had been custom-cut lumber, rags, and burlap. linked to a shaft, the temperature Opening and closing specific doors had differential between the mine’s interior the effect of routing the air current environment and the surface conditions through the desired portion of the mine, became the greatest mover of air. During expelling foul gases. Many large the warm months of summer the relatively abandoned mines in the West existing heavy cool, humid mine air flowed out of today still feature air-control doors inside, the adit, drawing fresh air down the shaft, as well as fastened to the portals of adits and during the frigid winter geothermally and the collars of shafts. Generally the heated air rose up the shaft and drew visitor to a mine site can interpret such fresh air in through the adit. Many evidence to mean the mine possessed professionally trained mining engineers voluminous and complex underground felt that natural ventilation had a limited workings, and probably more than two effect because the incast and outcast openings. currents changed direction through the Out of laziness, ignorance, or mine seasonally, they fluctuated with the economic necessity some mining weather, and they rarely reached the engineers claimed that the continuous dead-end workings where miners spent flow of air emitted by one or two most of their time.xxxi rockdrills run by miners provided Mechanical ventilation, on the sufficient ventilation. While this may have other hand, was more effective, but also it been true for short tunnels and drifts, this was much more expensive. At large method proved inadequate in long mines where underground work generated tunnels, which filled with unbreathable a considerable volume of foul air, using and poisonous gases following the end-of- mechanical ventilation to permanently shift blast. The exhaust from drills was direct the outcast current through a inadequate in volume, and it was often secondary opening was important. The tainted with oil vapors. flow of concentrated gases could have One of the most popular and rendered main haulage ways, such as genuinely effective approaches for Creede’s Nelson, Commodor, and ventilating deep tunnels in the West, when Bachelor tunnels, intolerable for man and natural ventilation was impractical, lay in beast. employing power-driven fans and Many mines featuring three or blowers. Mining machinery more openings to ground surface, be they manufacturers offered engineers three shafts or stopes where miners had basic varieties of blowers in a multitude of followed the ore to daylight, had sizes. Engineers had termed the first inconsistent ventilation. Air currents design, which dates back to the Comstock short-circuited work areas by following era, the centrifugal fan, and miners knew

35 it as the squirrel cage fan. This machine three motive sources mentioned turned consisted of a ring of vanes fixed to a fans via canvas belting. central axle, much like a steam boat Miners’ need for fresh air paddle wheel. The fan, turning at a high underground was one factor in hardrock speed, drew air in through an opening work that remained unchanged when around the axle and blew it through a port mining revived in Creede and elsewhere extending out of the shroud. during the Great Depression. The nature Manufacturers produced centrifugal fans of the ventilation systems mining in sizes ranging from one to over ten feet companies erected to supply their miners in diameter. The small units were with fresh air during the 1930s bore great employed for both mining and a variety of resemblance to the systems used by other purposes such as ventilating mining companies in decades past. One industrial structures, and the largest units difference between the new and the older were rarely used in the Western mines, mining operations, however, was that the being employed principally to force foul use of fans for blowing air into dead-end air and explosive gases out of large coal workings had greatly increased. mines in the East and Midwest. The exact name engineers gave to a centrifugal fan was a function of the direction the outflow port faced, for example a fan with a port that pointed upward was a top discharge fan, and a unit with a port pointing to the tunnel portal was a front discharge fan. The second type of fan engineers commonly employed to ventilate tunnels also acted on centrifugal principles, but it consisted of a narrow ring of long vanes encased within a curvaceous cast iron housing. The propeller fan, the third type of blower, was similar to modern household fans, and they too were enclosed in shrouds. Mining engineers made use of the Figure 4.10 The drawing illustrates a centrifugal blower with a direct-drive electric motor. most cost-effective power source International Textbook Company, 1899 A41 available in the mining district to drive p146. ventilation fans. Until around 1910, the most common power source that mining companies relied on during the Gilded Age consisted of an upright steam engine. But as the twentieth century unfolded, steam saw heavy competition from electricity in well-developed mining districts such as Creede, and from gas engines in remote regions. Each of the

36 Regardless, during the 1930s inside of mine workings also afforded mining companies and partnerships ventilation at little cost.xxxii attempted to make-do with natural The method of sending the fresh ventilation when at all possible, because air into the mine through heavy the cost of inducing natural air currents galvanized ducting had changed little from cost little. To the relief of mining the Gilded Age practices. Depression-era companies rehabilitating abandoned mines miners usually hung the tube work with in districts with developed mines, such as bailing wires fastened onto wedges driven Creede, the nineteenth century operations into the tunnel ceiling, or lashed it to shaft had made the necessary underground timbers. Mining outfits with access to connections with neighboring properties, only modest capital found it economical which had the effect of creating natural air to salvage ducting that was even remotely currents. All the Depression-era serviceable from neighboring abandoned operation need do to maintain the natural mines. Miners attempted to hammer air circulation was ensure that the drifts dents out of the tubing and seal holes and and crosscuts interlinking neighboring joints with metal sleeves, burlap, canvas, mines remained open. and tar. As a result the mechanized Mining engineers during the ventilation systems installed by Gilded Age and into the Great Depression moderately sized Depression-era mining continued the practice of installing the fan outfits appeared rough and were not as immediately outside of the adit portal or efficient as they could have been, but they shaft collar. Many of the fans used in performed their necessary duty. The conjunction with tunnels were belt-driven evidence remaining from a mechanical by a motor and had been anchored to ventilation system that today’s visitor to a portland concrete foundations with four Depression-era mine site is likely to bolts. During this time mining engineers encounter consists of an artifact and found that using portable fans placed foundation assemblage similar to the materials left by pre-1910s operations.

37 The Surface Plants for Shafts

The surface plants that miners system shared fundamental relationships erected to support work in shafts with each other, and they interfaced with incorporated many of the same the other facilities comprising the surface components as those associated with adit plant. For example, the type of hoist an mines. Due to the vertical nature of engineer selected influenced the type of shafts, the surface plant had to necessarily headframe, the power source, and the included a hoisting system, which transportation system he subsequently permitted the movement of miners and installed. Yet, the greatest factors that materials in and out of the shaft. The type overshadowed the types of plant facilities of system that a mining operation selected an engineer installed included the financial proved to be important because it both state of the mining company, the governed the quantity of rock extracted operation’s physical accessibility, and the during a given shift, and depth at which quantity of proven ore. The following the company could have worked. Typical section discusses the variety of the hoisting systems installed by Western hoisting systems available to mining prospect operations consisted of a hoist, a companies at Creede, as well as headframe, a power source, and a hoisting elsewhere, during the Gilded Age and into vehicle. The components of a hoisting the Great Depression. ______

Shaft Form and Hoisting Vehicles

Experienced prospectors and for several reasons. First, such shafts mining engineers recognized that crude were cheaper to sink and easier to timber prospect shafts were inadequate for than circular ones. Second, Western anything other than a cursory examination miners inherited the rectangular form of the geology underground. In instances through the diffusion of traditional mining where a prospecting outfit strongly practices from Cornwall.xxxiii suspected or had confirmed the existence When Creede experienced its of ore, they sank a better, more formal boom, mining engineers understood that shaft that was conducive to deep the size of a shaft directly influenced a exploration and even, the outfit hoped, mine’s level of production. Small shafts ore production. Between the 1880s and limited the quantity of ore that could have 1920s mining engineers were critical been hauled out per vehicle trip, and large toward distinguishing between temporary shafts facilitated economies of scale. shafts and production-class shafts. Mining in Michigan, California, and on The preference among prospectors the Comstock during the 1860s had set a and engineers for a rectangular shape to precedent in which companies working in the shaft remained unchanged throughout vertical shafts aspired to install steam- the Gilded Age. The rectangular shape powered hoisting systems that utilized a was standard among mining companies cage as the hoisting vehicle. The cage

38 influenced mining engineers’ definitions of a utility compartment. Further, mining production-class and temporary shafts. engineers in the West had recognized the A mining industry institution for utility of balanced hoisting. The use of over 100 years, the cage consisted of a one hoisting vehicle to raise ore had steel frame fitted with flooring for crews become known as unbalanced hoisting, of miners coming and going on and off and while this system was very inefficient shift, and rails to accommodate an ore in terms of production capacity and car. Nearly all cages used in the West energy consumption, was the least costly featured a stout cable attachment at top, a to install. Balanced hoisting relied on the bonnet to fend off falling debris, and steel use of two shaft vehicles counterweighing guides which ran on special fine-grained each other, so that as one vehicle rose the 4x4 inch hardwood rails. After a number other descended. The use of two hoisting of grizzly accidents in which hoist cables vehicles required a shaft featuring two parted, mining machinery makers began hoisting compartments, and it necessitated installing special safety-dogs on cages a double-drum hoist, which constituted a designed to stop an undesired descent. considerable expense. But the hoist only Usually the dogs consisted of toothed had to do the work of lifting the ore, and cams that were controlled by springs kept as a result this system was energy efficient taught by the weight of the suspended and provided long-term savings. Wealthy cage. If the cable broke, the springs mines anticipating production over an retracted, closing the cams onto the wood extended period of time spared the rails. expense to install a balanced system. By Cages proved to be highly the 1890s mining engineers had spelled economical because mining companies did out the classifications of shaft sizes, not have to spend time transferring ore configurations, and interior structures. and waste rock between various vehicles. They insisted that all deep prospecting A miner or trammer merely had to push and production-class shafts consist of at on an ore car filled at some distant point least one hoisting compartment and a in the mine, and another worker retrieved utility compartment, and feature timbering it at the surface. But cages presented to support the cage guide rails. Further, mining companies with several mining engineers defined production-class drawbacks. One of the biggest problems shafts as needing to have a hoisting lay in drilling and blasting a shaft that not compartment that was at a minimum 4 by only possessed enough space in-the-clear 4 feet in-the-clear. By the late nineteenth to make way for the cage, but one that century the definition expanded as a result was large enough to accommodate the of the introduction of larger cages. timbering that anchored the guide rails. Mining engineers felt that a 4 by 5 foot By the time mining companies hoisting compartment was better suited began extracting ore at Creede, engineers for ore production, and 5 by 7 feet was established a standard for the composition best, because it permitted the movement of production-class shafts. The of larger ore cars and machines.xxxiv convention followed by mining companies Western mines used three other consisted of dividing production-class types of hoisting vehicles during the shafts into a combination of hoisting Gilded Age, in addition to the cage. The compartment and manway, also known as first was the old-fashioned ore bucket, the

39 second was the ore bucket and crosshead, swinging and catching on the shaft walls, and the last was the skip. The ore bucket emptying its contents onto the miners that had endeared itself to the Western below, some mining companies installed a mining industry became known as a hybrid hoist vehicle that consisted of an sinking bucket because its shape and ore bucket suspended from a frame that features were well suited for the primitive ran on the same types of guide rails as conditions typical of mines under cages. The frame, known as a crosshead, development. Sinking buckets consisted held the ore bucket steady and provided of a body with convex sides that miners with a platform to stand on, albeit prevented the rim from catching on dubious, during their ascents and descents obstructions such as timbers, and in the shaft. The advantage of using a permitted the vessel to be able to glance crosshead was that miners working off the shaft walls while being raised. underground were able to switch empty Manufacturers forged a loop into the bail buckets with full ones, and the system to hold the hoist cable on center, and the could have been easily adapted to a cage bottom of the bucket featured a ring so or skip at a later point. Many small, the vessel could have been upended once poorly financed, and marginally it had reached the surface. Most sinking productive mining companies in remote buckets were far too heavy for use with locations favored this type of hoisting hand-windlasses, and prospectors instead vehicle. relied on small pail-shaped buckets known Cornish mining engineers had as kibbles. Some mining companies, developed the skip for haulage in the engaged in minor production after 1900, inclined shafts of Michigan copper mines continued the ages-old practice of using during the 1840s and 1850s. The typical ore buckets instead of cages, and some skip consisted of a large iron box on employed a straight-sided variant known wheels that ran on a mine rail line. Skips as the Joplin Bucket, named for its had little deadweight, they held much ore prevalence in the lead and zinc mines near or waste rock, and because they ran on Joplin, Missouri. To expedite the rails they could have been raised quickly. production of rock while continuing to They were also easy to fill and empty. use ore buckets as their principal hoist The hoistman on the surface lowered the vehicle, mining companies discovered that skip to a shaft station underground that the vessels could have been easily featured either an ore bin with a chute or mobilized underground when unhooked a loading platform where a miner dumped from the hoist cable and placed on rock directly into the vehicle from an ore flatcars. While ore buckets did not have car. The hoistman then put on steam and the same compartment restrictions as raised the skip into the headframe where skips and cages, most outfits in the West it was automatically upset, and belched followed the conventions of shaft sizes forth its contents. Skips were similar in and configurations recommended by size to cages and they ran in shafts mining engineers. approximately the same in area. Mining companies engaged in During the 1890s mining deep shaft sinking took great risks when engineers began to recognize the skip as they attempted to use free-swinging ore being superior to the cage for ore buckets. To prevent the bucket from production in vertical shafts. Skips were

40 lighter than cages because they did not choice for productive mines, and they have the combined dead weight of the relegated ore buckets strictly to a status vehicle and an ore car, and the reduced of shaft sinking and minor ore production. weight resulted in energy savings. Skips Cages and skips permitted hoisting speeds also offered the benefit of being quickly far and above what was possible with filled and emptied, resulting in a rapid free-swinging ore buckets, from 300 to turnover of rock. Shortly after the turn- 400 feet per minute up to 3,000 feet per of-the-century, large Western mining minute in deep shafts, and with them companies began replacing cages with mining companies hauled great tonnages skips for use in vertical shafts. The of rock from the underground. Miners change over proceeded slowly through were able to rapidly load cages and skips, the 1900s, it accelerated rapidly during while they had to hand-shovel rock into the 1910s, and by the 1930s most large ore buckets. Despite the advantages and many medium-sized Western mines offered by cages and skips, small and used skips. Of course, mining companies poorly financed mining companies were able to switch skips and cages at the continued to use relatively inexpensive shaft collar when necessary by unhooking ore buckets into the 1930s because they the hoist cable and pulling the vehicle off did not require expensive guide rails and of the guide rails. support timbering constructed the length Mining engineers recognized that of a shaft. cages and skips were the vehicles of

41 hand windlass was the simplest form of with horse whims, according to mining sinking-class hoist, and prospectors used engineers, was that they had a load it for shallow work. The windlass was an capacity of around 800 pounds, a depth ages-old manually powered winch limitation of 300 feet, and a painfully slow consisting of a spool made from a lathed hoisting speed of 50 to 80 feet per log, fitted with crank handles, and its minute. However, they were ideally working depth was limited to suited for work at remote locations approximately 100 feet. Prospectors because they were light and could have sinking inclined shafts had the option of been transported on mule-back, they were using what mining engineers termed a easily disassembled, and inexpensive. geared windlass or crab winch, which Horizontal reel whims weighed between offered a greater pulling power and depth 600 and 800 pounds and cost as little as capacity. Geared windlasses cost much $150, while geared whims weighed twice less than other types of mechanical hoists, as much and cost a little more. The draft and they were small and light enough to animal that labored in the harness be packed into the backcountry. The constituted what we know in the late winch was not easily used at vertical twentieth century as a renewable energy shafts, however, because the rope spool source, requiring only local feed and and hand-crank fitted onto a frame which water. Because of these factors, whims had to be anchored onto a well-built fit a special niche among poorly financed timber structure.xxxv Western prospect operations, including Prospect operations often worked those at Creede, into the 1910s.xxxvi at depths greater than the limitations Mining companies and prospect presented by windlasses, and they had to outfits could select from several varieties install a more advanced hoisting system to of horse whims. The simplest and oldest permit work. The horse whim proved to version, christened by Hispanic miners as be a favorite in the mining West, because the malacate (mal-a-ca-tay), consisted of it was relatively inexpensive to purchase, a horizontal wooden drum or reel directly operating costs were low, it was portable, turned by a draft animal. Early malacates and it was simple to install. Through the featured a wooden cable drum, a stout 1860s the Western mining industry iron axle, and bearings fastened onto both accepted the horse whim as being state- an overhead beam and to a timber of-the-art hoisting technology for both foundation. prospecting and ore production. But by the 1870s practical steam hoists were finally coming of age, and the status the mining industry had accorded to horse whims began a downward slide. By around 1880 medium-sized and large Western mining operations had fully embraced steam hoists, and mining engineers felt that horse whims were well- suited for backcountry prospecting, but they were too slow and limited in lifting power for ore production. The problem

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Prospectors usually positioned the drum timber foundation buried in waste so that it rotated in a shallow pit that they rock.xxxviii lined with either rockwork or wood In keeping with the themes of planking. The cable extended from the impermanence and limited budgets drum through a shallow trench toward the common to prospecting during the Gilded shaft. It passed through a pulley bolted to Age, mining operations erected small and the foot of the headframe, then up and simple headframes in conjunction with over the sheave at the headframe’s top. horse whims. Prospectors favored using The draft animal walked around the whim either a tripod, tetrapod, or a small four- on a prepared track, and the party of post derrick that was just wide enough to prospectors usually laid a plank over the straddle the shaft. The primary stresses cable trench for the animal to walk across. these headframes had to contend with The controls for the malacate consisted of were vertical, consisting of the combined brake and clutch levers mounted to the weight of the loaded hoisting vehicle and shaft collar, and they were connected to the cable paid down the shaft. The lack the apparatus by wood or iron linkages of other stresses permitted prospect that passed through the trench.xxxvii operations to erect structures that were Mining machinery makers offered simple and unique to horse whims. The factory-made horse whims which were headframes were made of light-duty sturdier and performed better than the materials, and they did not need hand-made units used by impoverished backbraces, a firm foundation, and other miners. The Risdon Iron Works in San structural elements necessary for power Francisco began manufacturing a variety hoisting. Further, prospectors often used sold as the “Common Sense Horse hewn logs up to 25 feet long that they cut Whim”. Similar in form to the malacate, at little cost. Risdon’s machine consisted of a spoked Prospect operations working in iron cable reel mounted on a timber deep shafts began to use steam hoists in foundation that miners had embedded in large numbers by around 1880. These the ground. These horizontal reel horse systems were beyond the financial means whims remained popular among poorly of simple, poorly financed partnerships, funded prospect operations into the nor were they easy to transport deep into 1900s. The geared horse whim appeared the backcountry. Steam hoists and their in the West during the 1880s and it associated boilers required capital, and at remained popular among prospect least several men among the crew had to operations into the 1900s. The machine have knowledge of how to install and consisted of a cable drum mounted operate such machinery. Deep prospect vertically onto a timber frame, a beveled operations equipped with mechanical gear connected to the draft animal’s hoists usually fell under the auspices of harness beam. Geared horse whims were organized mining companies. supposedly faster and could lift more than Steam hoisting systems required a horizontal reel models. They also relatively substantive infrastructure. They featured controls and cable arrangements consisted of a heavy hoist and boiler, like the other types of whims, and the cable, pipes, a headframe, and drum and gearing was bolted onto a foundations. Because of the numerous

45 heavy components, the steam system had bedplates smaller than 6 by 6 feet in area to be planned, engineered, and the claim and were driven either by gearing or by a made ready with a road. The mining friction drive mechanism. A friction- company had to provide a reliable source drive consisted of rubber rollers which of soft water and a source of fuel for the pressed against the hoist’s drum flanges, boiler. Investors and company and while these systems cost less than management expected deep prospect geared hoists, they were slow and apt to operations to work year ‘round until they slip under load. Both types of hoists had found ore or until the money ran out, limited strength, which was often less than necessitating the construction of a shaft 40 horsepower, a slow speed of 350 feet house to fend off the elements. per minute, and a payload of only several Prospect operations throughout tons. Professionally educated engineers the West active after around 1880 defined such hoists as meeting the criteria typically used geared single-drum duplex for sinking-class mine machinery and not steam hoists, known simply as single for ore production, which applied well drum steam hoists. These hoists became into the twentieth century.xxxix the ubiquitous Gilded Age workhorse for A significant number of deep shaft mining. Single drum steam hoists prospect operations in the West fell into consisted of a cable drum, two steam an awkward niche where horse whims cylinders flanking the drum, reduction were inadequate, but the outfit could not, gears, a clutch, a brake mechanism, and a or would not, come up with the capital throttle. The steam pistons chuffed away necessary to install a conventional like a railroad engine and turned the drum stationary steam hoist and boiler. During through the gearing. Single-drum hoists the late 1870s machinery manufacturers featured durable and simple controls, and introduced a revolutionary type of they were easy to use. All hoists had a hoisting system that met the needs of clutch that uncoupled the drum from the these small operations. The steam donkey drive shaft, and they also had a reverse hoist, so named for its broad utility, link that permitted the engine to run consisted of either a small single cylinder backward. The reverse lever moved a rod or duplex steam hoist and an upright that switched the positions of the exhaust boiler mounted onto a common wood or and steam valves, closing one if it had steel frame. While donkey hoists were been open and opening the other if it had not manufactured exclusively for mining, been closed. While the reverse link being used for logging and in freight proved invaluable for slowing the hoist yards, they endeared themselves to and vehicle during long descents in deep Western prospect operations. The shafts, hoists also featured a mandatory durable machines withstood mistreatment, brake. they were relatively inexpensive, they did Mining engineers selected the not require much site preparation, and specific model and size of hoist primarily they could literally drag themselves according to the budget granted by the around the landscape. In addition, company, and secondary on the speed and donkey hoists did not require a deep depth he anticipated working. Nearly all understanding of engineering, and nearly of the sinking-class hoists that engineers anyone on the payroll of a mining selected for deep prospecting had company could have operated one.

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Table 4.2: General Hoist Specifications: Type, Duty, Foundation

Hoist Type Hoist Class Foundation Foundation Foundation Foundation Size Footprint Profile Material Hand Windlass Shallow Rectangular Wood frame over Timber Sinking shaft Hand Winch Shallow 3x3 ft. Square or Flat Timber Sinking Rectangular Horse Whim: Malacate Shallow 7 to 10 ft. Ovoid Cable Reel Axle Timber Sinking Diameter Depression Located in Pit Horse Whim: Sinking 4x4 ft. Rectangular Timber Footers in Timber Horizontal Reel Depression Horse Whim: Geared Sinking 4x4 ft. Rectangular Timber Footers in Timber Depression Steam Donkey Sinking Portable Rectangular None None Gasoline Donkey Sinking Portable Rectangular None None Single Drum Gasoline Sinking 2.5x8 ft. to Rectangular Flat Timber or 4x14.5 ft. Concrete Single Drum Gasoline Sinking 2.5x8 ft. to T-Shaped Flat Timber or 4x14.5 ft. Concrete Single Drum Geared to Sinking 3x8 ft. to L-Shaped Flat Timber or Gasoline Engine 8x14.5 ft. Concrete Single Drum Steam Sinking 6x6 ft. and Rectangular Flat Timber or Smaller Concrete Single Drum Steam Light 6x6 ft. to Square or Flat Concrete or Production 7.5x10 ft. Rectangular Masonry Single Drum Steam Moderate 7.5x10 ft. Rectangular Irregular Concrete or Production and Larger Masonry Double Drum Steam Moderate 4x7 ft. to Rectangular Irregular Concrete or Production 7x12 ft. Masonry Double Drum Steam Heavy 7x12 ft. and Rectangular Irregular Concrete and Production Larger. Masonry Single Drum Geared Sinking 5x6 ft. and Square or Flat Concrete Electric Smaller Rectangular Single Drum Geared Production 6x6 ft. and Square or Flat Concrete Electric Larger Rectangular Single Drum Direct Production 5x6 ft. and Square or Flat Concrete Drive Electric Larger Rectangular Double Drum Geared Heavy 6x12 ft. Rectangular Irregular Concrete Electric Production Double Drum Direct Heavy 6x12 ft. Rectangular Irregular Concrete Drive Electric Production (Copied from Twitty, 1999, p291).

Mining engineers recognized that the shaft and placed the donkey hoist on donkey hoists strictly met sinking-class it. Usually the shear weight of the specifications because of their limited machine was enough to keep it in place performances. The machines possessed during operation, but in many cases slow hoisting speeds, the boilers offered prospect operations staked down the rear poor fuel economy, and the hoists had as a safety precaution. Like all steam limitations of up to an 8,000 pound hoists, donkey hoists required sources of payload and a 1,000 foot working depth. fuel and water.xl Preparing a donkey hoist for use was Prospect operations seeking riches extremely easy once it had been brought deep in the backcountry reluctantly spent to the prospect shaft. A crew of laborers the capital required to install steam graded a platform a short distance from equipment. The problems they faced

48 were twofold. Not only did these duty, and total acceptance took operations have to ship and erect the approximately fifteen years.xli hoisting system, but they also had to The petroleum hoists seen among continuously feed it fuel and water, which Western prospect operations were similar proved costly. In the early 1890s the in form to the old-fashioned and well- Witte Iron Works Company and the loved steam donkey hoists. The engine, a Weber Gas & Gasoline Engine Company large single cylinder oriented either both began experimenting with a new vertically or horizontally, had been fixed hoisting technology that alleviated many to the rear of a heavy cast iron frame and of the fuel and water issues faced by its piston rod connected to a heavy remote prospect operations. Witte and crankshaft located in the frame’s center. Weber both introduced the first practical Manufacturers located the cable drum, petroleum engine hoists. These turned by reduction gearing, at front, and innovative machines were smaller than the hoistman stood to one side and many steam models, they required no operated brake and clutch levers, and the boilers, and their concentrated liquid fuel throttle. Because the early petroleum was by far easier to transport than wood engines were incapable of starting and or coal. stopping under load or of being reversed, Despite their potential advantages, they had to run continuously, requiring Western mining companies did not the hoistman to delicately work the clutch immediately embrace petroleum hoists. when hoisting, and disengage the drum Steam technology, the workhorse of the and lower the ore bucket via the brake. Industrial Revolution, held convention in Miners truly placed their lives on the line the mining industry through all but the last when riding an ore bucket controlled by a few years of the nineteenth century for petroleum hoist. several reasons. First, many mining Western prospect operations companies and practicing mining began showing interest in petroleum engineers were by nature conservative, hoists during the late 1890s because the and out of familiarity they stayed the small sizes and light weights of the course with steam into the 1910s. machines made the apparatuses easy to Second, during this time petroleum engine ship. Equally important, petroleum fuel technology was relatively new and had cost much less to pack to a prospect site not seen widespread application, than coal or wood, and the purchase especially for hoisting. The few prices of the hoists were modest. By the operations to employ petroleum hoists 1900s professionally trained mining during the 1890s found the engines to be engineers granted the hoists recognition cantankerous and that their performances for the ability to play an effective role in were limited. Further, petroleum hoists deep prospecting at remote sites. But were slow, possessing speeds of 300 to their means of operation bothered some 400 feet per minute, they could not raise mining engineers, such as the famous much more than 4,500 pounds, and their Herbert C. Hoover: working depth was limited to less than 1,000 feet. For these reasons “Gasoline hoists have a professionally educated mining engineers distinct place in felt they were barely adequate for sinking prospecting and early-

49 stage mining, especially in among remote prospect operations in the desert countries where Great Basin and Southwest, but in areas transport and fuel where cord wood or coal was plentiful, conditions are onerous, for such as Creede, the transition was slower. both the machines and Steam technology maintained their fuel are easy of supremacy among Western mines for transport. As direct gas- production-class hoisting systems until engines entail constant gasoline and electric power superceded it motion of the engine at the in the early 1920s. During this time power demand of the peak period mining machinery makers such as load, they are hopeless in Allis-Chalmers, the Lidgerwood mechanical efficiency.” Manufacturing Company, the Lambert (34) Hoisting Engine Company, Hendrie & Bolthoff, the Union Iron Works, and the Despite running at full throttle much of Ottumwa Iron Works offered steam hoists the day, many early petroleum hoists in a wide array of sizes. These consumed at most 10 gallons of gasoline, manufacturers also offered hoists diesel, or kerosene per ten hour shift, equipped with either first-motion or which cost a total of approximately $2.00 second motion drive trains. First-motion in turn-of-the-century dollars. By drive, also known among mining comparison, a cord of wood, typically engineers as direct-drive, meant that the consumed by a sinking class steam steam engine drive rods were coupled hoisting system during a shift, also cost directly onto the cable drum shaft, much around $2.00 where cut, but then it had to like the way the drive rods were directly be shipped to the prospect site, raising the pinned onto a steam locomotive’s wheels. total cost to as much as $10. Some Second motion drive, also commonly prospect operations under the guidance of known as a geared-drive, consisted of clever engineers put the constant running reduction gearing like the sinking-class of petroleum hoists to efficient use by hoists discussed above. adding a pulley to the flywheel, which The difference in the driving then powered air compressors and shop mechanisms was significant in both appliances via canvas belting. This at performance and cost, and each served a least partially negated Hoover’s criticism distinct function in Western mining. of the inefficiencies of petroleum hoists.xlii Gearing offered great mechanical The Western mining industry did advantage, which permitted the use of not begin to truly embrace petroleum relatively small steam cylinders. The hoists for deep prospecting, let alone arrangement of the gear shafting and minor ore production, until the late 1900s. cylinders on a common bedplate By the 1910s gas engine technology had permitted the hoist’s footprint to be improved and hoistmen understood how compact. First-motion hoists, on the to operate the machines without stalling other hand, required that the cable drum them, and even to work the throttle to be mounted at the ends of large dual maximize efficiency. Petroleum hoists steam cylinders so that the drive rods had made such an impact by this time that could gain leverage. Where the footprint steam hoists were becoming obsolete of geared hoists was almost square, the

50 footprint of first-motion hoists was that of bearings, a well for the drum, and anchor an elongated rectangle with the long axis bolts in masonry between the pylons for oriented toward the shaft. First-motion the brake posts. The hoist pieces then hoists were intended by manufacturers to had to be brought over, maneuvered into serve as high-quality production-class place, and simultaneously assembled. machines designed to save money only Mining engineers chose specific over protracted and constant use, while hoists based on the power delivered by geared hoists were intended to be the engine, which had a proportional inexpensive and meet the short term needs relationship with the hoist’s overall size. of small, modestly capitalized mines. Geared hoists smaller than 6 by 6 feet First-motion hoists were stronger, faster, were usually made for deep exploration and more fuel-efficient than geared and delivered less than 50 horsepower. models. The large size, necessity of using Hoists between 7 by 7 feet and 9 by 9 feet high-quality steel to withstand were for minor ore production and tremendous mechanical forces, and the offered 75 to 100 horsepower. Hoists 10 fine engines made the purchase price of by 10 feet to 11 by 11 feet were for first-motion hoists three to four times that moderate to heavy production and of geared hoists, the latter costing from generated up to 150 horsepower, and approximately $1,000 to $3,000 for light larger units were exclusively for heavy to heavy production-class models. First- production. Mining engineers rarely motion hoists had a speed of 1,500 to installed geared hoists larger than 12 by 3,000 feet per minute, compared with 500 12 feet, because for a little more money to 700 feet per minute for geared hoists. they could have obtained an efficient first- These hoisting speeds reflect the ability of motion hoist.xliv first-motion hoists to work in shafts with Regardless of the nature of the depths well into the thousands of feet. drive mechanism, single drum geared and Geared hoists usually relied on old- direct-drive hoists were restricted to fashioned but durable slide valves to serving a shaft with a single hoisting admit steam into and release exhaust from compartment, which had inherent the cylinders, while first-motion hoists inefficiencies. Double-drum hoists, on the usually were equipped with corliss valves other hand, offered greater economical for the engine, which were initially more performance because they increased the expensive but consumed half the fuel.xliii tonnages of rock produced while saving Not only were the costs of energy costs. They achieved this through purchasing first-motion hoists high, the a balanced hoisting system, which expenses associated with their installation required two hoisting vehicles. As the were exorbitant. Because geared hoists hoist raised one vehicle, the other were self-contained on a common descended down the shaft in a balanced bedplate, the surface crew at a mine fashion. Not only did the hoist only have merely had to build a small foundation to do the work of raising the ore and not with anchor bolts projecting out of a flat the deadweight of the hoisting vehicle, surface, and drop the hoist into place. thus saving energy, but also two vehicles First-motion hoists, on the other hand, raised more rock than one. However, required raised masonry pylons for the double drum hoists possessed several steam cylinders, pylons for the cable drum drawbacks that limited their appeal to

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high expectations would not tolerate. The steam assist cylinders that powered the ultimate answer for raising the maximum clutches and brakes, as well as the brake quantity of ore in minimal time was the posts, control linkages, and the main hoist installation of a double-drum first-motion parts all had to be perfectly mounted onto hoist. The extreme difficulty and bolts set in masonry pylons placed at exorbitant costs of transporting and exact heights and locations. Because installing these massive machines these powerful machines were highly relegated them to only the most heavily specialized and their installation required capitalized mining companies with highly precision work, manufacturers such as productive operations in well-developed Webster, Camp & Lane, Wellman-Seaver- districts, such as the Last Chance Mine on Morgan Company, Allis-Chalmers Creede’s Amethyst Vein. Not only did Company, and the Stearns-Roger these types of double drum hoists permit Manufacturing Company dispatched mining companies to maximize profits, mechanical engineers to assist in site but also they served as a statement to the preparation and final assembly. During mining world of a company’s financial the Gilded Age, the installation of a first- status, levels of productivity, and quality motion hoist usually represented the of engineering. culmination of a production-class plant. Double drum first-motion hoists While the mammoth machines delivered ranged in size from approximately 18 by savings in terms of producing ore in 25 feet to over 30 by 40 feet in area, and economies of scale, they also consumed their visual impact mirrored their much money. Double drum steam hoists performances. Small models, large by required frequent maintenance and they comparison to other types of hoists, required huge quantities of fuel. As a generated a tremendous 600 horsepower result, mining engineers began to replace while large units created over 1,200 them with double drum electric hoists horsepower. The power behind these when electrical technology had attained a hoists’ massive steam pistons permitted competitive state by around 1920. the machines to raise over many tons at a By the Great Depression, speed of at least 3,000 feet per minute, professionally educated mining engineers making geared hoists seem like toys. celebrated the industry’s embrace of the Their working depths were well over electric hoist for most types of shaft 3,000 feet.xlv work. Machinery makers had ironed out The installation of such immense wrinkles in the technology experienced by hoists required exacting engineering, the mining industry during the 1900s and highly skilled labor, and significant site 1910s, and by the 1930s they were preparation. While mine machinery producing a variety of single and double makers shipped the smaller geared hoists drum models for shaft sinking and for either intact or in several large heavy ore production. Like the steam components which were easily assembled, hoists of old, electric models came in four the large first-motion units came in many basic varieties: geared single and double pieces, weighing between several pounds drum units, and direct-drive single and and several tons, and they required special double drum units. The geared electric arrangements of anchor bolts built into hoists were built much like their steam elaborate masonry foundations. The ancestors in that the motor turned a set of

54 reduction gears connected to the cable drum electric hoists smaller that 6 by 6 drum, and the components came from the feet in area as meeting the qualifications manufacturer assembled onto a heavy for sinking duty. Most of the production bedplate. The gearing permitted hoist class hoists installed by engineers during manufacturers to install small and this time featured motors rated to at least inexpensive motors ranging from 30 to 60 horsepower for single drum units and 300 horsepower. Direct-drive electric 100 horsepower for double drum units. hoists, on the other hand, had huge Even with large motors, these geared motors rated up to 2,000 horsepower hoists had slow hoisting speeds, being attached to the same shaft that the cable under 600 feet-per-minute, their payload drums had been mounted on. These capacity was limited, and they were not hoists, considerable in size, had to be able to work in the deepest shafts. Yet assembled as components onto special out of economic necessity during the foundations, as did the old direct-drive capital-scarce Great Depression, many steam hoists.xlvi mining companies had to settle for these Any twentieth century mining machines, even though they hindered ore engineer felt immense pride when his mine production. Less-fortunate mining outfits became host to a direct drive electric severely constrained by tight budgets had hoist. These machines were fast, to settle for small, slow, sinking-class powerful, efficient, and clearly intended hoists. It was not uncommon for these for heavy ore production. They had companies to use hoists with motors rated hoisting speeds in the thousands of feet- at only 15 horsepower, which in better per-minute, their payload capacity was times might have been used instead for over ten tons, and they were able to work work over winzes.xlviii at great depths. But because they were Some outfits attempting to very costly, only highly profitable and recondition abandoned mines on heavily capitalized mining companies shoestring budgets cobbled together could justify installing such machines. hoists from machinery that had been cast Further, the electrical systems required to off at the close of the Gilded Age. Miners operate direct-drive hoists were expensive employed creativity and talent in making to install. These large machines typically old machinery work, and their solutions operated with DC electric current, and as fell into several basic patterns. One a result they required a substation where method common among operations in the the AC current wired to the mine could mountain states involved obtaining an old have been converted. In addition, geared steam hoist, stripping it of the because the massive motors for direct- steam equipment, and adapting an electric drive hoists drew heavily from the motor to turn the hoist’s large bull gear. electrical circuit upon starting, mining Miners used what ever type of motor they companies that installed direct-drive could get their hands on, and they hoists found it best to put in an associated understood that large motors were most rotary converter to moderate the power desirable because of their performance. drain.xlvii To adapt the motor to run the hoist, they Like the antiquated steam hoists had to build a small foundation with used during the Gilded Age, during the anchor bolts adjacent to the hoist, and 1930s mining engineers classified single they had a machine shop custom-make a

55 pinion gear for the motor that had teeth salvaged automobile. Ugly, slow, noisy, capable of meshing with the bull gear. and of questionable reliability, these The only other modification that the contraptions worked well enough so that mining outfit had to make to the hoist was shoestring mining operations were able to to mount the electric controller on the turn a small profit. Lacking the will, hoistman’s platform. After ensuring that money, and possibly the knowledge of the original clutch and brake worked and how to construct a proper foundation, that the hoisting cable was sound, the miners simply bolted the hoist onto a miners were ready to go to work.xlix flimsy timber frame that had not Mining outfits with limited necessarily been anchored in the ground, funding practiced another clever means of and they mounted the engine to an even bringing new life to antiquated steam less formal timber frame. These small hoists. Unlike the method described outfits commonly obtained either a above, the miners left the steam wrecked automobile or one in disrepair, equipment on the hoist intact, and they they stripped off the body, cut away the went so far as to ensure that the pistons, rear portion of the chassis, and left the piston rings, and valves were in good engine, transmission, firewall, and radiator condition. They reconnected pipes to the intact. They aligned the chassis so that steam intakes on the hoist’s cylinders and they were able to connect the drive shaft instead of routing the line to a boiler, they to the hoist’s gears, the connections being used compressed air to power the hoist. made with custom-made and adapted As far back as the 1890s mining engineers hardware.l had found that they could adapt steam Small and medium-sized mining hoists to run off compressed air, outfits that had access to modest capital especially for work underground in were able to afford to install factory-made winzes where piping in steam was gasoline hoists similar to the type uneconomical. The only drawback to introduced to the mining industry during such an innovative use of compressed air the 1900s. Mining companies continued was that a large multi-stage compressor to use the old single-cylinder gasoline had to be installed. In a few cases hoists, and they also purchased factory- impoverished mining operations were made donkey hoists offered by machinery fortunate to have as a neighbor a well- suppliers such as Fairbanks-Morse and the funded mine equipped with just such a Mine & Smelter Supply Company. The compressor. donkey hoist manufactured during the The third practice that 1930s consisted of a small automobile impoverished mining companies adhered engine that turned a cable drum through to when rehabilitating old mines involved reduction gearing. The makers designed assembling mechanical hoists from odd the little machines to be portable, and they and unlikely pieces of machinery. A affixed all of the components onto a steel favorite system favored by outfits lacking frame. The affordability, portability, and money, resources, and an understanding independence suited these machines for of fine engineering consisted of installing backcountry use, especially during the a small friction-drive hoist or geared hoist capital-poor times of the Depression. stripped of everything but the brake and Several conditions played into a clutch, coupled to the transmission of a small outfit’s decision as to which type of

56 hoisting contraption they would attempt hoist, the mining company was forced to to build. Available capital constituted the install another apparatus afresh. Outfits most fundamental factor because mining with limited capital may have opted to outfits lacking funding had to find buy a small new or used factory-made alternatives to new equipment. In light of electric model, or they may have the lack of capital, another influential attempted to retrofit a hoist salvaged from factor consisted of whether the mine an a neighboring defunct mine. For outfit intended to rehabilitate was economic reasons, some operations fortunate enough to retain its original intentionally purchased used steam hoists hoist. In such cases mining outfits elected because their obsolescence had rendered to work with what the remains of the them extremely inexpensive. Due to lack mine plant offered them. Retrofitting of funding and possibly a lack of training steam hoists with motors seems to have in engineering, small mining companies been a popular means of bringing hoisting operating during the Great Depression system on line. The visitor encountering rarely poured new concrete foundations such a mine site today may observe an old for their hoists. In most cases the mining steam hoist bolted onto its original outfits affixed the hoist to a substandard foundation, constructed of either masonry timber foundation, or they adapted the or natural concrete, with an adjacent new hoist to an old foundation that portland concrete motor mount, usually 2 already existed at the mine, employing the by 3 feet in area studded with four anchor methods discussed above in association bolts.li with air compressors. In the event that a mine under rehabilitation did not possess its original

Steam Boilers

Steam boilers were an absolutely heavy, cumbersome, and required necessary component of nineteenth engineering to install. The mere thought century power hoisting systems. While of attempting to maneuver even a small specific designs of boilers evolved and boiler deep into the backcountry was improved over time, the basic principle enough to convince many poorly financed and function remained unchanged. mining companies to continue using Boilers were iron vessels in which intense traditional horse whims. heat converted large volumes of water Adhering to the objectives of into steam under great pressure. Such maximizing performance and minimizing specialized devices had to be constructed operating costs, mining engineers used of heavy boilerplate iron riveted to calculation and mechanical specification in exacting specifications, and they had to their attempts to meet the power needs of arrive in the mining West ready to a mine. The mining engineer had to add withstand neglect and abuse. The up the steam demands of all machines, problem that boilers presented to mining usually measured in boiler horsepower, to companies was that they were bulky, calculate the size, type, and number of

57 boiler units he would need. Between the if the flue gases contacted portions of the 1880s and 1910s the main surface plant shell that were not immersed in water on components an engineer may have a prolonged basis. Usually the front of included in his calculations consisted of the boiler featured a glass sight tube the hoist, an air compressor, and a tiny much like the level indicator on a coffee water pump to feed water to the boilers. urn. When the water began to get low, Small mines may not have had a the fireman turned the valve on the main compressor, while large operations may that had been connected to the boiler, or have included several. Engineers working he operated a small hand pump if the in most of the West also had to figure on plumbing had no pressure. Boiler tenders, generating enough steam to run a small often serving also as hoistmen, usually dewatering pump at the bottom of the kept the boiler three-quarters full of shaft and possibly a donkey engine to water, the dead space being necessary for drive a ventilation fan or mechanized shop the gathering of steam. When the fire appliances. grew low the boiler tender opened the fire During the 1880s the door, the upper of two sets of cast iron Pennsylvania boiler, the locomotive hatches, and threw in fuel. Self-made and boiler, and the upright boiler, also known professionally educated mining engineers as the vertical boiler, quickly gained recognized that cord wood was the most popularity among the West’s prospect appropriate fuel to feed boilers in remote operations. These boilers were well- and undeveloped mining districts, because suited to the mining West because they poor road systems and great distances were self-contained and freestanding, from railheads made importing coal too ready to fire up, and able to withstand expensive. However, coal was the most mistreatment. Because the above three energy-efficient fuel, a half ton equaling types of boilers were designed to be the heat generated by a cord of wood, and portable at the expense of fuel-efficiency, as a result mining operations proximal to mining engineers declared them fit only sources of the fossil fuel, such as in the for sinking duty. eastern and central Rockies, preferred it. In general, all of the above During the 1880s mining sinking-class boilers consisted of a shell companies came to appreciate the utility that contained water, flue tubes extending and horsepower of the locomotive boiler. through the shell, a firebox inside the shell The locomotive boiler, so named because at one end, and a smoke manifold. When railroad engine manufacturers favored it the fireman stoked a fire in the firebox, he for building locomotives, consisted of a adjusted the dampers to admit enough horizontal shell with a firebox built into oxygen to bring the flames to a steady one end and a smokestack projecting out roar. The flue gases, which were of the other end. Nearly all of the models superheated, flowed from the fire through used in the West stood on wood skids and the flue tubes, imparting their energy to were easily portable, but some units the surrounding water, and they flowed required a small masonry pad underneath out the smoke manifold and up the the firebox, and a masonry pillar smokestack. supporting the other end. Locomotive Great danger lay in neglecting the boilers were usually 10 to 16 feet long, 3 water level. An explosion was imminent feet in diameter, and stood up to around 6

58 feet high, not including the steam dome in the pressure and volume of steam. The on top. These workhorses, the single short path for the gases and intense fire most popular sinking-class source of put heavy heat stress on the top end, steam into the 1910s, typically generated causing it to wear out quickly and leak, from to 30 to 50 horsepower, which was and the firebox and doors also saw enough to run a sinking-class hoist. considerable erosion. However, upright Large locomotive boilers capable of boilers required little floor space, little powering a big sinking-class hoist and maintenance, and were so durable that compressor were available, but prospect they almost could have been rolled from operations rarely used them. When a site to site. The West had plenty of mine attained the size large enough to remote prospect operations with limited include such apparatuses, the engineer capital that saw great advantage in the usually upgraded the plant with an qualities offered by vertical boilers, and efficient production-class return tube consequently these steam generators boiler.lii enjoyed substantial popularity during the Upright boilers were the least Gilded Age.liii costly of all boiler types. They tolerated The third basic type of sinking- abuse well, and they were the most class boiler that Western prospect portable. However, because upright operations used in noteworthy numbers boilers could not generate the same was the Pennsylvania boiler. This unit horsepower as locomotive or consisted of a cross between the form and Pennsylvania units, they could not power portability of the locomotive boiler and large sinking-class hoists, let alone the function of the Scotch marine boiler, additional machines such as air discussed below. Like the other portable compressors. Upright boilers consisted of boilers, the Pennsylvania boiler featured a vertical water shell that stood over a an enclosed firebox that was surrounded firebox and ash pit that had been built as by a jacket of water. The flue gases part of a cast iron base. The flue tubes traveled through a broad tunnel in the extended upward through the shell and shell, they rose into a small smoke opened into a smoke chamber enclosed by chamber, then reversed direction and a hood and smokestack, which appeared traveled toward the front of the shell much like an inverted funnel. The flue through flue tubes. The gases escaped the gases’ path up directly up and out of the boiler through the smokestack. The firebox made these steam generators Pennsylvania boiler, which originated in highly inefficient, and the rapid escape of the Keystone State’s oil fields, proved to gases and the quick combustion of fuel be remarkably efficient and saw use at a caused great fluctuation and inconsistency number of Western mining operations.liv

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Developed in Scotland for machinery usually required the steam maritime purposes, the Scotch marine generated by at least two to three return boiler was the least popular sinking-class tube boilers totaling over 200 boiler steam generator in the West. Scotch horsepower. Mining companies with a marine boilers consisted of a large- progressive engineer and plenty of capital diameter shell enclosing the firebox, and often installed an extra boiler so that in the path for the flue gases was similar to the event one of the others had to be that of the Pennsylvania boiler. While this cooled off for servicing or following a type of boiler was one of the most malfunction, the mine could have efficient portable units, it never saw continued ore extraction.lvi popularity in the West primarily because The concept behind the return convention dictated the use of the other tube boiler was brilliant. The boiler shell, types, and because it was heavy, large, part of a complex structure, was and difficult to haul to remote locations.lv suspended from iron legs known as Engineers equipping production- buckstaves, so named because they class surface plants almost never relied on prevented the associated masonry walls portable boilers to supply steam because from bucking outward. Brick walls of their inefficiency. Rather, the masters enclosed the area underneath the boiler of mine mechanics predominantly used shell, and a heavy iron façade shrouded return tube boilers in masonry settings, or the front. A firebox lay behind the façade they erected water tube boilers, which underneath the boiler shell. Under the offered the ultimate fuel economy. In a firebox lay an ash pit, and both were few rare cases, engineers working deep in sealed off from the outside world by the backcountry were forced to make due heavy cast iron doors. When a fire with Pennsylvania and locomotive boilers, burned, the superheated flue gases but they preferred not to do so. traveled from the firebox along the belly Manufacturers designed most of the boiler shell and rose up into a steam machinery to work under pressures smoke chamber at the rear of the ranging between 100 and 150 pounds- structure. They reversed direction and per-square-inch. At this pressure a return traveled toward the front through large tube boiler 5 feet in diameter and 16 feet flue tubes extending through the shell, and long provided enough steam to run a then exited through the smoke manifold. hoist, a Cameron sinking pump, heating The path under and then back through the pipes in the shaft house, and another boiler shell offered the flue gases every engine for a small tramming system, all opportunity to transfer energy to the totaling approximately 80 boiler water within and convert it into steam. horsepower. A slightly larger boiler was Return tube boilers were needed to run additional machinery such workhorses that withstood the harsh as a small air compressor, or a treatment and neglect endemic to western compressor could have been substituted mines. Boiler tenders and firemen had to for the tramway engine. Mine plants that ensure that they carried out a few basic included production-class single and services to avoid life-taking disastrous double-drum hoists, duplex compressors, explosions and ruptures. First, they had and other large, production-class to keep the boiler at least two-thirds full

62 of water. Second, the fireman had to with mechanical stokers. While they were clean the ashes out of the ash pit regularly costly, mechanical stokers did a better job to ensure that the fire did not suffocate. than laborers. Engineers also fitted Shoveling ashes was a foul and dirty job heavily stoked boilers with rocking or that no one enjoyed. Usually the fireman shaking grates that sifted the ashes shoveled the unwanted refuse into a downward, promoting better combustion wheelbarrow and trundled it out to a of the fuel. Last, many engineers had crook in the waste rock dump where the mineworkers wrap the heater, the steam crew regularly dumped other trash. Pity pipes, and exposed parts of the boiler with the unfortunate worker who had to horsehair or asbestos plaster as an undertake such an unpleasant task on a insulation. Except for feed water heaters gusty day! Third, the fireman ensured and insulation, only a few large Western that the water and steam valves were mining companies spent the capital to operational, and that the pressure did not employ the other accessories because of exceed the critical point. Last, the the expense involved.lvii fireman had to feed the fire. Skilled During the time that boiler firemen were able to throw on just technology was young, in 1856 an enough fuel in an even distribution so that American inventor named Wilcox devised the fire kept a fairly constant glow. To a boiler radically different and much more ensure that firemen and boiler tenders had efficient that the best return tube models. easy access to plenty of coal, the mining Wilcox’s system consisted of a large brick engineer usually had a coal bin built facing vault capped with several horizontal iron the firebox doors. In other circumstances water tanks. The vault contained a cordwood may have been stacked in the firebox, an ash pit, and a smoke chamber, bin’s place. all underneath 50 to 60 water-filled iron Professionally trained mining tubes. The tubes drew water from one engineers with access to plenty of capital end of the tanks and sent the resultant employed additional devices designed to steam to the other end. By 1870 the improve the energy efficiency and design, known as the water tube boiler, performance of their return tube boilers. had been commercialized and was being First, they may have elected to install up manufactured by the firm Babcock & to three feed water holding tanks to allow Wilcox.lviii sediment and mineralization to settle out. After Babcock & Wilcox’s water Second, some engineers working in the tube boiler had proven itself in a number West installed feed water heaters, which of industrial applications, mining were small heat exchanging tanks that engineers began to take an interest. The used some of the boiler’s hot water or fact that the water ran through the tubes, steam to preheat the fresh feed water. not around them, greatly increased the These had been proven to moderate the liquid’s heating area, which resulted in shock of temperature changes to the much greater efficiency than return tube boiler, prolonging the vessel’s life, as well boilers. In addition, the threat of a as increasing fuel efficiency. A few catastrophic explosion was almost engineers working at the largest mines nonexistent. By the 1890s a number of attempted to mechanize the input of coal mechanical engineers had devised other into the fireboxes of heavily used boilers water tube boilers that saw production,

63 such as the Heine, the Sterling, the supervision of talented, professionally Wickes, the Hazelton, and the Harrisburg- trained engineers. As the prices of water Starr. tube boilers fell during the 1900s and The problem with all of the above capital became more abundant as the models, however, was that they required mining industry recovered from the Silver much more attention than the rugged Crash of 1893, the popularity of the return tube boilers, they were significantly efficient steam generators began growing. more costly to purchase, and they were However, the introduction of practical beyond the understanding and field skills electricity in the 1910s prevented the of average mining engineers. As a result widespread adoption of water tube water tube boilers saw use only at large, boilers. well capitalized mines under the

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Headframes

Nearly all mechanical hoisting structures was that the A-frame featured systems in the West required that the fore and aft diagonal braces to buttress mining operation erect a headframe over the structure in both directions. A-frames the shaft. The purpose of the headframe were not erected directly over an inclined was to support and guide the hoist cable shaft, rather they were placed between the into the workings, and to assist in the hoist and shaft so that the angle of the transfer of rock from and supplies into the cable extending upward from the hoist hoisting vehicle. Professionally educated equaled that extending down the incline mining engineers recognized six basic shaft. structural forms of headframes, including The common features shared by the tripod and tetrapod used with horse the above structures included a small size, whims, the two-post gallows, four and simplicity, minimization of materials, ease six-post derricks, and the A-frame. of erection, and portability of materials. The two-post gallows was one of For comparison, a two-post gallows the most common headframes erected frame 20 feet high cost as little as $50 and throughout the West, and self-made and a slightly larger structure cost $150, while professionally educated engineers a production-class A-frame cost $650, unanimously agreed that it was best for and a production-class four-post derrick prospecting. The variety used by small headframe cost up to $900. lix operations usually consisted of two Sinking-class headframes had to upright posts, a cap timber and another withstand only a few basic stresses that cross-member several feet below, and the mining engineer had to consider. The diagonal braces, all standing at most 25 three most significant forces consisted of feet high. The cap timber and lower the live load, created by the weight of a cross-member featured brackets that held full hoist vehicle and cable, the braking the sheave wheel in place. The gallows load, which was a surge of force created portion of the structure stood on one end when the hoistman quickly brought the of a timber foundation that crews built vehicle to a halt in the shaft, and the equal in length to the headframe’s height. horizontal pull of the hoist. To counter The diagonal backbraces extended from these forces, mining engineers had the posts down toward the hoist, where workers build their headframes of 8x8 they were tied into the foundation footers. timbers, and they installed diagonal The foundation, made of parallel timbers backbraces to counter the pull of the held together with cross members, rested hoist. Usually carpenters assembled the on the surface of the ground, and it primary components with mortise-and- straddled the shaft collar. tennon joints, 1 inch diameter iron tie The four-post derrick erected for rods, and lag bolts. Professionally trained prospecting was similar in height, mining engineers specified that the construction, and materials to two-post diagonal backbraces were most effective headframes, and it too stood on a timber when they bisected the angle of dead foundation. The A-frame was based on vertical and the angle formed by the hoist the same design as the two-post gallows. cable ascending to the top of the The difference between the two types of headframe. By tying the backbraces into

66 the foundation between the shaft and loads, and vibration, and shocks to the hoist, engineers had determined that the structure.lxi total horizontal and vertical forces put on Building a headframe that could the headframe would have been equally stand under the sum of the above forces distributed among both the vertical and was not enough for service at a producing the diagonal posts. When a mining mine. Mining engineers had to forecast engineer attempted to find the how they thought the headframe would mathematically perfect location for a hoist interacted with the mine’s production after erecting a headframe at a prospect goals, and how it would interface with the shaft, he merely had to measure the rest of the hoisting system. The depth of distance from the shaft collar to the the shaft, the speed of the hoist, and the diagonal brace, double the length, and rail system at the mine directly influenced built the hoist foundation. Most Western the height of the structure. Deep shafts prospect operations followed this general served by fast hoists, such as direct-drive guideline and arranged their hoisting steam units, required a tall headframe, systems accordingly, but a few poorly usually higher than 50 feet, to allow the educated engineers strayed and gave the hoistman plenty or room to stop the diagonal braces either too much or too hoisting vehicle before it slammed into the little of an angle.lx sheave at top. Highly productive mining Unlike the simplicity of sinking- operations often utilized vertical space on class headframes, production-class their claims, which required multiple shaft headframes were more complex, and landings. Some mines using skips as hoist designing them was an art. The mining vehicles had rock pockets built into the engineer had to plan for a variety of headframe, and this also required height. significant stresses, consider the The headframe had to be tall enough to structure’s multiple functions, and permit the hoistman to raise a skip to a coordinate the structure with other point well above the rock pocket where a hoisting system components. Western special guide track upset the vehicle, mining engineers have been criticized for emptying the rock into the bin. overbuilding their headframes and hence Both self-educated and wasting capital. However, the stresses professionally trained engineers had the mining engineers had to consider were skills to erect structures that proved many. They had to build a structure lasting and functional under the conditions capable of withstanding vertical forces of Western mining, but perhaps the including an immense dead load, live headframes built by professionally trained load, and braking load generated when engineers possessed the greatest the hoistman brought to a halt the descent economical value and grace. Mining of heavy machines and supplies sent engineers found four basic designs underground. Engineers had to calculate adequate for meeting the rigors of heavy horizontal forces including the powerful ore production. These included the four- pull of the hoist and windshear, which post derrick, the six-post derrick, an A- could not have been underestimated in the frame known also as the California rugged West. Last, mining engineers had frame, and a heavily-braced two-post to plan for racking and swaying under structure known also as the Montana type. As the names suggest, engineers

67 working in specific regions in the West were more materials-intensive and costly favored certain headframe designs over to build, because these vertical structures others. While the above structures were were within the technical means of most intended to serve vertical shafts, two-post professionally educated and self-taught gallows headframes and a variety of A- engineers. A-frames, on the other hand, frame up to 35 feet high were also erected required a greater knowledge of to serve inclined shafts.lxii mechanics and physics, and they were To meet the combination of harder to build.lxiii horizontal and vertical forces and the Mining engineers determined that performance needs endemic to ore- production-class headframes, which producing mines, nearly all mining weighed dozens of tons, required a sound engineers in the West built their and substantial foundation in order to headframes with heavy timber beams remain stable. A pre-planned and well- assembled with mortise-and-tennon joints, built foundation was one factor that set timber bolts, and iron tie rods. In general these structures apart from sinking-class they used 10x10 posts for headframes up headframes. When an engineer erected a to around 40 feet high, 12x12 to 18x18 production-class surface plant from stock for headframes up to 60 feet high, scratch he simply put a crew to work and up to 12x24 timbers for large two- clearing soil to bedrock around the post headframes. Mining engineers proposed shaft, on which the crew built a attempted to allocate full-length uncut timber framework for the headframe. The timbers for the posts and backbraces engineer who inherited a semi-developed because of the solidity they offered. prospect shaft had significant and Skilled carpenters assembled the materials expensive work ahead of him, because the into towers that featured cross-members previous operation may have left a large, and diagonal bracing spaced every 6 to 10 unconsolidated waste rock dump that feet. Solid, relatively clear 16x16 inch workers had to clear away to expose timbers 60 to 70 feet long are almost bedrock. unimaginable commodities today, yet Professionally educated and self- these were the standard materials mining made engineers used one of three basic engineers and their crews worked with. types of foundations to support All four and six-post headframes featured production-class headframes. The first stout backbracing anchored between the consisted of a squat timber cube featuring shaft and the hoist, and the entire bottom sills, timber posts, and caps bolted structure stood on foundation footers over the posts. Construction workers straddling the shaft. The posts on A- stuffed logs, timber blocks, and boulders frames, on the other hand, were set at an under the bottom sills to level them when exaggerated batter, meaning they splayed the foundation was built on sloped out to absorb all of the vertical and ground. The other types of foundations horizontal stresses, and as a result A- included a group of hewn log cribbing frames used in association with both cells assembled with saddle notches and vertical shafts and inclines rarely had fastened with forged iron spikes, and a backbraces. Four and six-post hewn log or timber latticework consisting headframes were much more common in of open cubes between 4 and 6 feet high, the West than A-frames, even though they capped with dimension timbers. When

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any of the three foundation systems were operation spent the time and money to built, workers sided the shaft walls with erect such foundations.lxiv plank lagging and shaft-set timbering, and In the 1890s professionally trained filled the surrounding foundation mining engineers working for the West’s framework with waste rock as quickly as wealthiest and largest mining companies the miners underground generated it. The began experimenting with steel girders for last two above-mentioned foundation headframes as an alternative to timber. In systems were the most popular in the the eyes of many prominent professionally West because many mining districts educated mining engineers, steel was the featured the raw materials, and they ultimate building material for production- required little exact engineering. The class operations because it did not decay, problem with all of the above systems was it was much stronger, it was non that the perishable wood rotted when flammable, and it facilitated the erection covered with waste rock, especially when of taller headframes. However, steel was the rock was highly mineralized. A few significantly more expensive than timber, forward-thinking mining engineers especially in the West where the distances attempted to substitute concrete for wood from steel manufacturing centers was to gain a lasting foundation, but only well- vast. As a result, only the most heavily financed companies anticipating lengthy capitalized and highly productive mines in the West put up steel structures Like mining operations active practice of building four and six post during the Gilded Age, hoisting systems derricks and A-frames to meet the rigors used by Depression-era mining companies of ore production. Mining engineers still required a headframe to guide the hoist considered steel to be the ultimate answer cable into the shaft and to facilitate for production-class headframes, although materials handling. Some mining outfits out of financial necessity in many cases rehabilitating abandoned mines were they had to resort to timbers. Still, the blessed to find that the headframe put up structures they put up were well-built and by the previous operation still stood in handsome. Yet, it seems that a certain good repair. In the arid West some element of quality in construction typical fortunate mining companies rehabilitating of mining prior to the 1910s had been old mines merely had to have few mine lost. Construction crews no longer took laborers examine the structure for the pains to assemble the structure with integrity, oil the sheave bearings, and intricate mortise-and-tennon joints. ensure that the signal bell functioned. Instead, the workers simply butted the Much to the dismay of many timbers against each other, or created Depression-era mining operations shallow square notch joints, and bolted rehabilitating abandoned shafts, the the frame together. headframe had been removed, which they Impoverished outfits had neither had to replace. Erecting a new structure the funding nor the means to build proved to be much less of a burden for substantial production-class headframes. well-funded mining companies than it did Instead they assembled small structures for shoestring outfits. Large mining designed to be functional while companies, under the guidance of a incorporating little material. When formally trained engineer, continued the possible these small mining operations

73 relocated entire headframes from nothing new by 1930, having been used in abandoned mines to the property they previous decades for extracting ore and sought to rehabilitate. By nature the waste rock from the depths of inclined headframes they either built or relocated shafts. As mining engineers sought ways tended to be the old-fashioned sinking- of increasing ore production over less class two-post gallows type because they time while consuming less energy, they were simple, inexpensive, and required no came to realize that the skip provided formal engineering. In a few cases these great economy. Because the vehicle small mining companies built what consisted of a boilerplate iron box, it had amounted to small four-post derricks of the capacity to contain more rock for less the sort that academically trained dead-weight that the combination of an engineers would have classified as ore car on a traditional cage. In addition, conforming to sinking duty. Poorly the skip’s open top facilitated rapid funded and well-capitalized mining loading from an ore chute underground companies both installed timber A-frames and equally rapid disgorging of its to serve inclined shafts. contents once the hoistman had brought it One factor that many mining up to daylight. The rapid filling and companies shared, rich and poor, was the emptying of the skip increased the utilization of salvaged timbers for building tonnage of rock brought out of the mine their headframes. Stout timbers were a during a given shift. precious and costly commodity during the The use of a skip was in some Great Depression, and in hopes of saving ways much easier and safer than relying capital mining companies reused the on a cage. Miners riding up and down the heavy beams left by abandoned shaft in an enclosed skip were much less operations. As a result, today’s visitor likely to snag their arms and legs and examining headframes built during the suffer dismemberment in the mine 1930s may note that some of the timbers timbering, as had happened with cages. seem out of place in the context of the When raising rock, the hoistman lowered overall structure. Salvaged timbers may the skip down the shaft to a station where differ in terms of exact dimensions, he stopped it at the mouth of an ore weathering, and quality of the wood. In chute. A chute tender or trammer opened addition, they frequently exhibit the chute gates and let the ore pour forth, abandoned mortise-and-tennon joint then rang the signal bell to communicate sockets, old bolt-holes, and nail holes. that all was ready for the trip up to the Heavy use of such material for use in surface. The hoistman slowed the ascent headframes, as well as for other of the skip as it approached the shaft structures, is fairly typical of Depression- collar and he raised the vehicle into the era construction. headframe. Typical skips consisted of an During the last several decades of iron box held by heavy steel hinges in an the Gilded Age, professionally educated iron frame that embraced the shaft’s guide mining engineers at a few productive rails. The box featured small iron wheels mines began to use skips as the principle or iron pins fixed to the sides. As the hoisting vehicle in vertical shafts, instead hoistman raised the skip into the of the ubiquitous cage and ore car used headframe the wheels entered a special set during the Gilded Age. Skips were of curved iron guides bolted onto the

74 headframe. The guides forced the box to The alterations mining engineers pivot until it reached a point of instability customarily made to headframes for use and tipped over, spilling its contents. The with a skip may be apparent to visitors hoistman reversed the action and the examining the remains of yesteryear’s box’s wheels were dragged back through historic mine sites. When a Depression- the guides, righting the hoisting vehicle. era mining company retrofitted a Not only did the employment of headframe with a rock pocket, they were the skip require miners to drill and blast rarely able to match the hue, grain, and rock pockets for ore and waste rock at cut of the headframe’s original timbers, shaft stations underground, but the mining which today manifest as a visible contrast. engineer had to retrofit the headframe on Out of financial motivation many the surface with a rock pocket to accept Depression-era mining companies the skip’s load when dumped. In mines constructed rock pockets with hewn or simultaneously experiencing underground raw logs, salvaged lumber, and development and ore production, the corrugated sheet steel which typically engineer had to arrange for two rock exhibits old nail and bolt-holes. Further, pockets, one to catch waste rock and the elegantly built heavy timber-work seemed other for ore. To avoid compromising the not to have been the forte of many headframe’s integrity and stability, construction workers rehabilitating old engineers commonly designed rock mines during the Depression, and this pockets that consisted of a sloped floor manifests today as a notable disparity built onto an adjacent and independent between the well-built heavy beam work timber frame. The engineer had to build of the headframe and a modestly the pocket high enough so that the rock it constructed rock pocket. contained could tumble through a chute into an ore car below.

______

Additional Surface Plant Components

Air Compressors

Blasting was of supreme When drilling by hand, miners typically importance to mining because it was the advanced tunnels and shafts only one to prime mover of rock underground. three feet per shift in hard rock. Using During the Gilded Age miners throughout the types of drills manufactured during the the West traditionally drilled holes by 1880s and 1890s, miners were able to hand, loaded them with explosives, and advance a tunnel or shaft approximately fired the rounds. Hand-drilling proved three to seven feet per shift, instead. The slow, but no practical alternative existed mechanical drills permitted miners to bore to take its place underground until mining greater numbers of deeper holes in the companies began introducing mechanical same length of time. Further, rockdrills during the 1870s and 1880s. improvements in drilling technology

75 effected during the 1890s and 1900s compressors were structurally based on permitted miners to make even greater the old-fashioned horizontal steam engine, progress. The rates of work achieved the workhorse of the Industrial with the greasy and noisy machines Revolution. A mechanical engineer in the convinced many mining engineers that the eastern states created the straight-line relatively high costs of installing and compressor in the 1860s, and machinery running a compressed air system to power manufacturers such as the Clayton Air the mechanical rockdrills was justified. Compressor Works began making the The air compressor lay at the heart of the revolutionary machines by the early compressed air system.lxv 1870s. The earliest compressors were no While air compressors more than a compression cylinder grafted manufactured between the 1880s and onto the end of a factory-made steam 1920s came in a variety of shapes and engine, and the compression piston had sizes, they all operated according to a been coupled directly to the steam piston single basic premise. Compressors of this via a solid shaft. By the early 1880s when era consisted of at least one relatively large mining companies throughout the large cylinder, much like a steam engine, West were beginning to experiment with which pushed air through valves into rockdrills, field-worthy straight-line plumbing connected to an air receiving compressors had taken form. These tank. The volume of air that a machines featured a large compression compressor delivered, measured as cubic cylinder at one end, a heavy cast iron feet of air per minute (cfm), depended on flywheel at the opposite end, and a steam the cylinder’s diameter and stroke, as well cylinder situated in the middle, all bolted as how fast the machine operated. The to a cast iron bedplate. The steam pressure capacity, measured as pounds cylinder powered the machine and the per square inch (psi), depended in part on flywheel provided momentum and the above qualities as well as how stout smoothed out the motion.lxvi the machine was, its driving mechanism, During the 1870s and early 1880s, and on the check valves in the plumbing. before mining began at Creede, Generally, high pressure-high volume mechanical engineers ironed out many of compressors were large, strong, durable, the inefficiencies attributed to straight-line complex, and as a result, expensive. compressors. First, engineers modified The mechanical workings of the the compression cylinder to make it air compressors manufactured prior to double-acting, much like an old-fashioned around 1890 were relatively simple. The butter churn. In this design, which two most popular compressor types became standard, the compression piston manufactured during this time were the was at work in both directions of travel, steam-driven straight-line and the steam- being pushed one way by the steam piston driven duplex models, and both styles and dragged back the other way by the served as a basis for designs that served spinning flywheel. In so doing the the mining industry well for over 60 years. compression piston devoted 100% of its The straight-line compressor, named after motion to compressing air. its physical configuration, was the least The other fundamental expensive, oldest, and most elemental of achievement attained by engineers during the two types of machines. Straight-line the 1880s concerned cooling. By nature

76 air compression generated great heat, the steam piston had expended its energy which engineers found not only fatigued and reached the end of its stroke, the the machine but also greatly reduced compression piston offered the greatest efficiency. As a result early compressor resistance because the air in the cylinder makers added a water-misting jet that had reached maximum compaction. squirted a spray into the compression Mechanical engineers recognized this cylinder, cooling the air and the machine’s wasteful imbalance and designed a breed working parts. While the water spray of straight-line compressor with an solved the cooling issue, it created other intermediary crankshaft, so that when the significant problems. The water caused compression piston had reached the end corrosion, it washed lubricants off internal of its stroke and offered the most working parts, and it humidified the resistance, the steam piston was beginning compressed air, all of which significantly its movement and was strongest. Despite shortened the life of what constituted an the superior efficiency of this design, expensive system. By the mid-1880s mining companies usually selected the American mining machinery makers had simpler compressors with solid shafting. replaced the spray with a cooling jacket During the late 1880s and early consisting of one large void or multiple 1890s academic mining engineers fine- ports for the circulation of cold water tuned compressed air technology used for around the outside of the compression hardrock mining. During this time they cylinder, leaving the internal working applied cost-benefit analyses and science parts dry and well-oiled. Mining to further improvements that remained companies installing compressors amid with the mining industry for decades. The their surface plants had to include a water most significant advance was the design system for cooling and they had to of compressors that generated greater air allocate a water source. Generally the pressure than had been used by the mining system erected by engineers was no more industry up to that point. Mining that a water tank connected to the engineers found that they wanted more compressor through input output lines pressure because it made their drills run consisting of one to one-half inch faster, enabling miners to bore through piping.lxvii more rock than before. Engineers had During the early 1880s mechanical also found by experience that the engineers forwarded several other pressurization of the maze-like networks significant improvements in the workings of plumbing in large mines placed a heavy of compressors, creating a foundation for burden on compressors. In response, further evolution of the technology. mining machinery makers began offering Engineers found that coupling the straight-line and duplex compressors compression piston to the steam piston capable of achieving what the industry with a solid rod, so that both acted in termed multistage compression. perfect synchronous tandem, proved Mechanical engineers found that highly inefficient. The steam piston was attempting to squeeze more pressure out at its maximum pushing power when it of the conventional 1880s straight-line was just beginning its stroke, while the and duplex compressors required an compression piston, also beginning its uneconomical amount of power and stroke, offered the least resistance. When energy. Instead, they realized that they

77 could achieve the pressure demanded by passed through an intercooler, which mining engineers if they divided the essentially was a heat exchanger cooled compression between high and low by circulating water, and then it entered pressure cylinders in several stages, the high-compression cylinder. instead of in a single cylinder. They Mining machinery makers released designed the low-pressure cylinder to be variations of multistage straight-line relatively large, and it forced semi- compressors with two and even three compressed air into the small high- compression cylinders coupled onto the pressure cylinder, which highly steam drive piston, and they produced compressed the air and released it into a duplex compressors with several receiving tank. Compounding the air multistage cylinder arrangements. The compression between several cylinders most common multistage duplex generated heat which threatened the compressor was the cross-compound efficiency that engineers hoped to achieve arrangement, in which one side of the with their marvelous machines. Like the machine featured the low-pressure simpler single stage compressors, cylinder, and the air passed from it, engineers designed effective cooling through an intercooler, to the high- apparatuses for the added cylinders, and pressure cylinder on the other side. For they also found that chilling the mines with heavy air needs mining compressed air between stages machinery manufacturers offered a duplex significantly improved efficiency. The air machine with high and low pressure rarely passed directly from one cylinders on both sides, which produced compression cylinder to the next. Rather, twice the volume of high-pressure air. the air exited the machine altogether and

78

Table 4.5: Air Compressor Specifications: Type, Duty, Foundation

Compressor Power Source Compressor Foundation Foundation Foundation Form Duty Footprint Size Material Upright with Belt-Driven: Temporary Rectangular 6x2 ft. Timber Frame 2 Cylinders Petroleum Engine Foundations Upright: 3-4 Integral Petroleum Temporary & Rectangular 7x3 ft to Timber or Steel Cylinders Engine Production 12x4 ft. Frame V-Pattern: Integral Petroleum Production Rectangular 6x3 ft. to Concrete 2-3 Cylinders Engine 8x3 ft. V-Pattern: Integral Petroleum Production Rectangular 8x3 ft. to Concrete 4-8 Cylinders Engine 12x3 ft. Straight-Line Integral Petroleum Temporary Rectangular 5x2 ft. to Concrete Gasoline Engine 7x2 ft. Straight-Line Integral Steam Temporary Rectangular 6x2 ft. to Timber, Concrete Single Stage Engine 7x2 ft. or Masonry Straight- Integral Steam Production Rectangular 9x3 ft to Concrete or Masonry Line: Engine 15x3 ft. Single Stage Straight- Integral Steam Production Rectangular, or 14x4 ft to Concrete or Line: Engine Shallow L 27x6 ft. Masonry Two Stage Straight- Integral Steam Production Rectangular, or 16x5 ft. to Concrete or Line: Engine Shallow L 30x6 ft. Masonry Three Stage Straight-Line Geared Electric Production Rectangular, 9x3 ft to Concrete extension for motor. 15x5 ft. Motor: 2x3 ft. Straight-Line Belt Driven Production Rectangular with 7x2 ft to Concrete aligned motor mount 15x5 ft. Motor: 2x3 ft. Duplex: Integral Steam Production U-Shaped 6x5 ft. to Concrete or Masonry Single Stage Engine 10x9 ft. Duplex,: Integral Steam Production Parallel 10x7 ft. to Concrete or Single Stage Engine Rectangular Pads 30x10 ft. Masonry Duplex: Integral Steam Production U-Shape 6x5 ft. to Concrete or Masonry Two Stage Engine 15x15 ft Duplex: Integral Steam Production Parallel 15x10 ft. to Concrete or Masonry Two Stage Engine Rectangular Pads. 35x15 ft. Duplex: Geared Electric Production U with aligned 6x5 ft. to Concrete Multi Stage motor mount 16x15 ft. Duplex: Belt Driven Production U with aligned 6x5 ft. to Concrete Multi Stage Electric motor mount 16x15 ft. (Adapted from Twitty, 1999, p131).

After installing straight-line and for 500 to 1000 psi. Four-stage duplex compound machines at large compression existed, but Western mining Western mines in the 1890s technically companies almost never used it.lxviii trained mining engineers found that During the 1880s most major multistage compression was by far most compressor makers such as the Rand Drill economical. Further, they determined Company and the Ingersoll Rock Drill through both empirical studies and Company offered single stage calculation that single stage compression compressors designed to be powered by was most economical in the short run and canvas or leather belting, instead of by an long term for air pressures up to around integral steam engine. These machines 90 psi, two-stage compression was best were made for mining companies that for between 80 and 500 psi, and three- relied on a single large steam engine to stage compression was most economical drive multiple surface plant components

81 and mill machines simultaneously. turn-of-the-century vintage were not able Western mining companies rarely used a to generate as much air as their huge central power source, however. As a cousins, their higher working speeds did result belt-driven compressors were a grant them a substantial output. By rarity in the West during the 1880s and around 1900 many of America’s leading 1890s. mining machinery makers offered a The titanic steam-driven variety of improved steam-driven duplex compressors that once made engineers compressors less than 15 by 15 feet in swell with pride fell out of favor with the area fitted to suit with a variety of single, mining industry during the late 1890s, double, and triple stage compression because smaller and faster models became cylinders. available. While the small compressors of

Table 4.6: Air Compressor Specifications: Type, Popularity Timeframe, and Capital Investment

Compressor Type Age Range Capital Investment Upright: 2 Cylinders, Belt Driven 1900s-1940s Low Upright: 3 to 4 Cylinders, Integral Gasoline Piston 1930s-Present Moderate V Pattern 1930s-Present Moderate to High Straight-Line, Single Stage, Gasoline Engine Driven 1900s-1930s Low Straight-Line, Single Stage, Steam Driven 1880s-1920s Moderate Straight-Line, Two Stage, Steam Driven 1890s-1920s High Straight-Line, Triple Stage, Steam Driven 1890s-1920s Very High Straight-Line, Single Stage, Geared to Electric Motor 1900s-1920s Moderate Straight-Line, Various Stages, Geared to Electric Motor 1900s-1920s High Straight-Line, Single Stage, Belt Driven by Electric Motor 1900s-1940s Low Duplex, Single Stage, Steam Driven 1890s-1920s Moderate Duplex, Two Stage, Steam Driven 1890s-1920s High Duplex, Triple Stage, Steam Driven 1890s-1920s Very High Duplex, Two Stage, Belt Driven 1900s-1940s Moderate Duplex, Three Stage, Belt Driven 1900s-1940s Moderate to High (Adapted from Twitty, 1999, p130).

As the 1890s progressed toward companies in areas where coal and cord the turn-of-the-century, mining machinery wood were more plentiful continued to makers began to offer air compressors install steam compressors as late as the that were smaller, more efficient, and 1910s. Gasoline and electric compressors provided better service for the dollar than underwent a process of acceptance, rather the duplex and straight-line designs than being embraced overnight, but once manufactured up to that time. Machinery they had proven their worth by the 1910s, makers adapted several designs to be run many mining companies throughout the by electric motors and gasoline engines, West replaced their aging steam which were energy sources well-suited for equipment with electric and petroleum- remote mines. Progressive mining powered machinery. engineers working in regions where fuel Motor-driven compressors were was costly eagerly experimented with ideally suited for progressive mining electricity and gasoline, while mining districts wired for electricity, such as

82 Creede. Further, because motor-driven shaft rotated in heavy bearings that were compressors lacked steam equipment and bolted onto each compressor foundation, needed no boilers, they cost less. The and the shaft featured additional gears motor-driven compressors offered by that turned the compressors’ flywheels. machinery manufacturers around the turn- Rope and chain drives were very of-the-century were a take-off of the old unpopular for compressors, and had little belt-driven types they had make since the to recommend them. early 1880s. The new units were Compressor makers also designed to run at the high speeds developed economically attractive associated with electric motors. By the gasoline units ideal for remote and late 1890s mining machinery makers inaccessible operations. The gasoline offered three basic types of electric compressor, introduced in practical form compressors, including a straight-line in the late 1890s, consisted of a straight- machine that was approximately the same line compression cylinder linked to a size as traditional steam versions, a small single cylinder gas engine. Most mining straight-line unit, and a duplex engineers considered gas compressors to compressor. Duplex models, conducive be for sinking duty only. Large gasoline to multistage compression, were most machines were capable of producing up to popular among medium-sized and large 300 cubic feet of air at 90 pounds per mining companies. Small mining square inch, permitted mining companies operations favored the small straight-line to run up to four small rockdrills.lxix units. Due to limited air output compared The noisy gasoline machines had with a relatively large floor space, the needs similar to their steam-driven large electric straight-line compressors cousins. Gasoline compressors required never saw popularity. cooling, a fuel source, and a substantial Mining machinery manufacturers foundation, and they came from the offered their electric compressors with factory either assembled or in large five basic means of coupling to motors. components for transportation into the The first method was a belt-drive, the backcountry. The cooling system often second was direct-drive in which the consisted of no more than a continuous- motor was integral with the flywheel, flow water tank, and the fuel system third was a gear-drive, fourth was a chain- could have been simply a large sheet iron drive, and the fifth consisted of a rope fuel tank connected to the engine by ¼ to drive. Western mining outfits by far ½ inch metal tubing. Most mining favored the belt-drive because it was a engineers agreed that petroleum widely understood technology, it was the compressors required substantial concrete least expensive, and it was easiest to foundations due to severe vibrations. install. Gearing and direct-drive Generally, engineers had laborers pour a compressors were more energy efficient rectangular foundation slightly longer and and quieter, but they were unpopular wider than the machine, and up to 3 feet because of their high cost. Gearing also high. In a few instances small, poorly permitted one powerful motor to drive funded mining companies bolted the several duplex compressors through one machines to impermanent timber cribbing main drive shaft. The motor turned the foundations conforming to sinking-duty drive shaft through gearing. The drive characteristics.

83 The types of compressors mounts for the drive shaft bearings at the developed around the turn-of-the-century open end of the “U”. possessed footprints as distinct as the By the 1910s, the use of rockdrills early steam-driven models discussed had rendered hand-drilling uneconomical above. The high-speed duplex models, except for special applications. The trend whether steam or motor-driven, usually continued through the 1920s as rockdrill stood on substantial U-shaped concrete makers offered an ever widening variety foundations featuring totally flat surfaces. of machines that accomplished even the Unlike their massive steam-driven limited specialized work previously brethren, the small and faster duplex completed by hand-drilling. Mining machines consisted of components both during the Great Depression was no bolted to and cast as part of a large exception, and miners had come to rely on common bed plate that had to be drills more than ever to achieve the anchored to the concrete foundation. The necessary production of ore in economies hollow portion of the U in the foundation of scale. accommodated the flywheel. Multistage Motor-driven duplex and straight- duplex compressors featured additional line compressors, introduced in the cylinders and an intercooler that extended waning years of the Gilded Age, out beyond the foundation edges, while maintained supremacy among Western the bedplate remained the same as that mining operations through the 1930s. used by single-stage units. Well-financed mining companies requiring The distinguishing characteristic high volumes of air at high pressures between both steam-powered straight-line continued to favor belt-driven duplex and duplex compressors manufactured compressors, while companies with between the 1890s and 1910s and their slightly reduced air needs, such as running belt-driven cousins was a detached at most six stoper or sinker drills, rectangular motor mount featuring four continued to use relatively inexpensive small anchor bolts. Because the drive belt single-stage belt-drive straight-line passed from the motor pinion to the compressors. compressor’s flywheel, engineers had Despite the common reliance on workers construct the motor mount older designs, compressed air technology between 6 and 18 feet away from the had undergone dynamic changes since the compressor and offset to accommodate close of the Gilded Age. Mechanical the belt. The use of a drive-belt required engineers began to experiment with a tension pulley, which was an adjustable unconventional designs beginning in the roller that pressed down on the belt to 1900s, and during the 1910s several of keep it tight. The pulley was often bolted these models experienced commercial onto the compressor frame, and it was production. By the 1930s, a few Western anchored to small timber foundations at mining companies with substantial capital floor level in association with large became interested in installing some of the compressors. Direct-drive electric modern designs in hopes of maximizing compressors tended to be large, and they efficiency. required more width in the “U” portion of The popularization of automobile the foundation to accommodate the engines had given rise to the invention of motor. Geared compressors featured several alternative forms of compressors.

84 By the 1910s an upright two-cylinder These innovative compressors were able compressor with valves and a crankshaft to deliver a volume of air up to 900 cfm like an automobile engine had become at high pressures for less energy and for popular. Used on an experimental basis less floor space than either duplex or as early as the 1900s by prospect straight-line units. Despite superior operations, these units were inexpensive, performance of angle-compound adaptable to any form of power, and compressors, only a few Western mining weighed little. Further, mining machinery companies experimented with them during makers had mounted them onto four- the 1910s and 1920s because of the high wheel trailers or simple wood frames for purchase prices and the unconventionality mobility. As a result, impoverished of the design. These factors continued to Western mining outfits embraced them suppress employment of angle-compound because they required no engineering and compressors into the 1930s, at a time were ready to use. During the 1930s when many mining outfits were forced to Western mining companies hauled these be fiscally conservative to maintain two-cylinder units to mine sites where profitability. As a result angle compound they bolted them to simple timber frames compressor never saw great popularity in and coupled the drive shaft to salvaged the West. automobile engines, single cylinder gas The last break-away from engines, or motors for power. traditional compressor form employed The angle-compound compressor, during the Great Depression consisted of developed during the 1910s, was a major another design that mimicked the break-away from traditional Industrial structure of the automobile engine. The Revolution compressor designs. The Chicago Pneumatic Tool Company and angle-compound machine consisted of Gardner-Denver both introduced two large compression cylinders oriented compressors known in the mining industry 90º from each other, one lying horizontal as V-cylinder compressors and as feather and the other extending upward vertically. valve compressors. The machines were The piston rods for both cylinders bolted virtual adaptations of large-displacement onto a common crankshaft in an engine truck engines with between 3 and 8 case, much like the piston arrangement compression cylinders arranged in a “V” for V8 and V6 automobile engines. A configuration, and the pistons were large belt pulley that also served as a coupled onto a heavy crankshaft. Further, flywheel turned the crankshaft. One of the new designs no longer relied on the cylinders had been designed for low- circulating water from a storage tank for compression and the other for high cooling. Instead they featured grossly compression, and the air passed through enlarged radiators similar to the types an intercooler between them.lxx auto-makers had been installing on the The operating principles behind fronts of cars. The compressor makers the angle compound-compressor were the designed the large machines to be same as those for compound duplex powered by electric motors directly compressors, and mining and mechanical coupled onto the crankshaft. Small engineers claimed that the new machines machines were belted to a motor. V- were by far more efficient when driven by cylinder compressors frequently came an external source such as a motor. from the factory mounted onto a heavy

85 steel frame that the mining company usually less than 1 by 1 feet in area while bolted onto a concrete foundation. gas engine foundations were larger. The variety of new compressors Angle-compound compressors sold by mining machinery makers were of were much larger and more complex than little consequence to small operations, other compressors used at Western mines, because they were economically forced to and as a result their foundations were employ salvaged and used equipment. asymmetrical and presented uneven, Impoverished companies combined any stepped profiles. The foundations were type of compressor they could get their often 10 by 8 feet in area and their hands on with a likely looking drive footprints conformed to “L” and “T” motor, creating odd, mismatched sets of shapes. The central portion of the machinery installed in a seemingly foundation was typically elevated to haphazard manner. Some poorly funded provide clearance for the compressor’s mining operations that worked old claims drive pulley/flywheel, and the surfaces of deep in the backcountry where electric other portions were lower to anchor power did not exist employed old- different parts of the machine. Angle- fashioned and inefficient straight-line compound compressors required anchor gasoline compressors. bolts ranging from 1 to 2 inches in Like the defunct operations of diameter. The foundation for the drive decades past, when the Depression-era motor, ranging from 2 by 3 to 4 by 5 feet mining companies went broke and shut in area and studded with four anchor down, creditors, neighboring mines, and bolts, should be located within 12 feet and salvage crews dismantled and removed aligned with the compressor foundation. the serviceable portions of their air Like large straight-line compressors, high- systems. Visitors to 1930s mine sites capacity angle-compound units often today will most likely encounter evidence featured an independent concrete pylon to of compressor systems in the form of support the heavy flywheel’s outboard foundations. Each of the types of bearing. compressors discussed above usually V-cylinder compressors required a required foundations that conformed to foundation that was unlike the footings specific footprints. The trait that they all for the compressors discussed above. shared, however, was that construction Because the manufacturers bolted the V- crews almost invariable used portland cylinder’s components onto a steel frame, concrete during the 1930s. mining engineers found that the new The small upright two-cylinder compressors required remarkably simple compressors did not require substantial foundations that were easy and foundations. Instead, the small outfits inexpensive to construct. Small V- that used them bolted the machines onto cylinder compressors required concrete timber frames, or onto small timber foundations that possessed a slightly foundations set in the ground. Usually rectangular footprint, and engineers the compressors required anchor bolts ½ usually specified that they be capped with to 1 inch in diameter set in a rectangular timbers, which cushioned the vibrating footprint approximately 2 by 3 feet. The machine. Mining engineers usually bolted drive motor or engine foundation had to the steel frame down onto the timber be placed near by. Motor mounts were pads. The large compressor units

86 required concrete foundations similar in U-shaped and the motor mounts for belt- shape to the footings associated with the driven units tend to be located a slight antiquated straight-line steam distance away. Straight-line compressors, compressors. Today’s visitor to historic on the other hand, stood on rectangular mine sites can identify the foundation for foundations up to 10 feet long and 2 feet a large V-cylinder compressor by its wide, with the motor mount located up to composition of portland concrete, six feet behind. Some well-capitalized because the anchor bolts are typically less Depression-era mining companies used than 1 inch in diameter, and by its large multi-stage belt-driven straight-line association with other circa 1930s surface compressors. The remaining foundations plant features. often consist of a long and narrow The visitor to today’s mine sites portland concrete block broken into will find that the foundations for the several individual pads for the electric duplex and straight-line compression cylinders, a concrete pylon compressors, the most common types that supported the large flywheel’s employed during the 1930s, are the same outboard bearing, and a motor mount in form and footprint as the models used aligned with the pylon. The drive belt in the 1900s and 1910s. The foundations passed from the flywheel to the motor. for duplex compressors continued to be

Electricity

Mining engineers working in the turn their dream into reality. Mining West began experimenting with electricity engineers made their first attempts to run as early as 1881 when the fabulous Alice machinery in locations that featured a Mine & Mill in Butte, Montana attempted combination of water and topographical to illuminate its perpetually dim passages relief where they could generate hydro- and buildings with Edison’s new light power. In 1888 the Big Bend Mine on bulbs. At that time electric technology the Feather River experimented with was new and its practical application electricity, and the Aspen Mining & evaded not only mining engineers, but Smelting Company, in Aspen, Colorado, many industrial engineers as well. During used electricity to run a custom-made the 1880s visionary inventors electric hoist that served a winze demonstrated that electricity was able to underground. Two years later do work, which enticed mining engineers progressive mining companies in who dreamt of sending power to hoists, Telluride, and in Creede by 1892, compressors, and pumps, and other attempted to adapt electricity to run machinery through slender wires rather machinery and illuminate the darkness. than through cumbersome and expensive Electric plants were a rarity in the West steam pipes.lxxi until the late 1890s when a growing During the late 1880s and into the number of mining districts attempted to 1890s mining engineers working for utilize the curious and promising power profitable and well-capitalized Western source. mines in developed districts attempted to

87 Several factors came into play that In general electrical technology as excited interest in electrification during it existed during the 1890s offered mining this time. First, the nation’s economy and companies little incentive to junk even the mining West were recovering from the small pieces of sinking-class steam severe economic depression associated equipment. However, enough with Silver Crash of 1893, and mining progressive industrialists and engineers companies once again had capital to work saw the benefits that electricity offered to with. Second, electrical and mining the mining industry to keep the movement engineers had made great strides in going. As a result, in the mid and late harnessing electricity for the unique work 1890s a few capitalists formed electric of mining. The earliest electrical circuits companies that wired well-developed wired during the 1880s and early 1890s mining districts such as Cripple Creek and were energized with Direct Current (DC) Central City, Colorado, Mercur, Utah, which had a unidirectional flow, and and several portions of California’s during this time mining engineers were Mother Lode. More companies formed in experimenting with Alternating Current districts of similar magnitude during and (AC), which oscillated. shortly after 1900. The characteristics Neither power source, as they that these mining districts shared was that existed during the 1890s, was particularly they were compact and limited in area, well suited for Western mining. AC lending themselves to DC power current had the capacity to be transmitted distribution, and they encompassed a high over a dozen miles with little energy loss, density of deep, large, and profitable but motors wired to it were totally mines, which constituted a potentially incapable of starting or stopping under significant consumer base. To further the load. Therefore AC was worthless for demand for power in these districts, the running hoists, large shop appliances, and electric companies leased motor-driven other machines that experienced sudden hoists and compressors to mining drag, or that required variable speed. AC operations at discount rates. As a result electricity was effective, however, for small operations with little capital running small air compressors, ventilation installed electric hoists and compressors fans, and mill machinery because they amid their surface plants. Large mining were constant-rotation machines that companies used electric hoists offered little resistance. DC electricity, on underground to serve winzes, and they the other hand, had the capacity to start equipped their shops with motor-driven and stop machinery under load, but the power appliances. electric current could not have been Around 1900 electrical appliance transmitted more than several miles manufacturers had made several without suffering debilitating power loss. breakthroughs. Electricians had Therefore DC currents had to be used developed the three-phase AC motor, adjacent to their points of generation. In which could start and stop under load addition, DC motors were incapable of while using a current that could be running the massive production-class transmitted long distances. The other machines mining companies had come to major breakthrough consisted of the rely on for profitable ore extraction.lxxii development of practical DC/AC converters, which permitted the use of

88 DC motors on the distribution end of an bedplate, with the motor bolted onto an AC electric line. The net result was that extension projecting outward from the electricity became an attractive power side. While electric hoists utilized source to a broad range of electric bedplates similar to geared steam hoists, consumers. the performance rating for the bedplate Still, most Western mining size for electric models was less than it companies were not yet willing to was for steam hoists. relinquish mighty steam technology Even though the electric hoists because even the new three-phase AC made during the 1900s were able to start motors were capable of only driving and stop under load, they were very slow sinking-class hoists and small and had a limited payload capacity. Most compressors. In addition, voltage, of these hoists featured motors rated 75 amperage, and current had not yet been horsepower or less. The early electric standardized among machinery hoists had speeds under 600 feet per manufacturers or among the various minute, payloads less than 3 tons power grids in the West, which including the weight of a hoisting vehicle, discouraged engineers from embracing the cable in the shaft, and ore, and their use of motors for critical mine plant working depths were rated to around components. Many pragmatic, 2,500 feet.lxxiv professionally educated mining engineers By the 1910s applications of felt that while electricity indeed offered electricity had progressed to the point benefits during the 1900s and 1910s, it where professionally educated mining was no where near ready to replace steam engineers could not deny the potential power.lxxiii savings in operating costs, and that the The rigors of mine hoisting proved performance of electrical machinery was to be one of the greatest obstacles rapidly approaching that of all but the electricity had to overcome, but by the titanic direct-drive steam hoists. As 1900s mining machinery manufactures steam machines such as hoists and had developed a variety of small AC and compressors began showing wear after DC models that were reasonably reliable. years and even decades of use, the The early electric hoists were similar in engineers in charge of large and medium- design to sinking-class geared steam sized mines began replacing them with hoists, and they were manufactured by electric models. Many mining operations mining machinery makers with motors were clearly demonstrating that electricity wholesaled from electric appliance was more efficient than steam. One companies such as General Electric. engineer asserted that in well-developed Most of the hoists consisted of a cable mining districts, a steam-driven drum, reduction gear shafts, and motor compressor cost up to $100 per fixed onto a rectangular bedplate. In horsepower per year to run while an many cases the controller, which served electric model cost only $50. The cost the same function as a throttle on a steam savings were probably even greater for hoist, was also mounted onto the hoisting.lxxv bedplate. A second popular electric hoist Electric technology had come a configuration consisted of a cable drum long way by the 1910s, and many and a gear shaft fastened onto a main reputable professionally educated and

89 even many self-taught mining engineers that when they came under great load, began to accept it at least for lighting, and such as beginning movement with a even for running critical mine machinery. loaded cage, they siphoned a tremendous Mining operations getting underway amount of power from other plant during this time installed factory-made components, resulting in a brown-out. In electric hoists while some older response, electrical engineers in both operations attempted to retrofit their America and Europe, which was also steam models with motors. These developing electric power at this time, electrical converts wisely maintained their introduce rotary converters that played a steam boilers in an operable condition in dual role in the hoist’s circuitry. the event the motor, or the entire The converter fed electricity to the electrical grid, failed, which occurred at hoist when needed, but it allowed the times. Electrical engineers had hoist motor to act as a generator when the standardized electric grids and motors in hoistman shut off the power and used the the West’s mining districts for either 220 motor’s mechanical drag to lower the or 440 volts and 60 cycle AC current; hoisting vehicle down the shaft. The other voltages and DC current had fallen electricity generated by the hoist motor, out of favor by this time.lxxvi being turned by the descending hoisting Mining machinery makers had vehicle, went to the converter and made the greatest advances with electric powered a motor there that set in motion hoists during the 1910s. Not only had a large iron flywheel. When the hoistman electrical engineers and machinery makers powered up his machine and raised improved the performance and reliability another load from the depths of the mine, of single-drum electric hoists, but also the hoist again drew full current, but the they introduced effective double-drum motor in the converter, kept in motion by units for productive mines interested in the flywheel, reversed its role and became achieving economies of scale through a generator that supplemented the power balanced hoisting. Within ten more years, drawn by the hoist. except for remote and poorly capitalized The mining industry used three operations, most of the mining West had basic types of rotary converters. These adopted electric power for hoisting, as included the Lahmeyer system, the well as for running other types of mining Siemans-Ilgner system, and the machinery. Westinghouse system, the latter of which During the 1910s mining was by far the most popular. Rotary engineers had developed two basic converters were capital-intensive, and electric systems they could choose from because electricity by nature was for production-class operations. They inexpensive, few mining companies saw could have wired their machinery directly the necessity of installing such machinery. to an electrical substation connected to a However, a few heavily electrified mining power grid, or they could have first run companies operating their own generators the hoisting circuit through a rotary found converters to be economical, and converter which had the potential to save because one converter was able to serve electricity and moderate the demand on several mines at once, some electric the system. The biggest problem large companies also found them to be cost- hoists presented to electric circuitry was effective to wire into their grids. But in

90 general rotary converters saw little application in the West.

Architecture

Once a mining company had buildings erected by well-financed, proven the existence of ore the investors, profitable, and large mining companies who often had influence over management tended to be substantial and big, while the policy, fully expected the operation to buildings belonging to poorly funded and perform throughout the year, during good limited mining companies were crude, weather and bad, until the ore had been small, and rough. exhausted. Attempting to comply with Professionally trained mining company wishes, mining engineers engineers considered four basic costs that responded by using available capital to influenced the type, size, and constitution erect structures that sheltered important of the buildings they chose to erect. First, components of the surface plant against time had to be spent designing the the summer sun and against arctic winter structure. Second, basic construction winds. To this end engineers understood materials had to be purchased and some that buildings served two purposes: items fabricated. Third, the materials had mollifying the physical needs of the mine to be hauled to the site, and fourth, the crew, and sheltering plant components mining company had to pay a crew to that were intolerant of or performed build the structure. Between the 1880s poorly when exposed to adverse weather. and around 1900 nearly all mining The engineer and the mining company had engineers in the West attempted to meet a tacit understanding that the mine the above considerations by directing their buildings also possessed the ability to carpentry crews to build wood frame inspire investors and prominent figures in structures and side them with dimension the mining industry. Large, well-built, lumber. In a few cases small and poorly and stately structures conveyed a feeling funded operations working deep in the of permanence, wealth, and industrial mountains substituted hewn logs, but they might while small and poorly constructed understood that the log structures were buildings aroused little interest from intended to be impermanent, either to be investors and promoters. replaced by dimension lumber should the Building materials, architectural mine prove a bonanza or totally styles, and structure layouts for mine abandoned should the mine go bust. buildings in the West changed between The introduction of steel and iron the 1890s and the 1920s. Perhaps small building materials to the Western mining mining outfits in remote areas realized the industry in the1890s radically changed the greatest gain from changes in structures erected by mining companies. conventional construction practices of A number of steel makers began selling mine buildings as the expanding network iron siding for general commercial and of roads and railroads reduced the costs residential construction nation-wide in the of purchasing building materials. 1890s. While much of the siding was Regardless of a mine’s location, the decorative, a few varieties were designed

91 with industrial applications in mind. One undoubtedly stirred at least a stoic of these types, corrugated sheet iron, concern among otherwise hardened found favor with the Western mining miners. industry and its use spread like wildfire. The general forms, types, and Engineers increasingly made use of the layouts of mine structures followed a few material through the 1900s, and by the general patterns, regardless of the 1910s it had become a ubiquitous siding building materials the mining engineer for all types of mine and many commercial used for construction. During the 1880s buildings in the mining West. The and 1890s most mining engineers advantages of corrugated sheet iron were enclosed the primary surface plant that it cost little money, its light weight components, usually clustered around the made it inexpensive to ship, it covered a shaft, in an all-encompassing shaft house. substantial area of an unfinished wall, the The plant components associated with a corrugations gave the sheet rigidity, and it tunnel or adit were enclosed in a tunnel was easy to work with. These qualities house. These buildings contained made corrugated sheet steel an ideal machinery, the shop, the mine entrance, building material where remoteness and a workspace under one roof. The rendered lumber a costly commodity.lxxvii buildings therefore tended to be large, tall, The other significant use of steel and unmistakable edifices in a mining in mine buildings occurred during the district. Relatively small shaft houses in 1890s when a few prominent Western the West were constructed of stout post- mines began to experiment with the use of and-girt frame walls, gabled rafter roofs, girders for framing large buildings such as and informal or no foundations. shaft houses, paralleling the rise in the Particularly spacious shaft houses construction of steel headframes. required a square-set timber skeleton Architects began using steel framing to capable of supporting the roof support commercial and industrial brick independent of the walls. Regardless of and stone masonry buildings as early as the type of frame, carpenters clad the the mid-1880s, but Western mining walls with board-and-batten siding or companies found that wood framing met several layers of boards nailed either their needs as well and for less money. horizontally or vertically, and they used By the 1890s architectural steelwork had shakes for roofing material. During the improved, and steel makers offered 1880s and the 1890s, electric lighting was lightweight beams which mining engineers virtually unheard of, and mining engineers adapted to the framing of huge shaft instead had carpenters install large multi- houses. Further, engineers found that pane windows at regular intervals in the steel not only offered a sound structure walls for lighting. able to rebuff the high winds of the West, Most shaft houses built in the but it often cost less money than the West conformed to a few standard thousands of board-feet of lumber footprints that the arrangement of the required to erect the massive and mine machinery influenced. Overall, the imposing buildings, and steel had the structures tended to be long to encompass added benefit of being fire-proof. the hoist, which the engineer had usually However, taking shelter in a steel building anchored some distance from the shaft, during violent lightning storms and they featured lateral extensions that

92 accommodated the shop, a water tank, the generated by the shop forge, boilers, and boilers, and either coal or cord wood a few woodstoves proved no match for storage. Professionally educated mining the frigid drafts of winter. In response to engineers recommended that at least the the economic drain posed by large shaft boiler, and ideally the shop as well, be houses, during the 1900s and 1910s many partitioned in separate rooms because mining companies began sheltering key they generated unpleasant soot and dust surface plant components in individual which took a toll on lubricated machinery buildings. The appearance of the surface such as compressors and hoists.lxxviii plants of many mines changed to consist The roof profile typical of most of a cluster of moderate-sized buildings Western shaft houses featured a louvered surrounding the exposed headframe. cupola enclosing the headframe’s crown Instead of a shaft house, at and a sloped extension descending toward particularly large and well-equipped mines the hoist that accommodated the hoist the engineers had carpenters enclose the cable and the headframe’s backbraces. hoist and boilers in a hoist house, the Tall iron boiler smokestacks pierced the compressor in a compressor house, and roof proximal to the hoist, the stovepipe the shop in its own building. The mine for the forge extended through the roof plant may have also featured a miner's near the shaft collar, and the shaft house change house also known as a dry, a may have also featured other stovepipes storage building, a stable, a carpentry for the stoves that heated the hoistman’s shop, and an electrical substation. Small platform and the carpentry shop. The tall and medium-sized mines often combined smokestacks and stovepipes usually had the hoist, boiler, compressor, and shop in to be guyed with baling wire to prevent one large hoist house, while the being blown over by strong winds. headframe and shaft collar remained The mining engineer working at exposed to the weather. It is important to high elevations often had the shaft house note that sheltering the vital surface plant interior floored with planks to improve components in a single hoist house was heating. In some cases the shop and standard for poorly-capitalized mines and boiler areas, where workers dropped prospect operations in the Great Basin smoldering embers, hot pieces of metal, and Southwest from as early as the 1870s, and nodules of fresh clinker were and the practice continued into the 1930s. surprisingly also floored with planking, Wood frame and steel buildings which presented an enormous fire hazard! consisted of structural materials that other Customarily the mining engineer designed mining operations, creditors, and district the flooring to be flush with the top residents prized, and they were quick to surfaces of the machine foundations, remove a building for the lumber permitting the steam, air, and water pipes following a mine’s abandonment. to be routed underneath and out of the Further, federal tax laws levied way. assessments on the owners of property Shaft houses colossal enough to with improvements such as structures, cover a bank of boilers, a large hoist, air and as a result private parties demolished compressor, and a shop were extremely mine buildings in hopes of avoiding costly to build and they required payment. As a result, only a tiny fraction expensive upkeep. In addition, the heat of the mine buildings that had dotted

93 mining landscapes across the West prior bolts, stovepipes, and stovepipe flashing to the 1930s have endured until today. often were left after a wood frame Visitors seeking to identify the size, type, building had been disassembled. Usually and shape of buildings at mine sites must the artifact assemblages at mine sites turn to archaeological remains in the active after around 1900 include at least a forms of foundations, footprints, and few pieces of corrugated siding. Some artifacts. Most mine buildings were mining companies with limited funding impermanent and hastily built, so that used a variety of other forms of sheet iron thorough salvage efforts left scant remains siding to cover holes and gaps in mine behind. buildings from the 1880s into the 1930s. In a few rare cases, mining Prior to the 1890s, mining outfits engineers instructed their construction flattened the corrugated bodies of blasting crews to lay either concrete or masonry powder kegs to obtain sheet iron, and wall footers, which can help the visitor in between the 1880s to 1910s mining determining the footprint of a structure. operations flattened square 5 gallon Due to lack of funding and the general kerosene and gasoline cans. Last, the impermanence associated with Western concentration of lumber fragments and mining, workers rarely built formal and light industrial artifacts such as small lasting foundations. Instead, they built machine parts, electrical insulators, and informal foundations consisting of dry- nuts and bolts is often greater within the laid rock alignments or heavy timbers set boundaries and immediately surrounding in the ground. The visitor to historic mine the location of a mine building than at sites may be able to identify the footprints short distances away. of shaft houses, hoist houses, shops, The general construction methods stables, and compressor houses by abrupt and architectural styles of the 1930s changes in soil character and linear changed little from the practices of the depressions where building walls had late nineteenth century. Like their stood. Heavy foot and animal traffic, predecessors, 1930s-era engineers grease and oil deposits, forge clinker, designed stout structures that consisted of dark soil with a high organic content, and a dimension lumber frame and rafter roof, differential soil weathering had the which laborers sided with corrugated potential to result in the ground sheet steel. Engineers continued to take underlying a structure being different in advantage of natural light by designing appearance and texture from the buildings with multi-pane windows at surrounding soil or waste rock. To regular intervals in walls, and they further aid visitors puzzling over historic provided broad custom-made doors at mine sites, the soil differences created by important points of entry. structures affected revegetation patterns. During the 1930s the use of Brush and grasses may outline a flooring materials for well-built buildings structure’s footprint. became more common than during the The assemblage of artifacts Gilded Age. Engineers either floored around the surface plant core may also principle structures with poured portland help the visitor to identify the types and concrete, which had become an locations of mine buildings. Heavy inexpensive material due in part to the concentrations of nails, window glass, lag proliferation of the truck, or they stood

94 the buildings on proper foundations and expression of the outfit’s nature, and used wood planking. Mining engineers at assembled as the builder saw fit. impoverished operations attempted to While large and well-financed maintain a high level of quality by mining companies customarily erected designing properly framed buildings, but several buildings such as a hoist house, a they were forced to make due with plank compressor house, and a shop, the small flooring nailed onto joists placed on the and impoverished operations tried to save ground, or they had to be satisfied with a money by enclosing their crucial plant floor of mother earth. facilities in a single building. At shaft Depression-era buildings that had mines this structure usually consisted of been erected by well-capitalized mining the hoist house, or a combination shop companies shared a few broad and compressor house at adit mines. The characteristics that, in addition to the construction of one building, with minor construction features and materials noted additions and extensions, minimized the above, separated them from the simple outlay of precious capital and the time structures typical of lesser mines. Mining and effort required of miners to erect a companies with funding tended to erect structure. A compromise that many buildings that were spacious with lofty impoverished mining companies enacted gabled or shed-style roofs. The materials involved moving entire buildings to the the companies provided their workers mine from abandoned operations nearby. included virgin lumber, virgin sheet iron, In so doing a small mining company could and factory-made hardware. The have added to its assemblage of structures workers, often skilled in their trade, built for little money. Mining outfits that lasting structures with a solid, tidy, and engaged in this practice made little or no orderly industrial appearance. In most effort at altering the appearance of the cases mining engineers emphasized relocated buildings, and these structures function and cost in their designs and stand out today as being different in added little ornamentation, contrary to the materials, construction, workmanship, and large buildings erected during the Gilded architectural style from the other Age. vernacular buildings at the mine site. Poorly funded mining outfits were The structures erected by poorly economically forced to keep construction capitalized mining companies during the within a tight budget, and within their Depression can be divided into two skills. These outfits could not afford first- categories. Some small outfits had at rate construction materials and tools, they least a little capital and a crew with were not able to hire an experienced modest carpentry skills, and they built engineer or architect, and they lacked the mine structures that consisted of a rough funding to hire a skilled construction but sound frame, often of the post-and- crew. As a result, the buildings that the girt variety, sided with salvaged lumber small companies erected tended to be and scavenged sheet iron. These small, low, made with high proportions of buildings appeared rough and battered salvaged materials, and poorly even when relatively new, but they were constructed overall. The buildings fairly well-built and offered miners shelter fabricated by small outfits were personal against icy winter blasts and summer and unique to each operation, being a true thunderstorms. Construction crews

95 assembled the buildings with the materials built shoddy structures because they they had on hand. They often sided the wanted to fulfill an immediate need and walls and roof with a patchwork of anticipated abandoning the mine after a mismatched sheets of corrugated sheet period of time. The architectural style of steel in various stages of rusting. Miners the mine buildings erected by such mining salvaged doors and window frames from companies during the 1930s may truly be abandoned houses. Some structures even termed Depression-era Western mining had mismatched walls, each face of the vernacular. building having been sided differently One of the subtle factors that from the others. gives the buildings erected by The quality of workmanship impoverished outfits an overall beaten and defines the second category of ramshackle appearance is the use of Depression-era mine buildings from the unconventional building materials. As first. Buildings that fell into the second noted, Depression-era mining outfits group appeared even rougher and had less extensively used salvaged lumber, structural integrity than the structures recovered sheet steel, and in the mountain described above. The laborers frequently states raw logs still clad with bark. The built such structures with no formal visitor examining 1930s vintage mines frame. Instead, they preassembled the today may note that the structures consist walls, stood them up, and nailed them of lumber which, when considered on a together, or established four corner-posts, piece-by-piece basis, contrasts from the added cross braces, and fastened siding to other pieces in tone, grain, exact the boards. The builders may have used a dimensions, and cut. The lumber and the combination of planks and sheet steel for siding will exhibit old nail holes, siding, which was often layered to prevent abandoned nails, and signs of differential being ripped apart by high winds. Many weathering where it had previously been mining outfits favored the shed structural fixed onto another structure. style, which featured four walls and a roof Mine workers assembled buildings that slanted from one side of the building with these types of materials as best as to the other, because it was simplest to they could, but they often neglected to erect. trim the boards and sheet steel to even The workers comprising small lengths which greatly contributed to an mining outfits constructed these buildings overall rough appearance. They left the poorly for several reasons. First and boards comprising roofs and walls uneven foremost they sought to minimize costs lengths, they left sheets of corrugated and the effort of labor. Second, many steel uncut only to bend them edges of the workers at Depression-era mines were not way, and they neglected to trim the posts the jacks-of-all trades that had supporting structures such as ore bins to a characterized miners during the Gilded uniform length. Economic hardship, the Age. Rather, they came from a variety of fatigue it fostered, and the rag-tag urban and rural backgrounds, and as a workforce spawned by the Great result they lacked carpentry skills and Depression overrode the drive for proper construction tools. Last, workers regularity and order at the mine.

96 Aerial Tramways

In Creede, like other Western the first practical aerial tramway in the mining districts, prospectors had West. Hallidie’s system consisted of a discovered many productive mines in series of strong wooden towers featuring impossible terrain. Some of the locations cross-members tipped with idler wheels were so inaccessible that pack trains that supported a continuously moving, proved to be the only viable means of endless loop of wire rope. The loop of transporting in the materials of mining and rope conveyed a series of ore buckets that hauling out ore. Unfortunately the traveled a circuit between large sheave carrying capacity of pack trains was wheels at the top and bottom stations. severely limited, approximately 11 burros The tram’s wooden towers were built to or donkeys required per ton of ore, which heights dependent on the relief of the greatly inhibited a mine’s production terrain in efforts to keep the pitch of the levels and, by direct association, profit. tramway consistent, and Hallidie In some cases mining engineers spent ingeniously designed the system to move lavish sums of capital to build circuitous under gravity. The loaded buckets gently wagon roads in hopes of mitigating descended downslope, pulling the light transportation problems. However, the empties back up to the mine. steep and winding wagon roads proved to Hallidie’s design changed little be only somewhat better than pack trails, from the 1870s until the 1910s. Empty economically squelching what could have buckets entered the tram terminal, they otherwise been a highly profitable were loaded with payrock, whisked operation.lxxix around the sheave wheel, and traveled In the greater West, mining down the line to the bottom terminal. In companies began experienced these the top terminal, ore poured through a transportation-related problems as early chute from a bin into the empty buckets as the 1860s when prospectors began while in they were in motion, and they finding tantalizing deposits of gold and continued down to the bottom terminal. silver in the rugged Great Basin and When the bucket entered the bottom Rocky Mountains. At that time mining terminal a steel guide rail upset it, engineers dreamt of fanciful solutions to dumping the contents into a receiving bin magically move great tonnages of ore to underneath as it passed around the bottom points of rail shipment, or directly to local wheel. A few feet past the ore bin, a reduction mills. One such engineer and group of laborers may have been busy mining machinery maker in San Francisco, loading empty buckets with dynamite, Andrew S. Hallidie, was the first to turn drill-steels, food, and forge coal to supply fantasy into reality. Combining his the miners at work high above. knowledge of wire rope, his engineering By the 1880s enough mining skills, and familiarity with European companies had installed Hallidie aerial mining technology, he hit upon an tramways to enable academic engineers to invention that solved the transportation evaluate their economic worth and problems presented by high mountains performance. The mechanical wonders and impassable winter snows. In the late remained unrivalled for moving large 1860s Hallidie developed and patented volumes of ore across untraversable

97 terrain in districts such as Creede, but 50% more expensive to erect than they possessed several undeniable Hallidie tramways, they proved to be limitations. The tramways had distance better for heavy production because they and elevation limitations of 2 miles and were able to handle greater payloads 2,500 feet, respectively. Longer circuits which resulted in higher production for required very expensive transfer stations. the mining company. In addition, the grip Because the buckets were fixed to the fastening the buckets to the traction rope wire rope, they had to be filled and was releasable, permitting workers to unloaded while in motion, limiting their manually push the buckets around the load and giving them the greater potential interior of the terminal on hanging rails, to wreak havoc with the system. When permitting them to fill the buckets at the grade traversed by Hallidie’s tramway leisure without spillage. The double-rope was less than 14 feet rise per 100 feet system also permitted the entire tramway traveled, an expensive steam engine had circuit to be extended up to four miles in to power the rope. Last, because the length and work at almost any pitch. system relied on one rope to both carry Mining companies began and move the buckets, the weight experimenting with Bleichert Double capacity of each bucket had to be Rope systems in the 1880s, ten years after curtailed to minimize strain and ultimately Hallidie began manufacturing his the cataclysmic event of breakage.lxxx marvelous aerial tramways. Due to With these problems in mind, superior performance, the popularity of Theodore Otto and Adolph Bleichert, two Bleichert systems eclipsed the less German engineers, developed an expensive Hallidie tramways by the alternative system first employed in 1890s, when the use of tramways in Europe in 1874. The Bleichert Double Creede, and the rest of the West, surged. Rope tramway utilized a track rope Still, many Western mining companies spanning from tram tower to tram tower, with limited production and moderate and a separate traction rope that tugged amounts of capital continued to install the ore buckets around the circuit. The Hallidie systems after the turn-of-the- track rope was fixed in place and the century. buckets coasted over it on special hangers Purchasing and installing aerial featuring guide wheels. The traction rope tramways was beyond the rough-and- was attached to the ore bucket’s hanger ready skills of many mining engineers. via a mechanical clamp known as a grip. The systems were complex and very Like Hallidie Single Rope tramways, expensive, they required economic and Bleichert Double Rope tramways engineering calculations, and a state of incorporated top and bottom terminal mind bordering on the experimental and stations where the buckets were filled and progressive. Even professionally trained emptied, and they too usually ran by mining engineers installing aerial gravity.lxxxi tramways usually required direction from Bleichert’s system offered engineers dispatched by the tramway advantages that endeared the marvelous maker. While mining companies systems to academically trained purchased basic tramway components technology-loving mining engineers. from mining machinery makers such as Even though Bleichert systems were up to A.S. Hallidie & Company, Park & Lacy,

98 and Bleichert & Company, each set-up hill tower, the through tower, and the was a custom affair tailored to a specific composite tower. The pyramid tower mine’s needs. Mining engineers and the consisted of four upright legs that joined builders of tramways assembled systems at the structure’s crest. The through from fairly standardized technology, but tower resembled an A-shaped headframe rarely were two systems alike in the West. consisting of a wide rectangular structure Tramways offered mining stabilized by fore and back braces, and the companies the economic advantage of tram buckets passed through the framing. producing ore in economies of scale, but Composite towers usually had a truncated perhaps greatest of all in the eyes of pyramid base topped with a smaller frame engineers was the statement such a system supporting a cross-member. The braced- made about the engineer himself, and hill tower was similar to the through about the mining company that backed tower, except it had exaggerated diagonal him. The constant aerial parade of loaded braces tying it into the hillslope. ore buckets inspired management and Tramway towers for both investors alike, it spoke of prosperity and Bleichert and Hallidie systems required wealth, and was a mechanical fascination. stout cross-members to support the wire The action inside the loading and ropes at a distance that permitted the unloading terminals was no less inspiring. buckets to swing in the wind and not A busy crew of mine workers uncoupled strike the towers. Hallidie systems, with every bucket as it arrived, they pushed the their single wire rope and fixed buckets, empties over the hanging rail to the ore needed only one cross-member that chutes where another worker filled them, featured several idler wheels or rollers. and workers recoupled the buckets onto Because the buckets were suspended from the ever-moving rope for the ride down. a long hanger fixed onto the cable, the Tramway systems were very cross-member was bolted to the top of the materials-intensive and required tower. Bleichert systems, on the other substantial structures. As a result they hand, required a stout cross-member at almost always left characteristic forms of the tower top to support the stationary evidence at a mine site following track cable, and a second cross-member 3 abandonment. The basic components to 7 feet below to accommodate the discernable to today’s visitor include a moving traction rope. The second cross- top terminal near the adit or shaft, a member almost always featured either bucket line featuring towers, and the idler wheels or a broad steel roller. bottom terminal located adjacent to either Engineers found great challenge in a road, railroad grade, or an ore reduction attempting to design tram towers. They mill site. In many cases a visitor can had to minimize the quantity of evaluate the remains to determine whether construction materials, yet create a tall the more efficient and costly Bleichert structure that resisted a complex interplay system, or the less-expensive Hallidie of forces. Building a sound structure that system serviced the mine. met the last criterion was perhaps the Engineers recognized four basic most rigorous engineering goal. Tram types of tramway towers for both towers had to withstand the sum of three Bleichert and Hallidie systems. These basic stresses. The first was the included the pyramid tower, the braced downward pressure exerted by the weight

99 of the cable and ore buckets. The second Regardless of the type of tramway consisted of horizontal forces parallel to a mining company had installed, special the cables created by starting and accommodation had to be made for the stopping the system. The third consists of sheave wheels in both terminals. They sideways horizontal forces created by had to resist the significant horizontal windshear on the towers, cables, and forces of keeping the traction rope taught. buckets. This last force was not to be The sheave in the top terminal was usually underestimated in the rugged and fixed onto a heavy timber framework mountainous West, and it had caused a anchored to bedrock and partially buried number of major malfunctions at mines. with waste rock ballast. The wheel was The choice of tower form and canted at the same angle as the pitch of spacing was a function of topography, the bucket line so that the cable did not local weather, and the pitch of the line. derail, which would have resulted in a Pyramid and composite towers could have costly and potentially life-taking been built higher that the other types, and catastrophe. Typical sheave wheels, six they were the least costly. Hillslope feet in diameter for small systems and towers were best for very steep terrain, twelve feet for large systems, featured a and they, as well as through towers, gave deep, toothed groove for the rope, and greatest stability during severe weather. they were fixed onto a heavy steel axle set Engineers recommended using steel in cast iron bearings bolted to the timbers. beams for construction, but this was far The teeth in the groove gripped the rope too expensive, and most mining in the event that a terminal worker had to companies in the West built with timber throw the brake and stop the system. ranging from 6x6 to 10x10 inch stock, Brake levers, usually installed in both fastened with bolts. Where the bucket terminals, were typically very long to line traversed forested hillslopes, laborers provide great leverage, and they were had to cut a path through the trees. located on a catwalk immediately over the Tramway terminals presented wheel, or adjacent to the wheel at ground- engineers with no fewer design problems level, both of which afforded the straining than did the towers. Terminals had to be worker a view of the system he was physically arranged to permit the input attempting to stop. The lever controlled and storage of tons of ore from the mine, heavy wooden shoes that pressed with they had to facilitate transfer of the much force against a special flange payrock into or out of the tram buckets, fastened to the sheave wheel. These they had to resist the tremendous forces brakes may seem dubious to today’s put on the sheave wheel by the traction visitor when inspecting a tram station, but rope, and in the case of Bleichert systems, they were reputed to easily bring to a halt they also had to anchor the track cables. entire lines of full buckets. Mining engineers designing small-capacity Terminals for Hallidie systems tramways attempted to solve all of the featured the sheave wheel placed high in above problems literally under one roof, the framework to provide ample space to while the terminals for large-capacity clear the hanging buckets, which passed tramways were enclosed in complex directly under several ore chutes designed buildings. to fill them in motion. In most cases the chutes extended downward from ore bins

100 located directly over the terminal, and in and steep slopes also provided an answer fact small terminals and ore bins shared a to their dilemma of access. Rather than common stout structure. At the bottom install the large and efficient but terminal the sheave had be moveable to exorbitant tramways relished by academic take up slack in the rope line. In many engineers, the smaller companies strung cases the wheel was fastened onto a heavy up single-rope reversible aerial trams. timber frame pulled backward by Well-engineered single-rope trams adjustable anchor cables or threaded steel typically consisted of simple components. rods. The wheel carriage also featured A fixed line extended from an ore bin hardware that automatically upset the ore located high up at the mine down to buckets, and they emptied their precious another ore bin below. A hoist at the contents into an ore bin underneath the mine wound and unwound a second cable terminal. that pulled a bucket. The cost of The tramway terminal at the lower installing such a tramway was very low, haulage tunnel of the Bachelor Mine in but many engineers scorned them because the Creede Mining District in Colorado these conveyances were slow and serves as an example of a large complex inefficient, relying on one vehicle moving facility. Empty tram buckets coasted up back and forth between the bins. into the terminal and were routed onto a The primary materials a mining hanging rail by a special fitting lashed company needed to build a single-rope over the track cable. Workers unfastened tramway were abundant and inexpensive. the buckets’ grips and pushed them along A mine crew required two lengths of the rail which curved around behind the cable, lumber, a hoist, and a vessel hung sheave wheel framework. The bustling from a pulley. In many cases mining workers filled them at one of the companies, especially those with little terminal’s three ore chutes, and pushed capital, purchased a used steam hoist and them on to refastening point. The an old upright or locomotive boiler, or a terminal was spacious, it featured a small gas hoists, and impoverished outfits centrally located woodstove, and the used prospectors’ hand-cranked tramway brakeman stood on a platform windlasses or crab winches. The lines over the sheave. The ore bins were that mining operations strung up may located on two sides of the structure, and have been retired hoist cables, and the they received payrock from a feeder bucket possibly fashioned from an ore car tramway descending from tunnels high up body, but proper ore buckets were on the mountain, as well as material from preferred. The mining outfit often the adjacent ore sorting house. anchored the hoist high up at the mine to As grand a solution as Hallidie and a sound timber foundation that they tied Bleichert tramways were for facilitating into bedrock, and they often anchored the the procession of ore from a mine, they ends of the track cable to timber deadmen were too big and expensive for many buried in waste rock. Ramshackle though small operations that possessed modest they might be, miners working high up on amounts of capital. Yet, rugged terrain mountain sides would have agreed that and locations high on the sides of the single-rope aerial tramways saved mountains presented no less a problem for them immense aggravation and effort at these limited operations. The high relief bringing down their precious pay rock and

101

Ore Storage

While capitalists, mining Mining engineers recognized three engineers, and miners often held differing basic types of ore bins: the flat-bottom opinions as to how to set up and run a bin, the sloped-floor bin, and a structure mine, all were in agreement that the which was a hybrid of the above two primary goal was the production of ore, known as a compromise bin. Flat bottom and lots of it. Most Western hardrock bins, which generally consisted of a flat mines, of course, were failures, producing floor, high walls made of heavy planks, little or no pay rock and passing into and a louvered gateway in one wall had a history unknown. A few operations, greater storage capacity per square-foot however, proved to be profitable, and a than the other two types of structures. tiny fraction made millionaires of their However, laborers had to stand on the owners. Those mines with any pile of shifting payrock and work in measurable output of payrock usually choking dust to shovel it out into a included an ore storage facility as part of waiting wagon or railroad car. Sloped their surface plants, and operations that floor bins, on the other hand, were produced either miniscule amounts of expensive to build, they required proper payrock or were dry holes almost never engineering, and they were conducive to featured ore storage facilities. Like most automatically unloading the ore, which of a mine’s facilities, ore bins and ore naturally flowed out of the structure sorting houses reflected the financial state through chutes. Compromise bins of the mining company, the mine’s combined the above two designs, half of volume of production, and the type of ore the floor being sloped and half being flat, the miners drilled and blasted. to create a bin which automatically Ore bins were functionally unloaded when full, and required different from ore sorting houses, and the shoveling when almost empty.lxxxii mining engineer based his choice on Mining companies with substantial which structure he wished the company to capital backing and heavy ore production erect on the type of ore being mined. often erected large sloped-floor ore bins. Free gold, tungsten, and copper usually These structures were lasting, strong, and occurred in veins and masses that were had a look of permanency, solidity, and fairly consistent in quality and rock type, they inspired confidence. Well-built and they warranted storage in an ore bin. sloped-floor bins, which cost more than The quality and consistency of silver and twice to build than flat-bottomed bins, telluride gold, on the other hand, varied typically consisted of a heavy post and widely in any single given mine, and they girt frame made with 8x8 inch timbers required sorting, separation from waste sided on the interior with 2x6 to 2x12 rock, and rudimentary concentration in an inch planking. The structures generally ore sorting house. Both types of stood on foundations of posts tied to structures required a means of inputting heavy timber footers placed on terraces of ore from the mine, and a means of waste rock. To ensure the structure’s extracting it for shipment to a mill for durability in the onslaught of the finer concentration. continuous flow of sharp rock coming from the mine, construction laborers often

103 armored bin floors with salvaged plate a chute that directed the rock into the iron. Mines of a small order used sloped- open bin. Prior to the 1900s some mining floor bins consisting of a single-cell, for companies extracting very limited example 20 by 20 feet in area. Large quantities of ore countersunk small flat- productive mines erected long structures bottomed bins into the waste rock dump that included numerous bins to hold either near the adit portal. Such bins, often no different grades of ore, or batches of more than 20 by 20 feet in area, were payrock produced by multiple companies accessed by a mine rail spur curving off of lessees working within the same mine. the main line, and the trammer merely Mining companies with limited pushed a loaded ore car to the bin’s edge financing and minor ore production and disgorged the car’s contents. erected flimsy flat bottom bins because Ore sorting houses were generally such structures were inexpensive to build. more complex and required greater capital Rarely did these ore storage structures and engineering to erect than ore bins. attain the sizes and proportions of their The primary functions of ore sorting large sloped-floor cousins because the houses were both the concentration and walls were not able to withstand the the storage of ore. In keeping with immense lateral pressures exerted by the gravity-flow engineering typical of ore. Flat-bottomed bins had to contend mining, engineers usually designed sorting with pressures on all four walls, while houses with multiple levels for the input, sloped-floor bins directed the pressure processing, and storage of ore. These against the front wall and the diagonal structures usually featured a row of floor. receiving bins located at the top level, a By nature of the their function, sorting floor under the receiving bins, and ore bins and ore sorting houses had to be a row of holding bins underneath the linked to the mine tunnel or shaft via a rail sorting floor. Receiving bins always had line for the input of fresh ore, and they sloped floors, and in most cases the had to provide for the removal of stored holding bins below did too. In the cold ore. Trammers and miners filled ore bins and windy mountain states a gabled roof with precious payrock by pushing loaded cupola sheltered the top level, and the ore cars from the mine, across a small sorting floor was fully enclosed and trestle, and over the bin. To facilitate a heated with a wood stove. Large and rail connection featuring a level gradient, well-capitalized mines provided steam the rim of the ore bin had to be at the heat for the sorters. The holding bins at same elevation as the tunnel portal or bottom were similar to the sloped-floor shaft collar, and as a result mining ore bins discussed above, and the engineers usually located sloped-floor structure usually stood on a foundation of bins, which tended to be rather tall, out on heavy timber pilings, or a combination of the flank of the mine’s waste rock dump. pilings and hewn log cribbing walls.lxxxiii Many flat-bottom bins, and some small, Like the processes associated with poorly built, flimsy sloped-floor bins, ore milling, mining engineers utilized were located at the toe of the waste rock gravity to draw rock through ore sorting dump where stable ground lay. Trammers houses. The general path the ore loaded ore into these holding structures followed began when the drilling and by dumping the rock from the ore car into blasting team, the mucker, or shift boss,

104 all working underground, characterized laborers, all wearing slouch hats and the nature of the ore they were extracting. gloves hovered over a row of around four They communicated their assessment of to six iron-clad sorting tables. A few the ore’s quality to the trammer via a workers would loosen the stoppings on labeled stake, a message on a discarded chutes holding mixed ore until their tables dynamite box panel, or a tag. The were full of cobbles, then they sorted trammer subsequently hauled the loaded through the rock, occasionally using a car out of the depths of the mine and hammer to knock off waste. The workers pushed it into the sorting house, which would drop the recovered ore through stood on the flank of the waste rock unguarded openings in the floor where it dump. He emptied the car into one of fell into holding bins below. They tossed several bins, depending on how impure waste rock onto the floor or swept it into the ore was. High-grade ore went into a ore cars parked on a rail line inside the small and special ore bin at one end of the structure. structure, run-of-mine ore, which was not Mining companies transferred particularly rich but required no sorting, stored payrock from the ore bins or ore went into another bin at the opposite end sorting house into wagons or railroad cars of the structure. Mixed ore that was for quick shipment to a mill. Most mines, attached to or combined with even in well-developed districts, were not considerable waste rock went into one of productive enough to warrant direct rail several bins located in the center of the access, and they had to be served instead ore sorting house. When released from by teamsters, who, shouting and cracking the car, the mixed ore slid into a receiving their whips, maneuvered stout wagons bin that featured a heavy grate at the directly underneath the ore chutes bottom known as a grizzly. The principle projecting out of the ore bins. When a behind the grizzly was that the rich wagon had been positioned, a surface portions of telluride and silver ores laborer crept along a plank catwalk that fractured into fines, and the large cobbles linked all of the chutes, and he opened the that remained intact through the blasting, gates which allowed the ore to pour forth. mucking, and unloading contained waste The types of chute stoppings on both rock that needed to be cobbed, or early and late ore bins included louvered knocked off by surface laborers. The boards, iron gates raised by gearing, and a valuable fines dropped through the grizzly pivoting gate that opened when a laborer directly into holding bins at the bottom of pulled down on a long lever. The the structure, while the waste rock-laden louvered plank stopping proved to be cobbles rolled off the grizzlies and into most popular in the West because it cost holding chutes that fed onto sorting least and was easiest to install. tables. There, laborers worked by The layout and nature of roads for daylight admitted through windows, and large and productive mines differed from by kerosene or electric lighting to the roads at small mines. Most medium- separate the ore from waste. sized and large mines were served by The visitor back in time viewing broad roads forming a circuit, or they the scene on the sorting floor of a featured spacious flat areas that granted a moderate-sized ore house would see a teamster plenty of room to pull his rig bustle of activity. Dusty wool-clad underneath the ore chutes and turn

105 around once the wagon had been filled. The pilings should be arranged in a rough Such traffic control facilitated the efficient rectangle and be situated adjacent to movement of entire wagon trains. either a road or railroad grade. In a few Inefficient dead-end roads, on the other instances the visitor may have additional hand, often served small mines. Where evidence suggestive of an ore bin, possible a wise teamster turned his wagon including hewn log cribbing walls or dry- and team around and backed up into the laid rock walls that served as foundations, loading area, and when turning room did and the eroded terraces of a waste rock not exist he had to unhitch his team while platform which once supported the head mine laborers manually turned the wagon or toe of the ore structure. around and loaded it with ore. Such Flat-bottom ore bins may be roads were not intended to maximize the somewhat more distinct that the clumps flow of materials. Rather, mining of timber pilings vaguely denoting the companies graded them in hopes of former location of a sloped-floor bin. The minimizing labor and the expenditure of remains of a flat-bottomed bin may appear capital. as an open-topped wood box embedded Large and productive mines in the edge of a waste rock dump. Often always hoped for rail service, because the remains of flooring and plank walls trains hauled much more ore for less are visible, but in instances where the money than ore wagons. However, building materials have been removed, the except for operations in wealthy mining bin location may appear merely as a districts with developed rail networks, rectangular depression with a flat floor. only mines rich enough were directly Occasionally flat-bottomed ore bins stood served by railroad lines. Even without on raised platforms made of waste rock direct rail service, the mere presence of a which were retained by hewn log cribbing railroad in a mining district benefited all or dry-laid rock walls. Whether operations because the costs of shipping embedded in waste rock or free-standing, ore and the prices of machinery and other the outside edge of a flat-bottomed bin goods dropped significantly. may be open, or it may feature the Overall, intact ore storage remains of an ore chute, either of which structures are a rarity in the West. should have been adjacent to a road. Instead, the visitor to a historic mine site Because ore bins and ore sorting is often faced with remains. Large ore houses were materials-intensive, they bins and ore sorting houses were usually usually left a distinct artifact assemblage. complex buildings made of heavy timbers Invariably laborers dismantling an ore bin and lumber fastened with large nails, left behind relatively large quantities of bolts, mortise and tennon joints, and iron intact and fragmented hewn logs, heavy tie rods. As a result, even after the timbers, and other types of dimension structures had been disassembled or lumber in the approximate place where demolished, they usually left distinct the structure stood. The laborers also left traces. The most common evidence left hardware such as lag bolts, heavy nails, by an ore bin or sorting house following large-diameter construction washers, iron its removal consists of groups of hewn log brackets, and iron tie rods. The former or timber foundation pilings projecting locations of ore sorting houses, where out of the flank of a waste rock dump. mine workers spent a day’s shift, may also

106 feature food items, stove parts, and small industrial items.

Magazines and Change Houses

Before leaving this chapter, we Southwest favored rock masonry, which should consider several additional surface toppled over more easily. plant manifestations which may exist at Large mining operations that were historic mine sites. All were solutions to bent on turning the earth inside-out for problems mainly large and productive profit often employed dozens of mining mining operations in the West grappled crews underground to drill and blast. In with. A survey of any wealthy mining the process of bringing down ore in the district would confirm that miners literally large quantities that made investors turned the earth inside out in the pursuit happy, the crews of miners consumed of riches, creating immense waste rock hundreds of pounds of dynamite per day. dumps at the mouths of tunnels and The mining company had to store enough shafts. Extensive underground workings dynamite to carry them through the translated into waste rock dumps that in several weeks spanning freight deliveries, some cases were so large, they threatened and all-too-often they stacked 50 pound to envelop structures and roads boxes, the standard shipping container, in downslope and spill onto neighboring shaft houses, compressor houses, storage properties. As the dumps slowly grew, sheds, and in vacant areas underground. carload by carload, mining companies Worse, during cold months, which were forced to confront the containment spanned much of the year at high altitude, of the spoils from their profits. mine superintendents had boxes of Under the advice and planning of dynamite stored near boilers, in engineers, large mining companies blacksmith shops, and near hoists where it employed two solutions. Wealthy outfits remained in a thawed and ready state, so anticipating long-term operation they hoped. Such storage practices were purchased adjacent claims both to gain absolutely dangerous at mines that kept mineral rights underground and to obtain on hand large volumes of dynamite. In the surface rights that permitted their response mining engineers had operations to sprawl. The other solution construction crews build explosives that small and medium-sized outfits magazines where storage could have been commonly enacted was to erect bulwarks carried out in a more controlled and of either log cribbing or dry-laid rock orderly manner. masonry to retain waste rock. Log Well-built magazines came in a cribbing tended to be the most structurally variety of shapes and sizes, but they all sound, consisting of a series of waste shared the common goal of concentrating rock-filled cells ranging from 8 by 8 to 15 and sheltering the mine’s supply of by 15 feet in area. Mining companies in explosives away from the main portion of the mountain states favored cribbing, the surface plant. Academically trained while outfits in the arid Great Basin and mining engineers felt that magazines should have been bulletproof, fireproof,

107 dry, and well-ventilated. They also felt erect fairly safe, inexpensive vernacular that magazines should have been dugout magazines. Large mining constructed of brick or concrete and if of operations, on the other hand, found it frame construction, the walls needed to be within their means to build proper sand-filled and sheathed with iron. These magazines. structural features not only protected the Proper magazines manifest as explosives from physical threats, but also stout masonry or concrete buildings they regulated the internal environment around 12 by 20 feet in area with heavy which was important, especially in arched roofs and iron doors in steel summer. Extreme temperature jambs. Usually these magazines have fluctuations and pervasive moisture had been erected a distance away from the been proven to damage fuse, caps, main portion of the mine’s surface plant. blasting powder, and most forms of In other cases mining engineers had dynamite. This in turn directly impacted construction crews built a concrete, the miners’ work environment, because masonry, or timber-lined bunker with a degraded explosives created foul and stout iron door. Well-built vernacular poisonous gas byproducts that vitiated magazines, on the other hand, often mine atmospheres. In extreme cases appear similar to root cellars. Generally degraded caps, fuse, and dynamite they take form as a chamber workers misfired when in the drill-hole, meaning excavated out of a hillside, often 8 by 10 they failed to explode, until a miner feet in area, and roofed with earth, rubble, attempted to extract the compacted mess and rocks. Timber posts support the roof a little too vigorously with a drilling beams, and the front wall may have been spoon. Dynamite exploding in the faces made of timbers, planks, logs, or dry-laid of miners in this way was a leading cause rock masonry. The front of the structure of death and injury in the mining West. usually features a vernacular wooden Regardless of direct and obvious door set into a wooden jamb. The safety hazards and degradation of the interiors of well-built magazines had explosives, many small and medium-sized shelves for boxes of dynamite, while mining companies stored their explosives miners merely stacked the boxes up in in very crude and even dangerous vernacular magazines. facilities. Engineers, often self-educated, The last principle surface plant had crews erect sheds sided only with component the visitor to today’s historic corrugated sheet-iron that offered minimal mine sites may encounter pertains to protection from fluctuations in particularly harsh climates, such as at temperature and moisture. In other cases Creede. Miners working underground small capital-poor operations took even had to contend with highly humid, warm, less precaution and stored their explosives still air, and dripping water. During their in sheet-iron boxes similar in appearance shift in such an environment, they became to doghouses, in earthen pits roofed with sodden. While this condition was not a sheets of corrugated iron, or they used problem on warm summer afternoons, it abandoned prospect adits. Lack of was potentially life-threatening during funding appears to have been a poor freezing winter days. Miners who may excuse for improper storage practices, have already contracted pulmonary because most operations had the ability to illnesses risked significant degradation of

108 their health while en route back home. washed if they felt so motivated, and put One response that companies undertook on clean, dry clothes. These change on behalf of wet and cold miners was the houses, often incorporated into other installation of change houses near their mine buildings, also served as warming shafts and tunnels. There, miners rooms for the mine’s surface workers.lxxxiv removed their filthy, damp work clothes,

______

Ore Milling

The ore produced by mines mass, separating the metals, and refining throughout the West, including those at them. Creede, was considered by mining Mining companies rarely companies to be a raw product, at best. possessed sufficient capital nor produced Gold, and especially silver ores, usually enough ore to warrant the erection of a consisted of a natural blend of metals dedicated smelter. Instead, they shipped mixed in with host rock. Silver ores were their ores to custom smelters, which rarely pure, and they were instead extracted the metals for a fee. The compounds that included to varying shipping charges and smelting fees often degrees lead and zinc. The finished constituted a heavy expense, and in product derived from the ores that response, well-capitalized mining investors and metals buyers sought was companies attempted to save money by purified metal, known as bullion. To building concentration mills near their produce bullion, the blend of metals had workings. Concentration mills relied on to be separated from the host rock, mechanical and some chemical processes separated into their individual to reduce the ore, separate the constituencies, and purified. This process metalliferous materials from the gangue, was accomplished in specialized facilities and prepare the resultant concentrates for known as mills and smelters. shipment to a smelter for final roasting Mills and smelters differed in the and refining. In so doing, mining processes that the workers used to companies accomplished many of the separate the metals from the host rock, steps smelters charged fees for, and they known as gangue. Mills were able to did not have to pay to ship the worthless produce metals from simple gold and waste usually integral with raw ore. silver ores by physically reducing the rock Concentration mills were not equipped, to a slurry, then chemical treating the however, to produce finished bullion. slurry to extract the metals. Ores that The reduction mills typically built consisted of complex compounds of silver by mining companies were modest and and industrial metals, on the other hand, equipped to handle limited tonnages of required the additional processes offered rock. By the time the Creede district by smelters, which included roasting to boomed, milling technology was fairly drive off sulphide minerals, melting the uniform and the processes well-

109 understood by engineers. While each mill between 2 and 5 iron rods known as was a custom-built facility, engineers stems. A camshaft raised the stems, usually incorporated standard machines which were over 8 feet high, and let them and appliances suited for concentrating freefall in a staggered order. A heavy silver compound ores. Because the ore beam frame braced the ironwork, and a underwent a series of stages of physical canvas or rubber belt passed around a reduction and concentration, engineers bullwheel to provide the battery with typically erected mills on terraced ground power. The stamps dropped onto ore that to permit gravity to draw the rock from millworkers had fed into a cast iron one process to the next. Large mills battery box bolted onto a laminated wood usually required stone masonry and base. The stamp battery reduced the rock concrete terraces to support the building to a sand slurry, which proceeded to the and the heavy machinery, while earthen next mill process once it passed through terraces and substantial beamwork were fine classification screens. Mills equipped sufficient for small mills. for simple ores featured mercury-coated The upper-most portion of a tables fixed underneath the discharge concentration mill consisted of several ports for the stamp battery, and the receiving bins which contained raw ore mercury amalgamated with the silver and brought from the mine. The milling gold in the sand. However, this proved process began when mill workers fed rock futile with complex ores. from the bins into a coarse crusher, By the 1890s machines known as intended to reduce the material to cobbles crushing rolls came into favor for ranging from 1 to 4 inches in size. Most pulverizing certain types of ores. A set of mills favored jaw crushers to accomplish crushing rolls featured two heavy steel this, while a few large operations rollers with a gap between. As the rollers employed gyratory crushers. The crushed rotated under great power, they material passed into a screen system pulverized the rock until the fine material designed to permit acceptably small rocks was able to pass through the gap. to proceed to the next process, while Machinery manufacturers offered crushing returning oversized rocks back to the rolls with different gaps between the crusher. By around 1900 engineers rollers to produce fines of varying grades. favored using trommel screens or shaking When an engineer desired a grade screens to sort the rock. A trommel consisting of minute particles, he arranged consisted of a concentric series of a series of rolls with ever-closer gaps cylindrical screens that rotated, allowing between the rollers, each machine fine material to drop through, while the reducing the material incrementally. oversized cobbles rolled out of an open Before the pulverized rock could proceed end.lxxxv to the next process, it had to pass through At simple mills, the rock then another set of screens.lxxxvi proceeded to a fine crusher for further Tube mills and ball mills offered reduction. For much of the Gilded Age, the finest grinding. Each appliance millmen favored using the traditional consisted of a large cylinder which stamp mill for fine crushing. The stamp millworkers partially filled with rock mill consisted of heavy cylindrical iron slurry and a little water. The cylinder shoes fitted onto the ends of a battery of slowly rotated, and iron rods in tube mills

110 or iron balls in ball mills, tumbled in the wooden trough featuring cells with chamber. Over time this action further screens placed above their floors. pulverized the slurry within. Both types Plungers reciprocated in the water- of grinding appliances saw use beginning flooded cells, and their action forced around 1900, and millmen used them to heavy, fine metalliferous particles to work reduce partially concentrated through the lighter material, kept partially metalliferous fines. By the 1930s ball and in suspension, and through the screens. tube mills were used in place of crushing Wilfley tables often subsequently rolls and stamp batteries. processed the fines produced by jigs. After machinery reduced the rock Vanners, developed in the 1880s, utilized to a desired size, usually ranging from the vibration and gravity to separate consistency of sand to dust, it entered the metalliferous fines from gangue. The concentration phase. By the time mining vanner featured a broad rubber belt kept was in full swing at Creede, millmen wet with water jets. Like the Wilfley selected from a variety of appliances to table, the belt mechanism was slanted and process complex silver ores. The Wilfley assembled on a spring-loaded iron frame table was by far the most popular which vibrated vigorously. The heavy concentration appliance, and it saw heavy fines sifted through the material and application at Creede. The Wilfley table adhered to the belt, while the water jets consisted of a tabletop, approximately 10 washed the gangue downward. The belt feet long and 6 feet wide at one end, and slowly advanced and dropped its coating 5 feet wide at the other, coated with of fines into a trough below. As with the linoleum and thin wood riffles. The jig, the fines produced by vanners were tabletop was mounted at a slant on a processed afterward by Wilfley spring-loaded iron frame, and the machine tables.lxxxviii imparted a jerky oscillation, which Most of the ore reduction and permitted the heavy metalliferous fines to concentration processes required water to gravitate to the bottom riffles, while the mobilize the material being worked, and light gangue remained on the highest to allay dust. However, excess water riffles. Mining machinery makers offered became a problem for concentration. several variants of the Wilfley table, and Engineers installed various dewatering each featured a slightly different tabletop, devices, which ranged from conical and but all operated according to the same pyramidal settling boxes to Dorr basic premise. The finest material at the thickeners. Mill workers introduced bottom riffles may have passed on to watery slurries into settling boxes, where additional tables for finer concentration, the fines accumulated and were drawn out the middlings, which collected in the through spigots in the bottom for center riffles, may have returned to the concentration. The Dorr thickener, fine crushing stage, while mill workers devised for high volumes of material, threw the gangue was away.lxxxvii featured a tank, at least 20 feet in Millmen used two other types of diameter, with a conical floor. Radial appliances for concentrating metalliferous arms rotated slowly within the slurry and fines. The jig was an old appliance, but it they forced settled fines toward the tank’s saw use well into the twentieth century. center, where the material passed through The jig consisted of a heavy, iron-lined a large spigot.lxxxix

111 Gravity drew the metalliferous steam engines powered the overhead fines from one reduction and driveshafts via more belts, and when concentration process to the next. electricity began to experience popularity However, each step had to make after 1900, engineers substituted motors allowances for returning inferior material for the steam engines. Electricity came back for reprocessing, be it for reduction early to Creede, and while the power or concentration. This meant defying source was not well-suited for operating gravity and sending heavy material uphill. many types of machines used at mines, it To accomplish this, millmen used either a was conducive to running mill appliances. bucket line or a spiral feed. Bucket lines Most of Creede’s mills relied on motors were often a series of closely spaced sheet for power, and some had steam engines iron pans stitched to an endless canvas for backup. belt, and they scooped material from one Today, mill sites typically possess bin and deposited it into another. Spiral characteristic telltale evidence, even after feeds, which were effective for moving the machinery and building components fines short distances, typically featured an were removed. Mill building foundations auger that rotated in a sheet iron shroud. often appear as a group of terraces on a As the auger turned, it moved the material hillside with roads at the head and toe. upward and deposited it into a bin. The terraces may feature machine Material handled in such a way had to be foundations, plank decking, residual moist enough to act as a solid. When too crushed rock, and structural and industrial dry, the pulverized rock created dust, and artifacts. The engineer usually designed when too wet, the machinery could not the mill processes to extract the mill move it. tailings, which are the powdered gangue, Supplying power to all of the at every step of reduction and machinery located throughout a mill concentration, and eject them from the presented engineers with a considerable facility. The tailings left the mill in the problem. Convention of the day dictated form of a slurry and were piped into the that when workers built a mill, they nearest waterway when nearby, or suspended overhead driveshafts from deposited in a dump downslope. Tailings bearings bolted high in the building’s often also abound in and around the mill frame. The drive shaft featured broad remains. While determining exactly which pulleys, and canvas or leather belts passed machines a mill included can be difficult, from them to drive pulleys on each mill most concentration facilities followed the machine. During most of the Gilded Age, series of processes outlined in this section.

112

End Notes i Bramble, Charles ABC’s of Mining Geology, Energy, & Minerals Corp, Santa Monica, CA [1898] 1980 p11-13. Peele, Robert Mining Engineers’ Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY 1918 p381-385. Young, George Elements of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY 1946 p19-26. ii Bramble, Charles ABC’s of Mining Geology, Energy, & Minerals Corp, Santa Monica, CA [1898] 1980 p11-13. Peele, Robert Mining Engineers’ Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY 1918 p381-385. Young, George Elements of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY 1946 p19-26. iii Bramble, Charles ABC’s of Mining Geology, Energy, & Minerals Corp, Santa Monica, CA [1898] 1980 p11-13. Peele, Robert Mining Engineers’ Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY 1918 p381-385. Young, George Elements of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY 1946 p19-26. iv Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p29. v Colliery Engineer Company Coal & Metal Miners’ Pocketbook Colliery Engineer Company, Scranton, PA, 1893 p257. International Textbook Company A Textbook on Metal Mining: Preliminary Operations at Metal Mines, Metal Mining, Surface Arrangements at Metal Mines, Ore Dressing and Milling International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1899 A40 p8. vi Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p30. vii Morrison’s Mining Rights Denver, CO, 1899 p17, 20. Peele, Robert Mining Engineers’ Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1918 p1474. viii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p27. ix Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p30-32. x Peele, Robert Mining Engineers’ Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1918 p459. Young, George Elements of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1923 p463. xi International Textbook Company A Textbook on Metal Mining: Preliminary Operations at Metal Mines, Metal Mining, Surface Arrangements at Metal Mines, Ore Dressing and Milling International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1899 A40 p42. xii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p42. xiii International Textbook Company A Textbook on Metal Mining: Preliminary Operations at Metal Mines, Metal Mining, Surface Arrangements at Metal Mines, Ore Dressing and Milling International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1899 A40 p53. Young, George Elements of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1923 p192. Zern, E.N. Mine Cars and Mine Tracks West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, 1917 p31. xiv Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p143. xv General Electric Company Electric Mine Locomotives: Catalogue No. 1045 General Electric Power and Mining Department, Chicago, IL, 1904 p23. Peele, Robert Mining Engineers’ Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1918 p862, 871. xvi Colliery Engineer Company Coal Miners’ Pocketbook McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, NY, 1916 p767. International Textbook Company International Library of Technology: Hoisting, Haulage, Mine Drainage International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1906 A55 p6. International Textbook Company International Correspondence School Reference Library: Rock Boring, Rock Drilling, Explosives and Blasting, Coal-Cutting Machinery, Timbering, Timber Trees, Trackwork International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1907 A48 p2. International Textbook Company Mine Haulage: Rope Haulage in Coal Mines, Locomotive Haulage in Coal Mines, Mine Haulage Systems, Calculations, and Cars International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1926 p1. Young, George Elements of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1923 p192. xvii Hoover, Herbert C. Principles of Mining McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, NY, 1909 p150. International Textbook Company International Correspondence School Reference Library: Rock Boring, Rock Drilling, Explosives and Blasting, Coal-Cutting Machinery, Timbering, Timber Trees, Trackwork International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1907 A48 p13. Peele, Robert Mining Engineer's Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1918 p184. Young, George Elements of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1946 p87. xviii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p45. xix Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p65. xx International Textbook Company International Library of Technology: Mine Surveying, Metal Mine Surveying, Mineral-Land Surveying, Steam and Steam Boilers, Steam Engines, Air Compression International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1924 A24 p1. xxi Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p66. xxii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p67. xxiii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p67. xxiv Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p69. xxv Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p71. xxvi Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p73. xxvii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p76. xxviii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p77. xxix Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p51. xxx International Textbook Company A Textbook on Metal Mining: Preliminary Operations at Metal Mines, Metal Mining, Surface Arrangements at Metal Mines, Ore Dressing and Milling International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1899 A41 p133. International Textbook Company Coal and Metal Miners’ Pocket Book International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA 1905 p381.

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Lewis, Robert S. Elements of Mining John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, 1946 p454. Peele, Robert Mining Engineers’ Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1918 p1038. Young, George Elements of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1923 p255. xxxi Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p85. xxxii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p326. xxxiii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p179. xxxiv Eaton, Lucien Practical Mine Development & Equipment McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, NY, 1934 p13. International Textbook Company Coal and Metal Miners’ Pocket Book International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA 1905 p261. Peele, Robert Mining Engineers’ Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY., 1918 p263 p251. Young, George Elements of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY., 1923 p171 p461. xxxv Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p177, 178. xxxvi Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999, p196. xxxvii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999, p197. xxxviii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p198. xxxix Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p201. xl Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p209. xli Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p211. xlii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p212. xliii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p242. xliv Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p244. xlv Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p246. xlvi Eaton, Lucien Practical Mine Development & Equipment McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, NY, 1934 p86, 295. Lewis, Robert S. Elements of Mining John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, 1946 [1933] p187. Staley, William Mine Plant Design McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, NY, 1936 p137. Young, George Elements of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1946 p203. Zurn, E.N. Coal Miners’ Pocketbook McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, NY, [1890 Colliery Engineering Co.] 1928 p760. xlvii Lewis, Robert S. Elements of Mining John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, 1946 [1933] p187. Staley, William Mine Plant Design McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, NY, 1936 p141. Young, George Elements of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1946 p205. xlviii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p341. xlix Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p341. l Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p343. li Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p344. lii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p204. liii Croft, Terrell Steam Boilers McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, NY, 1921 p48. International Textbook Company A Textbook on Metal Mining: Steam and Steam-Boilers, Steam Engines, Air and Air Compression, Hydromechanics and Pumping, Mine Haulage, Hoisting and Hoisting Appliances, Percussive and Rotary Boring International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1899 A18 p34. Kleinhans, Frank B. Locomotive Boiler Construction Norman W. Henley Publishing Co., New York, NY, 1915 p12. Rand Drill Company Illustrated Catalogue of the Rand Drill Company, New York, U.S.A. Rand Drill Company, New York, NY, 1886 p47. Tinney, W.H. Gold Mining Machinery: Its Selection, Arrangement, & Installation D. Van Nostrand Company, New York, NY., 1906 p50. liv Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p206. lv Colliery Engineer Company Coal & Metal Miners’ Pocketbook Colliery Engineer Company, Scranton, PA, 1893 p262. International Textbook Company A Textbook on Metal Mining: Steam and Steam-Boilers, Steam Engines, Air and Air Compression, Hydromechanics and Pumping, Mine Haulage, Hoisting and Hoisting Appliances, Percussive and Rotary Boring International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1899 A18 p28. Peele, Robert Mining Engineers’ Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY., 1918 p2083. Thurston, R.H. A Manual of Steam Boilers: Their Design, Construction, and Operation John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1901 p31. lvi Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p252. lvii Ihlseng, Magnus A Manual of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1892 p581. International Textbook Company International Library of Technology: Mine Surveying, Metal Mine Surveying, Mineral-Land Surveying, Steam and Steam Boilers, Steam Engines, Air Compression International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1924 A23 p53. Keystone Consolidated Publishing Company Inc. The Mining Catalog: 1925 Metal-Quarry Edition Keystone Consolidated Publishing Company Inc., (no location given), 1925 p115. Peele, Robert Mining Engineers’ Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1918 p2086. lviii Croft, Terrell Steam Boilers McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, NY, 1921 p18, 53. Greeley, Horace; Case, Leon; Howland, Edward; Gough, John B.; Ripley, Philip; Perkins, E.B.; Lyman, J.B.; Brisbane, Albert; Hall, E.E. “Babcock and Wilcox Boiler” The Great Industries of the United States J.B. Burr, Hartford, CT, 1872. International Textbook Company A Textbook on Metal Mining: Steam and Steam-Boilers, Steam Engines, Air and Air Compression, Hydromechanics and Pumping, Mine Haulage, Hoisting and Hoisting Appliances, Percussive and Rotary Boring International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1899 A18 p35. Linstrom, C.B. & Clemens, A.B. Steam Boilers and Equipment International Textbook Co., Scranton, PA, 1928 p30. Peele, Robert Mining Engineers’ Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1918 p2083. Thurston, R.H. A Manual of Steam Boilers: Their Design, Construction, and Operation John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1901 p34.

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Tinney, W.H. Gold Mining Machinery: Its Selection, Arrangement, & Installation D. Van Nostrand Company, New York, NY, 1906 p63. lix Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p215. lx Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p215. lxi Ihlseng, Magnus A Manual of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1892 p91. International Textbook Company A Textbook on Metal Mining: Steam and Steam-Boilers, Steam Engines, Air and Air Compression, Hydromechanics and Pumping, Mine Haulage, Hoisting and Hoisting Appliances, Percussive and Rotary Boring International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1899 A23 p105. International Textbook Company International Library of Technology: Hoisting, Haulage, Mine Drainage International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1906 A53 p31. Ketchum, Milo S. C.E. The Design of Mine Structures McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, NY, 1912 p41. Peele, Robert Mining Engineers’ Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1918 p926. Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p274. lxii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p275. lxiii International Textbook Company International Library of Technology: Hoisting, Haulage, Mine Drainage International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1906 A53 p35. Ketchum, Milo S. C.E. The Design of Mine Structures McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, NY, 1912 p7. Peele, Robert Mining Engineers’ Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1918 p935. lxiv Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p283. lxv Gillette,Halbert P. Rock Excavation: Methods and Cost Myron C. Clark Publishing Company, New York, NY, 1907 p15. Hoover, Herbert C. Principles of Mining McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, NY, 1909 p150. International Correspondence Schools Rock Boring, Blasting, Coal Cutting, Trackwork International Textbook Co., Scranton, Pennsylvania 1907 p13. Peele, Robert Mining Engineer's Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1918 p184, 213. Young, George Elements of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1946 p87. lxvi Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p102. lxvii International Textbook Company Coal and Metal Miners’ Pocket Book International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA 1905 p196. International Textbook Company A Textbook on Metal Mining: Steam and Steam-Boilers, Steam Engines, Air and Air Compression, Hydromechanics and Pumping, Mine Haulage, Hoisting and Hoisting Appliances, Percussive and Rotary Boring International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1899 A20 p18, 25. International Textbook Company International Library of Technology: Mine Surveying, Metal Mine Surveying, Mineral-Land Surveying, Steam and Steam Boilers, Steam Engines, Air Compression International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1924 A25 p17. Lewis, Robert S. Elements of Mining John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, 1946 p442. Peele, Robert Mining Engineers’ Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1918 p1061. Rand Drill Company Illustrated Catalogue of the Rand Drill Company, New York, U.S.A. Rand Drill Company, New York, NY, 1886 p19. lxviii Keystone Consolidated Publishing Company Inc. The Mining Catalog: 1925 Metal-Quarry Edition Keystone Consolidated Publishing Company Inc., (no location given), 1925 p125. Peele, Robert Mining Engineers’ Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1918 p1062. Simons, Theodore E.M., C.E. Compressed Air: A Treatise on the Production, Transmission, and Use of Compressed Air McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York, NY, 1921 p59. Thorkelson, H.J. Air Compression and Transmission McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York, NY, 1912 p90. lxix Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999, p126. lxx Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999, p329. lxxi Twitty, Eric “From Steam Engines to Electric Motors: Electrification in the Cripple Creek Mining District” Mining History Journal, 1998. lxxii International Textbook Company A Textbook on Metal Mining: Steam and Steam-Boilers, Steam Engines, Air and Air Compression, Hydromechanics and Pumping, Mine Haulage, Hoisting and Hoisting Appliances, Percussive and Rotary Boring International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1899 A23 p5. Peele, Robert Mining Engineers’ Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1918 p1126. Twitty, Eric “From Steam Engines to Electric Motors: Electrification in the Cripple Creek Mining District” Mining History Journal, 1998. lxxiii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999, p269. lxxiv Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999, p270. lxxv Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999, p270. lxxvi Twitty, Eric “From Steam Engines to Electric Motors: Electrification in the Cripple Creek Mining District” Mining History Journal, 1998. lxxvii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999, p304. lxxviii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999, p306. lxxix Ihlseng, Magnus A Manual of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1892 p137. lxxx Ihlseng, Magnus A Manual of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1892 p137. Trennert, Robert A. “From Gold Ore to Bat Guano:Aerial Tramways in the West” The Mining History Journal 1997 p5. lxxxi Ihlseng, Magnus A Manual of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1892 p138. International Textbook Company Coal and Metal Miners’ Pocket Book International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1905 p122. Lewis, Robert S. Elements of Mining John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, 1946 p372. Peele, Robert Mining Engineers’ Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1918 p1563. Trennert, Robert A. “From Gold Ore to Bat Guano:Aerial Tramways in the West” The Mining History Journal 1997 p6.

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lxxxii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p150. lxxxiii Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999 p153. lxxxiv Wyman, Mark Hard Rock Epic: Western Mining and the Industrial Revolution, 1860-1910 University of California Press, Berkeley, CA 1989 [1979] p81. Young, Otis E. Western Mining University of Oklahoma Press, 1987 [1970] p223. lxxxv Peele, Robert Mining Engineer's Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1918, p1623, 1627. Tinney, W.H. Gold Mining Machinery: Its Selection, Arrangement, & Installation D. Van Nostrand Company, New York, NY, 1906, p191. lxxxvi Peele, Robert Mining Engineer's Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1918, p1630. lxxxvii Peele, Robert Mining Engineer's Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1918, p1680. Tinney, W.H. Gold Mining Machinery: Its Selection, Arrangement, & Installation D. Van Nostrand Company, New York, NY, 1906, p204. lxxxviii Bailey, Lynn Supplying the Mining World: the Mining Equipment Manufacturers of San Francisco 1850-1900 Western Lore Press, Tucson, AZ, 1996, p64, 112. Tinney, W.H. Gold Mining Machinery: Its Selection, Arrangement, & Installation D. Van Nostrand Company, New York, NY, 1906, p204. lxxxix Peele, Robert Mining Engineer's Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1918, p1669.

116 CHAPTER 5

THE HISTORY OF THE CREEDE MINING DISTRICT

Silver is Discovered

For centuries the San Juan settlement, and they permitted Mountains were the exclusive domain of prospectors to search the high country the Ute Indians. Rugged, remote, and unmolested. However, as more Whites inhospitable, Spanish, then American arrived in the early 1870s, conflict seemed explorers examined the piedmont areas eminent. When faced with the disaster of surrounding the mighty range, but few another Indian war, the federal ventured deep into the mountains. government employed the typical strategy Rumors circulated that the Spanish had in which it coaxed the Indians into signing mined silver in the mountains as early as a treaty. In 1873, Felix Brunot, President the late 1700s, and if so, their impact was of the Board of Indian Commissioners, limited. Then, in 1865, the Utes saw their held negotiations with Chief Ouray, and isolation and peace begin to erode. A hammered out the Brunot Treaty. party of prospectors led by Charles Baker According to the agreement, the U.S. penetrated deep into the Animas River Government paid the Utes $25,000 for drainage in search of placer gold. The 4,000,000 acres of mineral-bearing land, party encountered minor amounts of the and the Utes retained the right to hunt on metal near present-day Silverton, and the ceded territory. With the treaty in while they did not locate economic effect and the threat of hostile Indians quantities of gold, the prospectors’ mitigated, isolation became the main impact was great. The Baker party impediment to mining in the San Juans. reported that the San Juan Mountains To facilitate the region’s development, held great promise for mining, and they Colorado road-builder Otto Mears, proved that the area could be accessed. freight companies, and mining interests all During the next 10 years other contributed to the development of a prospecting parties imitated Baker, and in network of roads, some barely passable addition to placer gold, they sought even after completion, between the many hardrock gold and silver, which the San settlements in the mountains.1 Juans offered in abundance. Their Ironically, the area that became success in finding riches stimulated Creede lay just several miles north of one mining, which led to the growth of of the most heavily traveled routes into settlements such as Silverton, Ouray, the deep San Juans. Prospectors, Telluride, Lake City, and Rico. Due to freighters, and other travelers followed the remoteness of the San Juans, and the Rio Grande River on their way to because of the threat posed by angry Ute Lake City and the Silverton area, unaware Indians, mining developed slowly. of the riches that lay near Wagon Wheel The Utes were not hostile at first. Gap, which served as a way stop. They understood that Whites were Further, the Denver & Rio Grande interested in minerals and not in extensive Railroad graded a line through South

117 Fork, 20 miles south, increasing traffic with a young woman, and during their along the Rio Grande. courtship she left Harvey for his brother. After the Brunot Treaty had been Harvey may have even married his negotiated, parties of prospectors felt less beloved. Horrified, Harvey left home and inhibited and they fanned out, searching changed his name to Nicholas C. Creede. remote and inaccessible areas of the The young Creede arrived in Colorado in mountains for ores. In 1876, one group 1870, lured by the sirens of mineral including John C. McKenzie and H.M. wealth. Creede successfully prospected in Bennett, examined the area that became the Collegiate Mountains, and he had Creede, which was unsettled at the time. better luck than other hopefuls in the After considerable prospecting they range’s Silver Creek area. There, he sold discovered silver ore west of where the an ore-bearing claim for a little money, city of Creede would stand, and they and within a short time the purchasing staked the Alpha claim. The party failed company began turning a handsome to rouse interest in their find, and, still profit. Creede felt that he had been taken, holding optimism for the area, returned on and vowed never to sell low again.3 subsequent prospecting forays. In 1878 Creede's demise was tragic. After McKenzie discovered another ore body locating the Holy Moses claim, the party and staked the Bachelor claim, named of prospectors interested an investment after his marital state. Little did syndicate including mining and railroad McKenzie suspect, as he erected his claim magnate David H. Moffat, U.S. Army posts, that he was standing on one of Captain L.E. Campbell, and Denver & Colorado's richest and longest ore veins. Rio Grande Railroad general manager After prolonged failure to stimulate Sylvester T. Smith. The business trio not interest and arouse investors, Creede's only supplied capital to develop the first successful prospectors sold the Alpha property, but they hired Creede to serve in 1885 to brothers Richard and J.N.H. as their professional prospector. Their Irwin. McKenzie optimistically retained decision to retain Creede proved wise, title to the Bachelor. After attempting to because he subsequently staked the Ethel work the ores in arrastes, and after further claim, and in 1891 he located the fabulous futile searches, the various parties gave Amethyst Mine. Creede sold a share of up.2 each of his finds to his employers, but In 1889, 13 years after McKenzie remembering his lesson learned in the and Bennett first drew attention to the Collegiates, he kept a substantial portion area, another party of prospectors for himself. Creede had accomplished encountered bonanza ore. In May, what other prospectors only dreamed of. Nicholas C. Creede, E.R. Taylor, and He encountered mineral wealth several G.L. Smith located the Holy Moses claim times and profited handsomely from each. on Campbell Mountain, which they named Within a short time Creede retired in after their exclamation of astonishment Pueblo, then moved to Los Angeles in and surprise at the strike's richness. 1893 to enjoy the mild, dry, sea-level Nicholas Creede, for whom the district is climate. A storm was brewing for Creede named, was no ordinary prospector. in the East, however. By 1897 Creede's Creede was born William Harvey in Fort estranged wife, of whom little is known, Wayne, Indiana in 1842. He fell in love had learned of her spouse's good fortune,

118 and she made it known that she was investors' dream. Moffat's syndicate had planning on coming out West to live with the opportunity to buy a cluster of Creede. When Creede learned of his fabulous mines at low prices, before wife's intent, he panicked, and in his attention from the mining world drove despair he took an overdose of prices up. The Moffat syndicate's interest morphine.4 in Creede's claims lent legitimacy to the The word of Creede's find began area and served as a crack in the dike spreading through Colorado, and retaining the waters of further investment. prospectors traveled to the King Soloman Shortly after Creede and Moffat's district, as the area was then known, in deal for the Soloman, Renniger and his 1890 to examine the potential. Several party acquired investors for the Last new-comers and seasoned prospectors Chance. Julius Haas sold his share in the made further discoveries, lending to the claim to the other three prospectors for growing curiosity. Veteran prospectors $10,000. Renniger and Von Buddenbock Dick Irwin and Nick Crude, who served sold their shares to investors Jacob as one of Kit Carson's scouts, Sanders and S.Z. Dixon for $50,000 each. encountered silver and lead ore near the Like Creede, the last of the Renniger old Alpha claim. In 1891 a party of party, Ralph Granger, refused to prospectors including Theodor Renniger, completely sell out, even when offered Ralph Granger, Julius Haas, and Eric Von $100,000. Granger, Dixon, and Sanders Buddenbock, subsisting on a $25 interested Willard Ward and silver grubstake, set up camp and began their magnate Henry O. Wolcott in the search for wealth. The party encountered property, and the men formed the Last samples of float along the banks of West Chance Mining Company. The activity in Willow Creek and followed the lead the district had finally drawn the attention upslope. Unsure of what they had found, of the mining industry. The conservative the prospectors asked Creede to examine mining periodical Engineering & Mining their strike and pass judgement. Creede Journal described the finds as "immense", immediately recognized the richness of lending fuel for a rush.6 the ore, and urged the prospectors to Reports of the Creede district's stake claims, which they did under the wealth began rippling first through name Last Chance. Inspired by the party's Colorado, then through the West, and find, Creede calculated the orientation of finally to other parts of the nation in 1891. the ore body, traveled a short distance Mining industry workers, professional north, and staked the Amethyst claim. miners, roustabouts, and hopefuls The Last Chance and Amethyst mines ventured to the new area, causing the became the district's wealthiest area's population to soar. Most of the operations.5 newcomers stopped over in one of several Creede and his party of camps near the Rio Grande River, and prospectors interested the Moffat many continued several miles up to the syndicate in the Holy Moses in 1891. The high country to stake claims. By 1891 district was largely unknown to the prospectors had determined that the best mining world at that time, and Moffat ore was concentrated in three vein probably surmised that he and his systems, the Amethyst, Holy Moses, and associates were presented with a mining

119 the Alpha, discussed in the geology The prospecting and mining section above. activity on the Amethyst and Holy Moses East and West Willow creeks veins was as frenetic as that in the served as the principal gateways to the burgeoning settlements below. Prospect Holy Moses and Amethyst veins, operations, in varying stages of respectively, and camps naturally sprung development, extended for over two miles up at the creeks' confluence. Prospectors along both veins. Prospectors had had established the camp of Creede on blanketed the ground with claims, which East Willow Creek as early as 1890, the restricted the available surface space for camp named Jimtown grew along the each operation. As a result, prospectors main trunk of Willow Creek and miners explored their claims at depth approximately one mile downstream, and predominantly through vertical and South Creede sprang up downstream inclined shafts, instead of adits. Parties of from Jimtown. Crude's Camp, also prospectors using primitive hand known as Sunnyside, rose to the west windlasses worked in the shadows of near the Alpha ore system. Each town advanced, heavily equipped steam became a commercial center, attracting operations. All sought bonanza ore. merchants, the offices of brand new Great distances and a terrain that mining companies, and local government. can be described as treacherous, at best, Tides of miners and prospectors coming separated the settlements along Willow from and going to the workings ebbed Creek from the workings on the veins and flowed through the settlements.7 above. Miners and prospectors found it The Creede district's four main most convenient to live at or near their camps were typical of the West’s operations, instead of making the twice- boomtowns spawned by mining rushes. daily trek. Not only would a commute by The inhabitants focused on making foot or horseback have consumed too money, and as a result the development of much time and energy, but also such social and physical infrastructures became travel bordered on impossible in adverse a secondary priority. Architecture was weather, especially during the winter. As also a secondary consideration. At first, a result, several small camps formed. the camps consisted of a mix of wall tents, When the search for ore gave way to log cabins, and rough frame buildings, all extraction, mining companies erected with limited floor space. Yet, businesses boarding houses at their mines for the such as saloons, hotels, and mercantiles same reasons.9 abounded. Like other Western mining Creede's boom peaked in 1892 settlements, Creede's camps grew in and 1893. The Denver & Rio Grande topographically inappropriate places. Railroad graded a line up the Rio Grande Except for Sunnyside, the other camps River from its main track at South Fork to were located in the deep and constricted the settlement known as South Creede. canyon of Willow Creek, which presented The D&RG RR later extended the rail line traffic problems and the threat of to North Creede. During the boom, trains flooding. By 1891 the population of the were bringing up to 300 immigrants per camps along Willow Creek soared from day to the district, and the population of several groups of prospectors to the Willow Creek settlements swelled to approximately 1,000 inhabitants.8 8,000. During this time Jimtown and

120 South Creede merged to form the town of inserted a $20 bill under the wrapper of a Creede, and the original Creede, located bar of soap and mixed it in with a bushel on East Willow Creek, became North of ordinary bars. For a small sum of Creede.10 money, he permitted individuals to select The dramatic increase in one bar from the bushel in an effort to population and economic activity fostered retrieve the salted bar that Smith had a need for a formal local government. buried. Curiously, few people ever won The problem with representation lay in the playing Smith’s game. By the early fact that the Creede district overlay the 1890s, Smith had become a well-known intersection of Saguache, Hinsdale, and and clever gambler, and was respected in Rio Grande counties. In 1893 Mineral the underworld. Seeing Creede as an County was carved out of the three opportunity, Smith established himself counties. Ironically, the town of Creede there, and became involved in local was not the original county seat. The politics which he tied into his ring of honor went to the townsite of Wason, organized crime. He reigned for several located on the Wason Ranch south of years, trying to walk a fine line between Creede. The residents of Creede were Creede’s honest citizens and his shady outraged, and they thought Martin Van syndicate. Smith appeased both sides by Buren Wason, a powerful local rancher permitting gambling, some of which was and transportation mogul, pirated the crooked, as well as prostitution, while county seat, and after a considerable fight, squashing petty crime and overt they moved it to Creede. lawlessness. Smith left Creede in 1893 Not only did the Creede boom following the death of his friend, Joe offer possibilities to those seeking mineral Simmons, and in the face of the economic wealth and jobs at the mines, but the depression caused by the Silver Crash.11 lawlessness and abundant money Silver ore began pouring out of presented opportunities for gamblers and the district’s principal mines by 1892, and criminals. People of mythic proportion, the towns along Willow Creek began to both honest and crooked, called early exhibit signs of mature industrial Creede home. Prize fighter Jack communities. In the town centers, the Dempsey started his boxing career while a ramshackle architecture of the earliest boy in Creede. Bob Ford and Bat inhabitants gave way to large, stately Masterson both operated saloons and frame buildings. Six sawmills, operated gambling houses in town, and Poker Alice by the Creede Lumber Company in practiced her questionable card games in surrounding forests, supplied lumber. In Creede. Gambling shark Bob 1892 Lute Johnson founded the Creede Fitzsimmons had a statue of a man cast in Candle, and the famous Cy Warman concrete, and buried it in the mud of established the Creede Chronicle. The Farmers Creek. One of his underlings Candle published newspapers until 1930. “discovered” the seemingly petrified man, Creede hosted the district’s first school, and Fitzsimmons used it for publicity. and the town of Creede was officially But Jefferson Randolph “Soapy” Smith incorporated. New comers and some of was the most notorious criminal to live in the district’s original prospectors, such as Creede. Smith earned his nickname in C.F. Nelson, sat on local governmental Denver by playing a con game in which he panels. Destruction visited Creede in

121 1892, when a significant portion of the drew a growing workforce, and they town burned, and the area near Willow required an infrastructure for fuel, water, Creek succumbed to flood waters. and transportation. The town of Activity in the towns continued unabated, Bachelor, named for the Bachelor Mine, however, until the fateful year of 1893.12 sprang up on a grassy area at the vein’s To many residents, the experience south end, and the town of Weaver grew of life in early Creede was nothing less deep in West Willow Creek’s canyon near that exciting. Above the noise, traffic, the vein’s mid-point. Mine workers and bustle, talk of mineral riches, and money, merchants serving the area’s mines stood optimism and the romance of established Bachelor in 1891, and they Western mining. This environment platted the townsite in 1892. By 1893 the spurred Cy Warman to write the famous town hosted 8 stores, 10 saloons, assay poem capturing the essence of early offices, boarding houses, and several Creede: hotels and restaurants. The town center was small, but the residences and CREEDE boarding houses associated with the numerous mines, up to several miles away Here’s a land where all are equal – on the Amethyst Vein, were included, of high and lowly birth – peaking the population at a questionable A land where men make millions, 6,000. Because the town kept a fire dug from the dreary earth. engine on hand, Bachelor’s most Here the meek and mild eyed burro significant fire claimed only several on mineral mountains feed – business buildings.14 It’s day all day, in the day-time The town of Weaver never And there is no night in Creede. attained the size or degree of formality that Bachelor experienced. At its peak, The cliffs are solid silver the town consisted of a collection of with wond’rous wealth untold; rough frame and log cabins, and a few And the beds of running rivers wall tents, located at the confluence of are lined with glittering gold. two deep canyons. Miners and workers While the world is filled with sorrows of the Amethyst and Last Chance and hearts must break and bleed, companies, and teamsters constituted the It’s day all day, in the day-time bulk of Weaver’s population. The town And there is no night in Creede.13 hosted a school, which reflects the strong presence of an industrial working During the early 1890s the mines population. Bachelor and Weaver both on the Amethyst Vein also began showing thrived until the disastrous year of 1893. signs of maturation. The large operations ______

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The Mines

The towns of Creede, North On the Amethyst Vein, the Moffat Creede, Bachelor, and Weaver would syndicate formed the Amethyst Mining have remained primitive camps were it not Company to work Creede’s spectacular for the rich mines on the Amethyst and find. During the mine’s early operating Holy Moses veins. Between 1891 and period, Senator Thomas Bowen and L.D. 1893 the Creede district's principal mines Roundebush bought into the company. included the Bachelor, the Last Chance, The syndicate hired a capable mining the New York, and the Amethyst, all of engineer who followed standard which penetrated the Amethyst Vein. The convention when he developed the Holy Moses, the Soloman, and the Ridge property. The engineer equipped the mines, also exceedingly wealthy, lay along mine with a sinking plant, which he the Holy Moses Vein. Of this group, the upgraded once miners had blocked out Amethyst and Last Chance mines stood sufficient ore. In 1892 the engineer had out as the top producers. mineworkers erect a large shaft house The Moffat syndicate owned the enclosing a new steam hoist and an 80 rich Holy Moses and Amethyst mines. horsepower boiler. By this time miners When the Moffat syndicate purchased the were producing 35 tons of ore per day, Holy Moses, it formed a mining company and to accommodate this, and the greater with L.E. Campbell as general manager, volumes anticipated, the mining company and it secured the services of a competent financed the construction of an innovative mining engineer who equipped and and efficient ore handling system. Miners developed the property. Thirty workers input raw ore from the mine into an ore and miners erected a surface plant and sorting house on the surface. There, drove exploratory drifts and crosscuts to workers separated waste and deposited block out ore. To the Moffat syndicate’s the concentrated ore into several holding delight, they encountered 18 inches of bins. An aerial tramway transported the native silver and galena ore which assayed ore from the ore sorting house across 2 at $1,000 per ton. Production began, and miles of the most hostile terrain down to miners brought 30 tons of ore to the another set of holding bins serviced by the surface per day. By 1893 the value of the D&RG RR at North Creede. This ore ore had dropped to $100 per ton, which handling system permitted the mine to was still a handsome return.15 produce ore in economies of scale.16 Senator Thomas Bowen, a San The Wolcott syndicate owned the Juan mining magnate, purchased the King fabulous Last Chance Mine. Henry O. Soloman Mine and the Ridge Mine from Wolcott was a lawyer, eventually a C.F. Nelson, he organized a mining senator, a promoter of Colorado business, company, and put these properties into and a member of Denver’s elite. The production. Like the Holy Moses Mine, Wolcott family made its fortune in miners began developing the King Colorado silver through rich mines in the Soloman, and in 1892 they too struck central portion of the Rockies, and phenomenally rich ore. through Colorado business and finance. Henry’s brother, Senator Edward O.

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Wolcott, heavily influenced Colorado of the Last Chance property. In fact, the business and politics. The Last Chance New York claim overlapped a portion of Mining & Milling Company secured the the Last Chance claim, which led to services of a competent mining engineer, litigation between Reynolds and the like the Amethyst operation. The Wolcott syndicate. The mine's owner engineer probably installed a sinking plant hired an engineer who erected a modest to facilitate mine development, but once surface plant to facilitate exploration this was complete, he had mineworkers during 1891, and in March of 1892 miners painstakingly erect possibly the most struck rich ore. Unlike many mining extravagant production-class surface plant Western mining companies, Reynolds was in the district. To achieve ore production reluctant to see his profits go to lawyers in economies of scale, the engineer instead of his own coffers. As a result, he equipped the mine with a massive direct- formed a cooperative merger with the drive double drum steam hoist, which Last Chance Mining & Milling Company, raised and lowered two hoisting vehicles and the interests consolidated their in a three-compartment shaft. The holdings.19 surface plant also included an air Colorado’s silver barons were compressor, several return tube boilers, a handsomely rewarded for their spacious shop, and a massive ore sorting investments in Creede’s mines. Within a house. Freight wagons hauled the ore to year the mines produced $4,200,000 in the rail line in North Creede.17 silver, 50% of which came out of the The Moffat syndicate, which now Amethyst, and 30% of which came from included Senator Thomas Bowen, the Last Chance. And to their delight, purchased the Bachelor Mine from J.C. production increased during 1893.20 McKenzie for $20,000 in late 1891 or In marked contrast to the Creede early 1892. The Bachelor Mine, which district's principal mines, the other lay south of the Last Chance operation, operations on the Amethyst and Holy did not experience production until 1892. Moses veins remained in a primitive state Miners began developing the property between 1891 and 1893. Nearly all of the through a tunnel, which prospectors had additional operations consisted of deep driven 350 feet during the previous year prospects equipped with conventional or two. Miners expanded the temporary or sinking-class surface plants. underground workings and erected a Most of the mining companies on the relatively simple surface plant. The mine Amethyst Vein were either searching for would become a substantial producer at a or had just encountered ore in 1892, but later time.18 had not proven the vein's extent. Most In 1892 A.E. Reynolds purchased operations of similar magnitude on the the Commodor Mine from McKenzie, and Holy Moses Vein would prove to be he acquired the New York Mine. A.E. worthless. Because the topographical Reynolds was not as well-known as other relief on the south portion of the Colorado mining moguls, however, he Amethyst Vein varied, prospecting outfits invested heavily in San Juan mines, and were able to explore their claims through his capital made many operations in the adits, which required less capital. The region possible. The New York Mine topography overlying the vein's north occupied ground upslope from and west portion, however, was relatively flat,

127 necessitating that prospect outfits sink before the mines in Creede would see shafts to search for ore. electrification to any great extent.21 During the early 1890s the The surface plants erected by prospects at Sunnyside, in the western prospecting outfits to support work in portion of the district, appeared to hold adits typically consisted of a simple great promise. The strikes made by John blacksmith shop, a mine rail line, a timber C. McKenzie and H.M. Bennett at the dressing area, and often an associated Alpha in 1876 led to a close inspection of residence. The surface plants associated the area by prospectors during Creede’s with shafts included a hoisting system, early boom, and several claims with which ranged from the hand windlasses showings of ore were developed in 1892. erected over shallow shafts, to horse The Kreutzer-Sonata Mine, the Monon whims, to steam donkey hoists, to Mine, and the Sunnyside were the most stationary sinking-class steam hoists and significant operations. However, bonanza portable boilers. Most of the district's ore failed to materialize, and the prospect operations never progressed excitement on the Amethyst and Holy beyond their sinking class surface plants Moses veins eclipsed the activity at for economic and for technological Sunnyside. Further, the Silver Crash of reasons, discussed below.22 1893 snuffed out what little interest During the Creede district's first existed in the marginal properties. boom, the mines and the needs of the Sunnyside would attract attention again at work force fostered an enormous demand a later time. for food, dynamite, tools, and machinery. Progressive mining engineering By 1892, the district's principal mines and technology came early to Creede. In began producing ore in economical 1892 John W. Flintham, manager of the volumes, which had to be delivered to the Denver Consolidated Electric Light D&RG RR railhead in North Creede. Company, realized the potential electric Pack trains were far too costly and market that Creede presented. He inefficient to manage the district's freight. organized the Creede Electric Light and The need to move the materials of mining Power Company and ordered a required the establishment of a construction crew to build a small transportation infrastructure throughout electrical generating plant along the the district capable of accommodating D&RG RR right-of-way in Creede. The wagons. By the mid 1890s all of the plant consisted of a dynamo turned by a principal mines, most of the substantial steam engine, which was powered by a prospect operations, and the townsites return tube boiler, all enclosed in a 24 by were accessed via roads. The network 95 foot frame building. Creede's plant was probably created by a combined was modest and capable of generating effort. Workers employed by individual only enough power to energize electric mining companies completed feeder light circuits and run some simple mine roads, and construction contractors machinery. Despite its modesty, Creede's funded by subscriptions contributed by plant was important to the mining the district's businesses and mining industry, because it was one of the first companies graded main thoroughfares. generating plants erected in the West. The roads between the towns on More than 20 years would have to pass Willow Creek and the mines up on the

128 Amethyst Vein handled an enormous born in New Hampshire and became a volume of traffic. The grades in West sailor at an early age. He weathered the Willow Creek's canyon proved especially dreaded Cape Horn during several sailing treacherous, both during construction and voyages, and he spent much time in while in use. An old-time resident of Central and South America. While in Weaver recalled how a construction crew these remote lands Wason served as a was blasting a road above the town, captain on a pearl boat, he became a probably to the Amethyst Mine. During rancher in Argentina, and mined gold in one particular incident, the blast sent a Central America. Wason returned to the boulder rolling downslope, and it bounded United States via California in 1870, and toward town. Just as a sick man rose out there he acquired a small herd of fine of bed for a drink of water in a cabin horses. In 1871 he drove his herd, below, the boulder crashed through the accompanied by Vaqueros, through parts roof and crushed the bed in which he had of the West until he arrived in Colorado. just been laying. While run-away wagons On his way from Poncha Springs to the and other accidents were not uncommon San Luis Valley, Wason arrived at Otto on the steep grades to the mines, the Mears' toll gate on Poncha Pass. Having worst road in the district was the "Black insufficient money to pay the necessary Pitch", between Weaver and North toll, he was forced to retreat and sneak Creede. Despite precautions such as around the gate by traveling a wide arc wheel locks and strong harnesses, wagons through the surrounding mountains. This broke loose and plunged into the ravine, included making numerous trips to occasionally killing teamster and team.23 transport supplies and disassembled The teamsters who plied Creede's wagons. When Wason established a roads were described as being rough and ranch on the Rio Grande, he remembered rowdy. Most lived in either Creede or his dependence on toll roads and graded Weaver, and they made approximately his own, in hopes of making a profit. two round trips per day between the ore Wason's road, used by immigrants and holding bins at North Creede and the freighters bound for mines in the deep San mines. Teamsters served all of the mines Juans, extended from Wagon Wheel Gap on both veins, except for the Amethyst at the south, past his ranch, and and Holy Moses mines, which relied terminated north. He linked the road to chiefly on their aerial tramways to haul Creede with his original trunk line.24 ore. Wason's greed led to protracted All of the supplies hauled up to problems with the mining community. He the mines, and all of the ore that flowed had workers erect a toll gate on his road down from them had to pass through the and charged wagons 75 cents to pass, town of Creede. Local cattle king Martin which was an exorbitant fee. The Van Buren Wason understood this. In citizens, and especially the mining fact, he forecasted the need for a central companies, were justifiably outraged, and artery to Creede, and graded a toll road to they considered the road to North Creede the promising camp in 1891 in to be a public thoroughfare. Their expectation of reaping a handsome profit. outrage reached uncontainable The road to Creede was not Wason's first proportions in 1892, and they hung a experience with toll roads. Wason was dummy of Wason in effigy. Wason,

129 fearful, hired Jesse H. Stringley as a ore, as his contract with the county had guardian. Stringley carried a six-gun and specified. Wason's toll officers were a badge, but the gunfighter was arrested arrested, and in their absence, under the on the grounds of impersonating an cover of night, some of Creede's men, officer of the law, and defrocked. probably teamsters, dismantled and Sentiment against Wason continued to be removed the toll gate. It vanished strong, and he was unprepared when the without a trace. Creede's war against powerful mining interests brought their Wason was won, but not entirely over. political and economic might against him. When Creede attempted to remove the As the mining interests went, so went new Mineral County Seat from Wason's Creede. F.M. Osgood, M.J. Connolly, under-populated townsite, Wason Mike Regan, and L.C. Lowe appealed to retaliated by threatening to resurrect the the Hinsdale County Commissioners to toll gates. The officers of the big mines force Wason to turn the road over to took political and economic aim at public domain. The commissioners, upon Wason, and he backed down. The war investigation, discovered that Wason's ended when Colorado's governor underlings had levied tolls against all purchased the road in 1899 for wagons, and not merely those laden with $10,000.25. ______

Mining at Creede Collapses

The excitement, the search for again pushed for price supports and wealth, and the conversion of the passed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, wilderness into an industrial landscape which boosted the price of the white was just beginning to reach a crescendo metal to $1.05 per ounce. The artificially when the Silver Panic of 1893 struck. high price affected Creede, because silver Ever since hardrock mining began in the barons such as David H. Moffat, Senator West, the price of silver has fluctuated in Thomas Bowen, the Wolcotts, and A.E. response to natural market forces, and in Reynolds began campaigns to acquire and response to the implementations and develop the mines.26 revocations of federal price supports. The silver tide ebbed in the West Western senators, such as Creede's Henry in 1893 when reformists repealed the and Edward Wolcott, and Thomas Silver Purchase Act. The price of silver Bowen, were instrumental in instituting plummeted from around $1.00 to 60 price support programs. The Bland- cents. Mining in Colorado, New Mexico, Allison Act of 1878 mandated that the Nevada, and Idaho completely collapsed. Federal Government purchase silver at a The ripple affect caused a panic that guaranteed price, which caused the value overcame at first the West, then other of the semi-precious metal to rise to $1.15 parts of the nation, resulting in an per ounce. In direct result, mining in the economic depression. Western silver San Juans intensified. A decrease in the towns, including Creede, were devastated, price of silver in 1886 severely hurt and Colorado’s silver miners faced the mining. In 1890 the Western senators challenge of having to seek alternative

130 modes of employment. Lucky for them, mineworkers. During 1894 and 1895 Cripple Creek, which was a gold- optimistic investors resumed exploration producing district, was under and development of several properties on development and in need of skilled the Amethyst Vein, which would miners. The silver barons lost fortunes, ultimately net them profits. The Del and the less affluent mining investors lost Monte Mining Company began to deepen all.27 its shaft and explore its claim, which lay Twilight overcame the Creede southeast from the Last Chance Mine. Mining District. By the end of 1893 a David Moffat, W.B. Felker, Byron E. significant portion of the district’s Shear, and W.H. Byrant used the hard population migrated elsewhere, and only times experienced by investors during the the Amethyst and Last Chance mines economic depression, and they purchased continued to operate, albeit at low levels. the Happy Thought Mine, north of the All of the district’s other mines and Amethyst Mine, and in 1894 they financed prospects were either totally abandoned a resumption of shaft sinking on the or idle. The towns of Bachelor and property. Last, O.H. Poole funded the Weaver, directly dependent on the installation of a sinking class plant and the Amethyst Vein’s mines, lost nearly all of erection of a 10 stamp mill at the Park their residents and businesses. Creede Regent Mine, located at the north end of and North Creede also lost much of their the Amethyst Vein. Most of the miners residents, and the D&RG RR dramatically working at these operations lived in curtailed rail service. However, Creede boarding and bunkhouses on-site.28 possessed two factors unique to other As the national and state silver mining districts also in economic economies recovered in the several years duress. First, the Amethyst and Holy following the Silver Crash, mining in Moses veins contained amazingly rich ore Creede resumed. All of the principal capable of providing income even at mines reactivated, and work resumed at silver’s abysmally low prices. Second, the some of the developed prospect mines’ owners were adamant about operations. The principal producing profiting from their investments. The key mines on the Amethyst Vein at this time to success, they determined, was to included, from south to north, the produce ore in unprecedented volumes. Bachelor, the Commodor, the Del Monte, They employed technology and the New York, the Last Chance, the engineering to achieve production in Amethyst, the Happy Thought, the White economies of scale, drastically reducing Star, and the Park Regent. The principal the cost of mining. active mines on the Holy Moses Vein By March of 1894 the Creede included the Soloman, the Ridge, the Mining District began a slight recovery. Holy Moses, the Outlet, and the Phoenix. Several mines in addition to the Amethyst In all, the number of principal mines and Last Chance properties resumed active after the Silver Crash increased. operations, employing a total of 500 ______

131

Engineers Come to the Rescue

Mining engineering played a key Omaha, Nebraska. The smelters crushed role in the resumption of profitable mining and concentrated the raw ore, then at Creede in the late 1890s. On an extracted and separated the metals. To individual scale, the district’s mining turn a profit, the smelting companies companies improved their surface plants levied a per-ton charge for processing. to facilitate the production of greater By concentrating the ores on-site, volumes of ore at a lower cost per ton. Creede's mining companies not only saved The Amethyst Mining Company installed a portion of the smelters' processing fee, a larger hoist and set of boilers, which but they saved shipping costs, because the permitted rapid hoisting speeds from heavy, worthless waste rock was greater depths. The Bachelor Mining removed.30 Company hired a crew of miners to O.H. Poole erected the first develop its vein through a series of concentration facility at Creede when he tunnels, permitting the extraction of ore installed a 10 stamp mill at the Park simultaneously through several levels. To Regent Mine in 1895. Poole's mill, efficiently move the great tonnages of pay however, was a failure. Poole relied on rock to the railhead at North Creede, two batteries of stamps to pulverize the Bachelor engineers erected an aerial ore, and another mechanical process to tramway similar to those that operated at concentrate the slimes. The machinery the Holy Moses and Amethyst mines. that Poole selected was inappropriate for The Happy Thought Mine installed a Creede's silver and lead ore. The mining bigger hoist like the Amethyst. Many of engineers working for the district's large the large mines which did not have air mining companies had theoretical and compressors to power mechanical practical experience with milling silver rockdrills installed the machines to ores, and they designed effective facilities. expedite the drilling and blasting process The standard treatment for Creede's ores underground.29 began with reduction by a primary jaw Another engineering tactic that crusher. Cornish rolls, which were pairs some of Creede's large mining companies of heavy iron drums, and ball mills exercised involved milling the ore locally. pulverized the rock fragments. The rock In the late 1890s and early 1900s the may have passed through up to three sets Soloman, the Ridge, the Happy Thought, of rolls or ball mills, each designed to and the Amethyst mining operations further reduce the crushed rock. The erected small ore reduction mills near fines produced by the rolls were sent to their mines. The idea was not to produce concentration tables, which used gravity refined silver bullion, but to reduce and to separate waste from metal-bearing concentrate the metals content, and ship materials. The tables consisted of iron the concentrates to a smelter. Prior to the frames bolted onto the mill floor, and erection of these mills, Creede's mining table tops designed to vibrate. The table companies exported all of its raw ore to tops lay at a slight pitch and they featured smelters at Pueblo and Denver, Colorado, riffles, and as they rapidly vibrated the to Joplin, Missouri, and probably to light waste floated upward and the heavy

134

metal-bearing fines worked their way several independent circuits for downward. Creede's mills may have concentrating ore. The mill, located on included a series of such tables to further the west bank of West Willow Creek at refine the concentrates produced by North Creede, began operating in 1902 previous tables in the circuit. The mills’ and it treated ore hauled out of the end product consisted of shipping-quality Nelson Tunnel. While construction concentrates. workers were completing the mill, D&RG The mills erected by Creede's big RR track gangs graded a spur line to the producers followed the technological mill's base so that finished concentrates convention of the day, and their sizes and could be shipped by train. Engineers assemblages of equipment were relative to erected a hydroelectric plant by the mill to the mining company's volume of supply power for drive motors. However, production and capital. The Amethyst they miscalculated the degree to which Mill included several circuits for West Willow Creek's flow fluctuated, and processing ore, while the Happy Thought to their chagrin, the creek slowed to a Mill consisted of one circuit. Modern trickle in the winter of 1903. In response, electric motors powered the Happy the engineers installed a backup steam Thought Mill, and electric motors backed plant to see the mill through future up by a steam engine powered the winters. The Humphreys Mill operated Amethyst Mill. The mills’ engineers used for well over 10 years, returning the initial common means to transfer power from investment plus profits to the mill’s the motors to the mill machinery. The financiers.32 motors and steam engines turned In addition to improvements made overhead drive shafts mounted in the to individual mines and the installation of buildings' rafters, via canvas belts. ore reduction mills, the mining interests of Additional belts extended from the drive Creede applied engineering on a broad shafts to the mill machinery. The scale to boost the volume of production engineers also followed convention when and lower the costs of mining. The mines they designed the mills to rely on gravity on the Amethyst Vein faced the problems to transfer the materials from one step in of a high water table, poor ventilation, the concentrating process to the next. To and an increase in operating costs with achieve this desired gravity flow, all of the depth. In 1892, when the district was mills were built on terraced hillsides.31 enjoying its first boom, Charles F. Nelson, In 1901 the Moffat interests added who discovered the Soloman Mine, the Humphreys Mill to Creede's roster of organized the Nelson Tunnel Company concentration facilities. The Humphreys with the intent of remediating these Mill was by far the district's largest, and it problems for at least some of the mines. represents another attempt to save money Nelson served as the company's director, by concentrating the ore locally. A.W. Brounell acted as president, and J.S. Engineers applied state-of-the-art Wallace was treasurer. Nelson held technology when they designed the mill visions of using the tunnel as a prospect and selected the appliances. Like bore to search for deep ore, of using the traditional mills, the Humphreys facility tunnel as both a drain and enormous used gravity to move the rock between ventilation duct for the mines, and as a stages of reduction, and it included haulage way for ore trains. Nelson also

136 promoted the minor benefits of his New York, and the Amethyst properties. proposed tunnel, such as serving as an Using 4 heavy piston drills, miners escape route in instances of fire, and advanced the tunnel 6 feet per shift, and in acting as a platform from which mining 1899 they first reached the Last Chance companies could develop deep ore. workings, then the Amethyst workings. Nelson proposed establishing a portal and Even though the Wooster Tunnel surface plant on West Willow Creek had reached the vicinity of the Amethyst below the Bachelor Mine, and driving the and Last Chance properties, the company tunnel along the Amethyst Vein. David required time to make the final Moffat's and Henry Wolcott's mines were connections. Because water was very at once interested. The cost of the project costly to pump from deep workings, the would, of course, be enormous. Nelson Amethyst and Last Chance mines allowed expected to cover the costs by charging the lower passages to flood. This subscription fees, and levying a toll per presented the Wooster engineers with a ton of ore hauled through the tunnel.33 problem. To avoid a life-taking The Bachelor Mine possessed the inundation in the tunnel upon first workings that the Nelson Tunnel breakthrough, the water in the deep would encounter, and so Moffat’s workings had to be drained. An engineer Bachelor Mining Company naturally was had the bright idea of using diamond the first operation to subscribe. Nelson drills, which were in the developmental had mineworkers erect a surface plant stage in the late 1890s, to bore long-holes consisting of a well-equipped shop, an air into the sumps of the Last Chance and the compressor that powered mechanical Amethyst shafts. In 1900 trained drillers rockdrills, and a generator driven by a from the Sullivan Drill Company arrived Pelton water wheel, on waste rock 400 and began boring holes toward the Last feet east of the tunnel portal. Miners Chance Shaft. In the process, they struck managed to drill and blast 1,500 feet a subterranean body of water pressurized before the Silver Crash of 1893 brought to such a degree that a jet of water forced the project to a halt. This distance the drill away from the tunnel face. Much brought the tunnel within the Bachelor to the disappointment of the engineer in ground, where tunnel workers charge, Mr. Rowley, the hole penetrating encountered ore. Work on the tunnel the Last Chance Shaft failed to yield the resumed after the economic depression, volume of water that he anticipated. and when the tunnel reached 2,100 feet in After inquiry at the Last Chance Mine, he length, Nelson's contact was fulfilled. discovered that a great quantity of silt and The rate of progress and the mud had accumulated in the shaft's sump, discovery of ore were crucial to the forming a barrier. To free the mass, success of Nelson's tunnel concept. The Rowley packed an iron tube with 50 Last Chance, New York, and Amethyst pounds of dynamite and used drill-steels mines offered subscriptions when the to push it through the long-hole into the Wooster Tunnel Company formed around Last Chance Shaft. After the charge 1897. The Wooster company leased a detonated, a tremendous volume of water right of way through the Nelson Tunnel, jetted through the hole. Once the Last and contracted to drive a drift from the Chance shaft was drained, the process extant tunnel north to the Last Chance, was repeated for the Amethyst Shaft.34

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Impressed with the success of the several hundred feet up West Willow Nelson and Wooster tunnels, the mines Creek from the Nelson Tunnel. However, farther north along the Amethyst Vein the Bachelor Mine lay between the subscribed to another tunnel designed to proposed tunnel site and the Commodor undercut their workings. In 1900 the claim, presenting the problem of trespass. Humphreys Tunnel commenced from the Other locations for the proposed tunnel end of the Wooster Tunnel. The were out of the question, due to restricted financing and logistical arrangements for nature of West Willow Creek’s canyon. the Humphreys Tunnel were similar to The Commodor Mining Company those of the Wooster company. Miners negotiated with the Bachelor’s owners drilled and blasted the passage around the and secured the right to drive the tunnel clock for two years, and by 1902 the through their ground, probably for a Humphreys Tunnel had reached the Park royalty. Regent Mine, which was the northern- The Commodor interests hired a most operation on the Amethyst Vein. mining engineer who put a crew to work The aggregate length of the three tunnels erecting a surface plant and a crew of totaled 11,000 feet, and all major miners to work drilling and blasting the operations except for the Commodor tunnel. The surface plant consisted of a Mine enjoyed decreased pumping and shop, an air compressor, and a return tube transportation costs, improved ventilation, boiler. By 1900 miners had driven the and the discovery of new ore. Mining Manhattan Tunnel, later known as the companies found that the savings Commodor No.5, 4,000 feet to the achieved through the tunnel system offset Commodor claim, where they blocked out the cost of the subscription and the $1.00 ore with raises and drifts. After the tunnel per ton of ore passing out the mouth of was complete, it served as the the tunnel.35 Commodor’s principal haulage way, and When construction workers the upper tunnel was abandoned, except erected the Humphreys Mill, they graded as an entry to the upper workings.36 a mine rail line to the Nelson Tunnel's The Bachelor and Commodor surface plant, and they built a flume companies were on good terms, which alongside the track which supplied part of facilitated the Commodor’s right of the mill's water needs. The tunnel served access through the Bachelor’s ground. In as part of a large system in which ore was 1900 the two companies became even mined and sent directly to be milled at closer when the Moffat Syndicate North Creede, on the banks of West purchased a controlling interest in the Willow Creek. Commodor. The mining industry The owners of the Commodor subsequently recognized the two mines as Mine thought that the Nelson Tunnel being one entity, and miners linked the Company’s subscription rates and toll per underground workings with numerous ton of ore were too costly, and they passages. As a result, the upper-most elected to drive their own haulage way in tunnel on the Commodor claim became the late 1890s. The Commodor Mining known as Tunnel No.1, the Manhattan Company hired an engineer who selected Tunnel became known as Tunnel No.5, the site for a surface plant and a tunnel the Nelson Tunnel was unofficially termed portal on the Manhattan claim, only No.4, and Tunnels No.2 and No.3 pierced

140 the ground upslope. In the combined Leadville, Colorado, and some of those in effort to extract ore efficiently, the mine’s Idaho were presenting significant engineer installed a Pelton wheel at the competition, which kept metals prices Commodor No.5, which turned a low. As Creede’s mines closed, people generator and an air compressor, and the left the district. The populations of top two tunnels were abandoned.37 Creede, North Creede, and Bachelor The Creede district experienced decreased dramatically between 1905 and steady production until 1907, when a 1915. By 1910 Weaver became almost recession forced most of the mines to totally deserted. temporarily close. After the economy Contrary to the trend of the recovered, mining continued. During this implosion of mining on the Amethyst and time, the application of engineering and Holy Moses veins during Creede’s second technology had a significant impact on the boom, activity spread to several outlying population of the district. Because mining areas on the fringes of the district. As the was intense between around 1896 and economy improved during the late 1890s 1910, the towns of North Creede and and early 1900s, investors became Creede thrived. The need for workers at interested once again in the prospects at the Amethyst Mill and on the Amethyst Sunnyside. An unknown mining company tramway ensured that Weaver maintained developed the old Corsair property, and a small population. However, the they began shipping silver ore during completion of the Nelson, Wooster, and 1902 and 1903. Captain Free Thoman, Humphreys tunnel series rendered the who owned the Sunnyside Tunnel, surface plants on the surface above the interested investors Albert Damm, Jeff Amethyst Vein obsolete. The Nelson McAnelly, Perry Learnard, and M.H. Tunnel became the principal access to the Akin of Fort Collins in his operation. mines, and the population of miners and They supplied capital, which Thoman teamsters shifted from the town of used to drive a tunnel 750 feet, where Bachelor, which included the disbursed miners encountered a small ore vein. The bunk and boarding houses at the mines, Kruetzer-Sonata and Monon properties down to Creede. Only a few residences saw further exploration, and they up high were maintained. In 1900 eventually produced a little ore. approximately 1,150 people lived in Two more promising prospects far Creede and North Creede, 343 people up West Willow Creek also attracted lived in and around Bachelor, and 84 lived attention around the turn-of-the-century. in Weaver.38 Miners began sinking a shaft on a Between 1896 and 1910 most of promising lead on the Captive Inca the mining companies had focused their property in 1903, and another company efforts on developing and extracting the drove a tunnel on the Equity claim. The known ore deposits. By around 1910 Captive Inca proved to be worthless and these bodies began to show signs of it was abandoned by 1912, however the exhaustion, and within several years many Equity Mine produced ore for several of the marginal mines closed. Not only years beginning in 1912.39 did the district suffer from depleted ore The outbreak of World War I bodies, but other silver-lead mining benefited Creede's faltering mining districts such as Joplin, Missouri, industry. The war fostered a heavy

141 demand for industrial metals, creating a Amethyst Vein and extract what little ore profitable environment for Creede's remained, and to search below the Nelson mining companies. While the high metals Tunnel level for more deposits. During prices resuscitated mining, the renewed previous years the Moffat syndicate’s activity was nothing like that of years engineer had miners drive a central shaft past. The need to handle greater within the Commodor workings, and it tonnages of ore than before while cutting penetrated ground below the Nelson production costs convinced the mining Tunnel level, which Creede Exploration operations to spend capital on advanced used for deep exploration. In 1918 or technology. Electrification was the most 1919 miners unwatered the shaft and cost-effective improvement that the equipped it with a double drum electric mining companies could effect. While hoist which worked two skips. After Creede boasted of being served by one of several futile years of searching, ASARCo West's earliest power plants, until the gave up on deep ore. Uneconomical 1910s electric technology was not quantities had been found, but they were advanced enough to significantly benefit too poor in content. Faced with mining. However, when Creede worthless properties, ASARCo sold its experienced its World War I revival, the holdings to individual mining companies.41 technology was sufficiently advanced. During the 1890s, when rich ore In 1917 a new power plant was lay in the ground, mining companies built in Creede, possibly by the Creede purchased claims, hired crews of miners, Tribune Mining Company, which leased and extracted ore under the umbrella of the Amethyst Mine. The plant was a their corporate structures. The depletion state-of-the-art affair, and it consisted of of rich ore, the inefficiencies of large four Heine water tube boilers which company structures, and high operating powered a massive 500 horsepower steam costs discouraged such an operating engine and 225 kilowatt dynamo. A strategy after around 1900. The growing second engine and dynamo were kept on trend in Creede, as well as other Western stand-by. The mining operations on the mining districts, was for the mining Amethyst Vein used the electricity companies to cease operations and lease underground to power small hoists and either the entire mine to a second-party ventilation fans, and to light stations. The company, or lease portions of the ore Amethyst Mine proved to be the greatest body to individual miners. The payment beneficiary of electricity. In 1918 the schedule included either a royalty per ton Creede Exploration Company leased the of ore, or a flat fee. This scheme shifted mine and installed an electric hoist and the burden of minimizing operating costs motor-driven compressor at the shaft to from the mine's owner to the lessee. facilitate work above the Nelson Tunnel Under this system, lessees had every level.40 incentive to minimize the capital that they The American Smelting and put into the operation since they had no Refining Company, part of the allegiance to the mine itself, and they Guggenheims' industrial metals mining extracted the maximum ore in minimal and milling empire, organized the Creede time. While lessees were able to make a Exploration Company in 1918 to lease profit where large, cumbersome mining several of the properties along the companies could not, their tactics proved

142 problematic for the long term state of the Holy Moses Vein, and interest in these mine. Lessees rarely conducted properties lagged. The only mine on the exploration for new ore bodies because it Holy Moses Vein that possessed was "dead work", as they termed it. They profitable ore during World War I proved also avoided investing in maintenance and to be the King Soloman. The leasing the long term well-being of the mine's outfit William Wright & Co. profitably infrastructure. It was under this extracted ore and milled it at the Soloman environment that mining in Creede Mill until 1918.42 continued during the 1910s. The demand for industrial metals During World War I mining and was high enough, and milling technology leasing companies were producing ore sufficiently advanced to make the ores at from the other mines on the Amethyst Sunnyside and at the Equity Mine, high Vein. The Mineral County Mining & up West Willow Creek, economically Milling Company extracted ore from the viable. After successful exploration, Happy Thought property, which they lessees A.B. Collins and H.R. Wheeler concentrated in the Humphreys Mill. A brought the Monon Mine into production succession of lessees profitably worked in 1916. In 1918 the Manitoba Leasing the Last Chance ground, and more lessees Company took over operations at the mined the Park Regent and the Del Monte Monon and profitably extracted ore until properties. In 1915 Norman Corson 1921. The Creede Equity Mining organized a company that did well mining Company began drilling and blasting ore the Bachelor ground. During the 1890s in the Equity Mine in 1918 and quit in and 1900s the Moffat and Bowen 1919.43 interests had gutted their mines on the ______

Decline

The declaration of armistice in the Nelson, Commodor, and Bachelor 1918 halted war-related industrial operations. production, which caused metal prices to The few miners that remained in tumble. Mining at Creede once again Creede glimpsed a ray of hope in 1922. became unprofitable, and the district fell Western senators has passed the Pittman on hard times. The end of the war proved Act, which mandated that the federal to be the death knell for the marginal government purchase silver at $1.00 per properties, and the end of surface ounce, in hopes of bolstering a failing prospecting along the Amethyst and Holy Western mining industry. The principal Moses veins. By 1920 all mines but the mining operations in Creede geared up for Bachelor had become completely quiet, production, and activity at the Bachelor, many never to be worked again. With the Commodor, Del Monte, Happy Thought, subsidence of activity, irreversible decay Last Chance, and New York properties set in. The surface plants of nearly all resumed with vigor. All work was mines fell into total disrepair, and shafts conducted through the Nelson and and tunnels became unstable, except for Commodor No.5 tunnels. The Ethel

143 Leasing Company reopened the Soloman engineer determined that economic ore on the Holy Moses Vein. The high price still lay in the upper levels of the for silver stimulated some prospecting, Amethyst and surrounding properties. and knowledgeable district residents Hauling the ore out, however, would have searched new ground. A find was made constituted a great cost. After years of near Windy Gulch northwest from neglect, the Nelson Tunnel and the raises Creede, and local interests concluded that and chutes necessary for transferring the it was lead-silver-zinc vein missed by the ore needed expensive improvement. The prospectors of years past. The Pittman surface plants and shafts of the Amethyst, Act expired in 1923, and Creede entered Last Chance, New York, and Happy another dark period. Some mining Thought mines were in a hopeless state. activity continued, however. The The engineer elected to drive a new Commodor Mine continued to produce, haulage tunnel from the company’s and lessees spent a short time in 1925 property at Weaver on West Willow exploring the Bachelor ground. In 1925 Creek, instead of effect the required E.J. Lieske, Dr. Thomas Howell, and improvements. In 1928 miners began C.N. Blanchett formed the Bulldog work on what then they named the Sloane Leasing, Mining, and Milling Company to Tunnel, later known as the Amethyst explore and develop the new vein Tunnel. The passage provided easy discovered above Creede. The property access to the Amethyst and surrounding already featured a tunnel 1,050 feet long, properties, and it permitted mining of which they drove further. The operation low-grade ore shunned by earlier collapsed in 1926.44 operations as being uneconomical. The The last significant mining tunnel saw only two years of service endeavor of the 1920s occurred at the before mining at Creede once again Amethyst Mine. The company’s leading ceased.45 ______

Paradox: Boom During the Great Depression

Ironically, under the presidency of enacted a plan in which the Federal one of the World’s greatest mining Government bought gold at relatively engineers, Herbert C. Hoover, the Crash high prices. When price declines began to of 1929 brought the nation to its interfere which this scheme, Roosevelt economic knees. The subsequent Great and Congress passed the Gold Reserve Depression destroyed what little was left Act early in 1934, which set the minimum of mining in Creede. The victory of price for gold at $35.00 per ounce. In Franklin Delano Roosevelt over Hoover 1934 Roosevelt signed the Silver in 1932 for U.S. President set in motion a Purchase Act into law, which monetized chain of events that spelled a revival of silver and set the price for the metal mining in the West, including Creede, on artificially high. Creede experienced a a scale not seen since the close of the boom unlike anything seen since the Gilded Age. In an effort to devalue the Gilded Age. Most of the principal mines U.S. dollar, in October of 1933 Roosevelt on the Amethyst Vein, the Soloman Mine

144 on the Holy Moses Vein, and the few capital remained scarce during the producers at Sunnyside underwent further Depression, miners working deep exploration and production.46 underground revived the old practice of Lessees began exploring the hand-drilling, while miners working for Bachelor, Commodor, and Amethyst the large operations, such as at the mines, and they initiated production Commodor and Amethyst mines, had the shortly afterward. Miners accessed these luxury of using mechanical rockdrills. three properties through the Bachelor Miners completed nearly all other work tunnels, through the Commodor No.5, underground with hand-labor. In addition and the new Amethyst Tunnel, to work underground, small companies respectfully. The Nelson Tunnel, which leased the rights to sort through the waste was long-neglected, was no longer used. rock dumps associated with the large Miners began drilling and blasting pockets mines for low-grade ore tossed out by and small stringers of ore in the gutted earlier operations as uneconomical. Amethyst Vein's hanging wall. Because

Table 5.1: Summary of Mining on the Amethyst Vein

Mine Name Relative Size Location on Operating Years of Surface Operating Years of Vein Plant Property Amethyst Very Large Central 1891-1920 1891-1920; 1928-1929; 1934-1950s. Annie Rooney Small Central-South 1891-1892 1891-1892 Bachelor Very Large South 1878; 1885; 1891-1893; 1895- 1878; 1885; 1891-1893; 1923; 1925-1929; 1934-1940; 1895-1923; 1925-1929; 1944 1934-1940; 1944 Commodor Very Large South 1891-1893; 1895-1910s; 1891-1893; 1895-1910s; 1916-1920; 1923-1929; 1934- 1916-1920; 1923-1929; 1940; 1944-1983 1934-1940; 1944-1983 Del Monte Medium South-Central 1891-1893; 1890s 1891-1893; 1895-1900s; 1916-1923 Happy Thought Large Central 1891-1893; 1894-1907 1891-1893; 1894-1917; 1922-1923; 1928 Last Chance Very Large Central 1891-1893; 1895-1896; 1898- 1891-1893; 1895-1896; 1910s 1898-1920; 1923; 1937 Nelson Tunnel Very Large South 1892-1893; 1896-1929; 1935 1892-1893; 1896-1929; 1935; 1945-1950s. New York Medium South-Central 1891-1893; 1895-1902 1891-1893; 1895-1902; 1900s-1915; 1923; 1934- 1940 Park Regent Medium North 1892-1893; 1895; 1898-1912 1892-1893; 1895; 1898- 1912; 1916-1917 Sunnyside Small South-Central 1892-1893 1892-1893 White Star Small North 1892-1893; 1890s 1892-1893; 1890s-1917

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Table 5.2: Summary of Mining on the Holy Moses Vein

Mine Name Relative Size Location on Operating Years of Surface Operating Years of Vein Plant Property Holy Moses Very Large Central 1891-1893; 1895-1910; 1934; 1891-1893; 1895-1910; 1953-1958 1934; 1953-1958 King Soloman Large South 1891-1893; 1895-1918; 1922- 1891-1893; 1895-1918; (Soloman) 1923; 1934; 1945; 1950-1952 1922-1923; 1934; 1945; 1950-1952 Outlet Tunnel Medium North 1890s; 1956-1958 1890s; 1956-1958 Phoenix Small North 1891-1893; 1900; 1951-1960s 1891-1893; 1900; 1951- 1960s Ridge Medium South 1891-1893; 1890s-1900s; 1891-1893; 1890s-1900s; 1943-1949 1943-1949

Table 5.3: Summary of Mining on Upper West Willow Creek

Mine Name Relative Size Location on Operating Years of Surface Operating Years of Vein Plant Property Captive Inca Medium South 1902-1905 1902-1905 Equity Medium North 1900s; 1912; 1918-1919; 1900s; 1912; 1918-1919; 1927-1929; 1953 1927-1929; 1953

Table 5.4: Summary of Mining on the Alpha-Corsair Ore System

Mine Name Relative Size Location on Operating Years of Surface Operating Years of Vein Plant Property Corsair Medium South 1883; 1901-1904; 1922; 1925; 1883; 1901-1904; 1922; 1933-1934; 1939 1925; 1933-1934; 1939 Kreutzer-Sonata Medium North 1892-1893; 1926 1892-1893; 1926

Monon Medium South 1890s; 1916-1921; 1925; 1890s; 1916-1921; 1925; 1938-1940; 1953 1938-1940; 1953 Sunnyside Medium Central 1892-1893; 1901 1892-1893; 1901 Tunnel

When miners had proven that ore completed its game of Monopoly when it still existed in these mines, investors eager purchased the Amethyst Mine. Ore for profit began a campaign to acquire the extracted from the upper levels of the principal mines on the Amethyst Vein. In New York and Last Chance were hauled 1935 the Emperius Mining Company through the Last Chance No.2 Tunnel, purchased the Commodor and Bachelor located near the abandoned Amethyst mines and the Nelson Tunnel. In 1937 Shaft. Miners brought ore extracted from Emperius leased the Last Chance and the lower levels of the above two New York properties, and in 1939 it

147 properties through the Amethyst mine workers manually concentrated the Tunnel.47 ore and separated out waste. Within a year Emperius invested Like times past, mining men in capital to locate additional ore veins, Creede sought to mill the ores locally in which the company's engineers were sure hopes of saving the shipping and lay to either side of the Amethyst Vein. processing fees associated with exporting During the following years miners in fact payrock to distant smelters. In 1937 T.P. encountered new ore, which ensured the Campbell, W.B. Jacobson, and a man company's continued profitability. Then, named Mr. Weber organized Creede in 1938 Emperius miners discovered the Mills, Incorporated, which erected a OH Vein, which was the most significant flotation mill south of the town of Creede. find since the initial discoveries of ore in While the flotation process was not new the district. Previous mining companies to mining in 1937, Creede's past mills had on the Amethyst Vein shortchanged not applied the concept. The process themselves by focusing time and effort on reduced the ore to a slurry, as other mills gutting the known ore bodies and had done, and it relied on oils and neglecting exploration, leaving the foaming agents in tanks to "float" the discovery of the OH ore body to miners pulverized metalliferous fines away from drilling and blasting four decades later.48 the waste. The mill proved successful, Because Creede's ores possessed a and Emperius added it to its Creede lower value than times past, Emperius empire in 1940.49 continued to emphasize production in The resurgence of mining economies of scale. The company stimulated by FDR's programs reversed ensured that the surface plants at the the trend of the exodus from the dying Commodor and the Amethyst mines were Creede district. In 1930 the town's fully equipped. Miners working population dropped to around 334, and underground used rockdrills when driving during the following decade it increased exploratory workings in hardrock, and to 587. The proliferation of the they drilled by hand when working in automobile and truck permitted miners in softer ores. Miners used other pieces of the 1930s to live in Creede and commute power equipment such as electric and to the centers of activity at the compressed air hoists at winzes and to Commodor and Amethyst tunnels. scrape blasted ore out of stopes with drag Except for a few isolated residences, the lines. Mules, which were inexpensive to townsites of Bachelor and Weaver had maintain, pulled trains of ore out of the been long-abandoned. The Creede Commodor and Amethyst tunnels. The business district experienced another fire surface plants of both of these operations, in 1936, which would have probably and the Last Chance No.2 Tunnel, precipitated the town's final abandonment, included large ore sorting houses where were it not for the profitable mining.50

148

Table 5.5: Population of the Creede Mining District, 1890-1960

Population 1890 1892 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 Center Mineral Not Not 1,913 1,239 779 640 975 693 424 County Extant Extant Creede 1,000 8,000 938 711 500 334 587 433 424 North Part of Part of 235 122 Part of Part of Part of Part of Part of Creede Creede Creede Creede Creede Creede Creede Creede Bachelor 0 0 343 179 0 0 0 0 0

Weaver 0 0 84 0 0 0 0 0 0 (Data collected from: Schulze, 1976 and from Nolie, 1947:59)

Unlike World War I, the outbreak the Nelson Tunnel, which had been of World War II curiously did not foster a neglected for decades. In 1945 the New district-wide resurgence of mining in the Ridge Mining Company reopened the old Creede district, despite the need for war- King Soloman, after 11 years of inactivity, related industrial metals, but interest and another group of lessees reopened the increased, none-the-less. On the Ridge Mine in 1943. Reopening both Amethyst Vein, Emperius miners properties on the Holy Moses Vein continued drill and blast ore deep within required considerable capital, because the the Commodor, Bachelor, and Amethyst King Soloman had been idle since 1934, properties, and they may have continued and Ridge was abandoned in the 1910s. to work the lower levels of the Last The mines that were active at Sunnyside Chance ground through the Amethyst during the Great Depression had closed in Tunnel. In response to anticipated the 1930s, probably due to the exhaustion production, in 1943 Emperius invested of economic ore. In 1940 the partnership much capital reconditioning unsound of Larson & Soward leased the mine, portions of the Commodor No.5 Tunnel, conducted some exploration, extracted a and in 1945 the company did the same to little ore, and shut their operation down.51 ______

The Last Boom-Bust at Creede

Mining at Creede experienced a at Creede seemed to be in sight. boom-bust cycle yet again following the However, the economic boom of the end of World War II. War-related 1950s created a strong market for production slowed, and the price for industrial metals once again, and industrial metals sagged. The ore bodies improved milling technology made ores of in the old mines were becoming truly even lower grades economical. Not only exhausted and exploration conducted by did this prolong the lives of Creede's both Emperius and by partnerships failed active mines, but a wave of partnerships to discover new ore. The end of mining

149 and lessees closely examined many lifeless rich enough to pique their interest, but not but formerly productive properties. sufficient enough to be profitable. The During the late 1940s the lessees chased the ore stringers for the Emperius Mining Company was the only next five years before they finally gave significant operation active at Creede. In up.52 times past Emperius extracted ore from Mining in Creede experienced one various levels in the Commodor, last contraction in the late 1950s. All of Bachelor, Amethyst, and Last Chance the operations that were active during the properties. Following the post-war slump 1950s shut down permanently, except for in metals prices, the company curtailed its the Outlet Mining Company which operations and used only the Commodor, continued underground exploration at the Nelson, and Amethyst tunnels. The Phoenix Mine, and the Emperius Mining company abandoned all other surface Company which continued to profit from facilities. the seemingly endless bodies of ore under The wave of interest in Creede's the Commodor and the Amethyst mines began rising in 1950. The long-idle properties. mines on the Holy Moses Vein attracted During the 1960s the culture of the most attention. In 1950 the Mexico the Creede Mining District entered a Mining Company leased the King dichotomous state. The people, the Soloman property and conducted economy, and the physical landscape underground exploration. The TOC retained characteristics derived from 70 Development Corporation assumed the continuous years of underground mining lease and produced $20,000 in ore by based on traditional Gilded Age methods, 1952. In 1951 the Outlet Mining while the modern world was beginning to Company reopened the Phoenix Mine, exert a substantial influence. The conducted exploration, and by 1956 had Emperius Mining Company continued to extracted an impressive $500,000 in lead work the Commodor and the Amethyst and silver. In 1953 the Sublet Mining properties, and the Bulldog Mine, long Company leased the Holy Moses Mine, idle, began production. Improved and it leased the Outlet Tunnel in 1956, technology permitted a greater tonnage of where the outfit conducted underground ore produced per miner, but both mining exploration. The lessees began shipping companies continued to drill and blast ore from the Holy Moses in 1954. In using traditional methods. Both mining light of the success miners were companies began to use heavy equipment, experiencing with some of the district's such as bulldozers and front-end loaders, long-abandoned properties, lessees and instead of hand-labor on the surface. On investors became interested in the the other hand, Creede’s economy began prospects at Sunnyside and those on to enjoy a higher income from tourists upper West Willow Creek. Lessees that in times past, and the culture began reopened the Equity Mine in 1953, which changing to accommodate the passers- lay abandoned since 1929. They proved through. During the 1960s a movement unsuccessful and the mine closed began in which tourists ventured from permanently. Another group of hopefuls urban and suburban centers to historic reopened the Monon Mine also in 1953. mining towns to commune with the They encountered small veins which were material culture of the American West.

150 Creede, with its dozens of intact historic the closing of the mines was a hard blow mine sites and ghost towns, was well to the area. However, Creede survived prepared to satisfy the waves of tourists. well because tourism continued to grow, The transition from mining to tourism and the town served as the region’s accelerated during the 1970s. commercial and economic hub. Despite The end to mining in Creede Creede’s transition from one of America’s finally came in the 1980s. After almost a greatest silver mining districts to a century of mining, all of the mines shut historical destination that draws tourists down. Exhaustion of ore was partly to from across the West, the cultural fabric blame, the skyrocketing costs of created by almost 100 years of mining underground operations were heavily at remains intact. The heritage that is fault, and competition from mining Creede’s, as well as that of a special time operations in other countries and the and place in American history, lives on associated low metals prices contributed through the people, the town of Creede, heavily. Mining constituted a significant and the surrounding historic mine sites.53 portion of Creede’s cultural fabric, and ______

End Notes

1 Abbott, Carl; Leorard, Stephen; McComb, David Colorado: A History of the Centennial State University of Colorado Press, Niwot, CO 1994, p123. Ransome, Frederick Leslie USGS Bulletin No. 182: A Report on the Economic Geology of the Silverton Quadrangle, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1901, p19. Smith, Duane A. Song of the Hammer and Drill: The Colorado San Juans, 1860-1914 Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 1982, p12. 2 Henderson, Charles W. USGS Professional Paper 138: Mining in Colorado: A History of Discovery, Development, and Production U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1926, p5. Emmons, William H and Esper, Larsen S. USGS Bulletin 718: Geology and Ore Deposits of the Creede District, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1923, p3. Mumey, Nolie Creede: The History of a Colorado Silver Mining Town Artcraft Press, Denver, CO 1949, p6. 3 Emmons, William H and Esper, Larsen S. USGS Bulletin 718: Geology and Ore Deposits of the Creede District, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1923, p3. Greever, William S. Bonanza West: The Story of the Western Mining Rushes, 1848-1900 University of Idaho Press, Moscow, ID 1990, p204. Henderson, Charles W. USGS Professional Paper 138: Mining in Colorado: A History of Discovery, Development, and Production U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1926, p56. Mumey, Nolie Creede: The History of a Colorado Silver Mining Town Artcraft Press, Denver, CO 1949, p, 19-22. Smith, Duane A. Song of the Hammer and Drill: The Colorado San Juans, 1860-1914 Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 1982, p9. Wolle, Muriel Sibel Stampede to Timberline: The Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of Colorado Swallow Press, University of Ohio Press, 1991, p320. 4 Brown, Ronald Colorado Ghost Towns Caxton Printers, Caldwell, ID, 1993, p85. Emmons, William H and Esper, Larsen S. USGS Bulletin 718: Geology and Ore Deposits of the Creede District, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1923, p4. Francis, J. Creede Mining Camp Press of the Colorado Catholic, Denver, CO, 1892, p7. Henderson, Charles W. USGS Professional Paper 138: Mining in Colorado: A History of Discovery, Development, and Production U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1926, p56. Mumey, Nolie Creede: The History of a Colorado Silver Mining Town Artcraft Press, Denver, CO 1949, p21. 5 EMJ 8/2/90 p133. Francis, J. Creede Mining Camp Press of the Colorado Catholic, Denver, CO, 1892, p7. Mumey, Nolie Creede: The History of a Colorado Silver Mining Town Artcraft Press, Denver, CO 1949, p20, 38. MacMechen, Thomas E. "The Ore Deposits of Creede, Colo." Engineering and Mining Journal March 12, 1892 p301. 6 EMJ 9/19/91 p340. Lallie’s 1892. Mumey, Nolie Creede: The History of a Colorado Silver Mining Town Artcraft Press, Denver, CO 1949, p38. 7 Bennett, Edwin Lewis and Spring, Agnes Wright Boomtown Boy in Old Creede, Colorado Sage Books, Chicago, Ill, 1966, p12.

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Dallas, Sandra Colorado Ghost Towns and Mining Camps University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1984, p51. EMJ 8/2/90 p133. Francis, J. Creede Mining Camp Press of the Colorado Catholic, Denver, CO, 1892, p11. Mumey, Nolie Creede: The History of a Colorado Silver Mining Town Artcraft Press, Denver, CO 1949, p37. Wolle, Muriel Sibel Stampede to Timberline: The Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of Colorado Swallow Press, University of Ohio Press, 1991, p321. 8 Mumey, Nolie Creede: The History of a Colorado Silver Mining Town Artcraft Press, Denver, CO 1949, p59. 9 Nearly all of the principal historic mine sites exhibit evidence of associated residences, and additional isolated residential sites may be encountered in the vicinity of prospect operations. 10 Greever, William S. Bonanza West: The Story of the Western Mining Rushes, 1848-1900 University of Idaho Press, Moscow, ID 1990, p204. Henderson, Charles W. USGS Professional Paper 138: Mining in Colorado: A History of Discovery, Development, and Production U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1926, p11. Mumey, Nolie Creede: The History of a Colorado Silver Mining Town Artcraft Press, Denver, CO 1949, p59. Smith, Duane A. Song of the Hammer and Drill: The Colorado San Juans, 1860-1914 Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 1982, p91. 11 Bennett, Edwin Lewis and Spring, Agnes Wright Boomtown Boy in Old Creede, Colorado Sage Books, Chicago, Ill, 1966, p29. Feitz, Leland Creede: Colorado Boom Town Little London Press, Colorado Springs, CO 1963, p21. Greever, William S. Bonanza West: The Story of the Western Mining Rushes, 1848-1900 University of Idaho Press, Moscow, ID 1990, p206. Mumey, Nolie Creede: The History of a Colorado Silver Mining Town Artcraft Press, Denver, CO 1949, p125. Smith, Duane A. Song of the Hammer and Drill: The Colorado San Juans, 1860-1914 Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 1982, p113. Wolle, Muriel Sibel Stampede to Timberline: The Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of Colorado Swallow Press, University of Ohio Press, 1991, p325. 12 Bennett, Edwin Lewis and Spring, Agnes Wright Boomtown Boy in Old Creede, Colorado Sage Books, Chicago, Ill, 1966, p32, 60. Dallas, Sandra Colorado Ghost Towns and Mining Camps University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1984, p54. Feitz, Leland Creede: Colorado Boom Town Little London Press, Colorado Springs, CO 1963, p16, 26. Greever, William S. Bonanza West: The Story of the Western Mining Rushes, 1848-1900 University of Idaho Press, Moscow, ID 1990, p206. Mumey, Nolie Creede: The History of a Colorado Silver Mining Town Artcraft Press, Denver, CO 1949, p12, 75. Wolle, Muriel Sibel Stampede to Timberline: The Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of Colorado Swallow Press, University of Ohio Press, 1991, p326. 13 Mumey, Nolie Creede: The History of a Colorado Silver Mining Town Artcraft Press, Denver, CO 1949, p2. 14 Mumey, Nolie Creede: The History of a Colorado Silver Mining Town Artcraft Press, Denver, CO 1949, p156-157. Wolle, Muriel Sibel Stampede to Timberline: The Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of Colorado Swallow Press, University of Ohio Press, 1991, p331. 15 EMJ 11/92 p470. Mumey, Nolie Creede: The History of a Colorado Silver Mining Town Artcraft Press, Denver, CO 1949, p33. Schwarz, T.E. "Colorado" Engineering and Mining Journal Jan.2, 1892 p55. 16 EMJ 2/12/92 p212; EMJ 7/23/92 p86; EMJ 9/10/92 p252; EMJ 10/29/92 p421. Smith, Duane A. Song of the Hammer and Drill: The Colorado San Juans, 1860-1914 Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 1982 p91. 17 Leonard, Steven and Noel, Thomas Denver: Mining Camp to Metropolis University Press of Colorado, Niwot, CO 1990, p150. Smith, Duane A. Rocky Mountain West: Colorado, Wyoming, & Montana 1859-1915 University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM 1992, p159. The Author characterized the Last Chance surface plant during an archaeological field analysis. 18 Emmons, William H and Esper, Larsen S. USGS Bulletin 718: Geology and Ore Deposits of the Creede District, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1923, p142. MacMechen, Thomas E. "The Ore Deposits of Creede, Colo." Engineering and Mining Journal March 12, 1892 p301. Mumey, Nolie Creede: The History of a Colorado Silver Mining Town Artcraft Press, Denver, CO 1949, p47. Smith, Duane A. Song of the Hammer and Drill: The Colorado San Juans, 1860-1914 Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 1982 p92. 19 EMJ 3/26/92 p358. MacMechen, Thomas E. "The Ore Deposits of Creede, Colo." Engineering and Mining Journal March 12, 1892 p301. Smith, Duane A. Colorado Mining: A Photographic Essay University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM 1977, p75. 20 EMJ 1/20/94 p61. Emmons, William H and Esper, Larsen S. USGS Bulletin 718: Geology and Ore Deposits of the Creede District, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1923, p4. Henderson, Charles W. USGS Professional Paper 138: Mining in Colorado: A History of Discovery, Development, and Production U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1926, p56. 21 Mumey, Nolie Creede: The History of a Colorado Silver Mining Town Artcraft Press, Denver, CO 1949, p15. Twitty, Eric “From Steam Engines to Electric Motors: Electrification in the Cripple Creek Mining District” Mining History Journal, 1998. 22 The Author conducted an examination of mine sites along the Amethyst Vein. 23 Bennett, Edwin Lewis and Spring, Agnes Wright Boomtown Boy in Old Creede, Colorado Sage Books, Chicago, Ill, 1966, p15, 18.

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24 Mumey, Nolie Creede: The History of a Colorado Silver Mining Town Artcraft Press, Denver, CO 1949, p81, 82. 25 Mumey, Nolie Creede: The History of a Colorado Silver Mining Town Artcraft Press, Denver, CO 1949, p81, 82. 26 EMJ 2/14/86 p119. Smith, Duane A. Song of the Hammer and Drill: The Colorado San Juans, 1860-1914 Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 1982, p92. Smith, Duane A. Rocky Mountain West: Colorado, Wyoming, & Montana 1859-1915 University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM 1992, p157. Voynick, Stephen M. Colorado Gold: From the Pike's Peak Rush to the Present Mountain Press Publishing Co., Missoula, MT 1992, p62. 27 Smith, Duane A. Song of the Hammer and Drill: The Colorado San Juans, 1860-1914 Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 1982, p92. Smith, Duane A. Rocky Mountain West: Colorado, Wyoming, & Montana 1859-1915 University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM 1992, p157. Voynick, Stephen M. Colorado Gold: From the Pike's Peak Rush to the Present Mountain Press Publishing Co., Missoula, MT 1992, p62. 28 EMJ 3/10/94 p230; EMJ 1/6/94 p14; EMJ 2/17/94 p158. Emmons, William H and Esper, Larsen S. USGS Bulletin 718: Geology and Ore Deposits of the Creede District, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1923, p168. 29 EMJ 7/9/98 p316. Bennett, Edwin Lewis and Spring, Agnes Wright Boomtown Boy in Old Creede, Colorado Sage Books, Chicago, Ill, 1966, p210. Improvements to the Happy Thought Mine and Bachelor Mine were determined through field examination. 30 Emmons, William H and Esper, Larsen S. USGS Bulletin 718: Geology and Ore Deposits of the Creede District, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1923, p6. EMJ 9/21/01 p368. 31 The Author characterized the Amethyst and Happy Thought ore reduction mills from field examination. 32 EMJ 12/7/01 p766; EMJ 3/22/02 p425; EMJ 3/7/03 p384. 33 Emmons, William H and Esper, Larsen S. USGS Bulletin 718: Geology and Ore Deposits of the Creede District, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1923, p5. EMJ 4/9/92 p407. 34 Colorado Historical Society Records, MSS Box 640, v24:7. 35 EMJ 2/15/02. 36 EMJ 7/9/98 p46; EMJ 6/16/00 p718. Lallie’s 1892. 37 Colorado Historical Society Records, MSS Box 640, v24:34. EMJ 6/16/00 p718. 38 Schulze, Susanne A Century of the Colorado Census University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO, 1976. 39 EMJ 3/7/03 p384. Emmons, William H and Esper, Larsen S. USGS Bulletin 718: Geology and Ore Deposits of the Creede District, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1923, p169. Henderson, Charles W. USGS Professional Paper 138: Mining in Colorado: A History of Discovery, Development, and Production U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 192, p15. 40 Colorado State Archives, Mine Inspectors’ Reports, Box 104053: Creede Exploration Co. Emmons, William H and Esper, Larsen S. USGS Bulletin 718: Geology and Ore Deposits of the Creede District, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1923, p159. 41 Colorado State Archives, Mine Inspectors’ Reports, Box 104053: Creede Exploration Co. 42 Colorado State Archives, Mine Inspectors’ Reports, Box 104053: Bachelor; Box 104053: Happy Thought; Box 104053: Happy Thought; Box 104053: Last Chance; Box 104053: Soloman. EMJ 6/3/16 p1006. 43 Colorado State Archives, Mine Inspectors’ Reports, Box 104053: Equity; Box 104053: Monon. Larsen, E.S. "Recent Mining Developments in the Creede District: USGS Bulletin 811: Contributions to Economic Geology U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1929. 44 Colorado State Archives, Mine Inspectors’ Reports, Box 104053: Bachelor; Box 104053: Bulldog; Box 104053: Commodor; Box 104053: Happy Thought; Box 104053: Last Chance; Box 104053: Soloman. Henderson, Charles W. USGS Professional Paper 138: Mining in Colorado: A History of Discovery, Development, and Production U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1926, p17. Larsen, E.S. "Recent Mining Developments in the Creede District: USGS Bulletin 811: Contributions to Economic Geology U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1929. 45 Colorado State Archives, Mine Inspectors’ Reports, Box 104053: Amethyst. 46 McElvaine, Robert S. The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941 Times Books, New York, NY 1993, p164. 47 Colorado State Archives, Mine Inspectors’ Reports, Box 104053: Amethyst; Box 104053: Commodor; Box 104053: Last Chance. 48 Ratte, James C. and Steven, Thomas A. "Ash Flows and Related Volcanic Rocks Associated with the Creede Caldera, San Juan Mountains, Colorado" USGS Professional Paper 524: Shorter Contributions to General Geology U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1965, p10. 49 Colorado State Archives, Mine Inspectors’ Reports, Box 104053: Emperius. 50 Feitz, Leland Creede: Colorado Boom Town Little London Press, Colorado Springs, CO 1963, p16.

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Schulze, Susanne A Century of the Colorado Census University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO, 1976. 51 Colorado State Archives, Mine Inspectors’ Reports, Box 104053: Emperius; Box 104053: Holy Moses; Box 104053: Last Chance; Box 104053: Ridge; Box 104053: Soloman. 52 Colorado State Archives, Mine Inspectors’ Reports, Box 104053: Emperius; Box 104053: Equity; Box 104053: Holy Moses; Box 104053: Monon; Box 104053: Phoenix; Box 104053: Ridge; Box 104053: Soloman. 53 Colorado State Archives, Mine Inspectors’ Reports, Box 104053: Bulldog; Box 104053: Commodor; Box 104053: Emperius.

154

CHAPTER 6

CONCLUSION

The Creede Mining District holds across the West, as well as from a place of importance in national, state, Michigan, Missouri, Wisconsin, Canada, and local history. Creede has been and Europe. At its peak, the rush to described as one of America's the most Creede began to eclipse the excitement at significant silver producing districts, and Cripple Creek, which was one of the its mines made significant contributions to other great districts of the 1890s. Were it the fortunes of powerful and influential not for the devastating Silver Crash of mining investors and politicians such as 1893, Creede may have overshadowed Thomas Bowen, Henry O. and Edward O. Cripple Creek for many more years. Wolcott, David H. Moffat, and A.E. Creede served as a proving Reynolds. Because these men were ground for innovative mining and heavily invested in profitable silver mines, industrial technologies, as well as an including those at Creede, they put great example of the application of accepted, energy into a national policy that favored conventional mining methods and the silver mining industry and Western practices. The prominence of the district, business. The ripple effect of their the problems associated with mining an actions, and the actions of other immense vein, the investors' wealth, and politicians with similar interests, caused the need to produce ore in economies of economic cycles which reverberated scale contributed to the use of advanced throughout the West, and ultimately the technology. Creede hosted one of the nation. Federal silver price supports and West's earliest municipal and industrial the revocation of such policies caused electric grids at a time when steam power boom-and-bust cycles that stimulated reigned supreme. To achieve production settlement and industrialization of the in economies of scale, many of the mining West when silver prices were high, district's prominent mines made use of and required the population to be aerial tramways at a time in mining history transient when low prices forced mines to when the devices were uncommon and close. The cycles ultimately impacted the expensive feats of engineering. The mines nation’s economy, exemplified by the at Creede also saw the application of Silver Crash of 1893 and the associated advanced drilling technology. During the depression. late 1890s miners began using stoper The excitement over the immense drills to bore blast-holes into the ceilings ore veins at Creede fomented one of the of stopes and raises. The use of stopers West's last great mining rushes. The at this time is significant for several potential for staking a rich claim at best, reasons. First, stopers manufactured and securing a well-paying job at the during the 1890s and 1900s were one of least, acted as a siren calling to miners, the first commercial versions of the businessmen, and investors across the hammer drill, which replaced then- nation. In response, people immigrated to conventional piston drills and evolved into Creede from hardrock mining regions today’s jackhammers and rockdrills.

155 Second, the stoper was one of the first stimulation came from gross ore light-weight and inexpensive drills production, from capital poured into the portable and operable by one man. The district from outside the state, and from piston drill, which weighed up to 350 immigrants moving to the district. To pounds and required a crew of two to that end, Creede drew a workforce operate, was the convention among consisting of a variety of ages, ethnicities, mining companies until the 1910s, when and experiences, adding color to hammer drills became popular. The large Colorado's population. Creede’s mines at Creede saw early application of investors influenced state politics, diamond drilling around 1900 for deep including the strong reaction to the sampling, and engineers in the district growing wave of unionism. Creede’s used them for the unheard-of practice of mining companies shipped their ore for boring drain-holes into the sumps of processing, and much of it went to several flooded shafts. Like hammer smelters at Denver and Pueblo, which drills, diamond drills were still in the supported industries in those areas. And developmental stage during this time, and in a contrary way, the mines at Creede they proved themselves successful at consumed thousands of tons of coal to Creede. feed boilers, blacksmith forges, and During the 1890s mining stoves. Most of the bituminous coal and engineers bored the Nelson Tunnel for 2 much of the anthracite coal came from miles under the claims on the Amethyst within the state, which supported mining Vein, linking many prominent mines and settlement at Trinidad, Crested Butte, together in hopes of reducing production Florence, and the Front Range. Creede costs and solving some of the problems of proved to be important to the state of mining. The tunnel served as a massive Colorado during the Great Depression. drain and ventilation duct, and it became When President Franklin Delano the principal access and haulage way to Roosevelt signed the Silver Purchase Act the mines, which caused a geographical in 1934, Creede experienced a revival shift in the district's population. Boring which supported hundreds of workers and the Nelson Tunnel, linking it to the their families. On a broad scale, the principal mines on the Amethyst Vein, return of silver mining helped see portions and equipping it for haulage, ventilation, of Colorado’s population through the and access to encompassing underground Depression. Last, Creede’s abandoned workings required sound engineering mine sites continue to draw tourists to practices. The Nelson Tunnel converted Colorado, which support the state and the individual mines on the Amethyst Vein local economies. into an interrelated system. The Creede Mining District also The Creede Mining District holds holds a place of importance because many historical importance on a state level. of its historic elements are intact and During the 1890s, Creede was a center of retain integrity. The district retains mining excitement second only to the cultural geographic integrity in terms of world-renowned Cripple Creek. Creede its settlements, mine sites, and fueled Colorado's economy for four transportation arteries. Many of the decades, except for a brief period during settlements and historic mine sites feature the Silver Crash of 1893. Economic examples of Gilded Age and Depression-

156 era industrial, commercial, and residential exceptional. When all of Creede’s architecture. The towns of Creede and historic mine sites are considered in sum, North Creede and the townsite of Weaver they provide fuel for the examination of possess little-altered historic commercial patterns related to mining. For example, and residential buildings in an intact the assemblage of sites reflect both ambiance. changes and constants in underground Perhaps Creede’s most significant mining methods and technology employed cultural resource is its historic mine sites. from the Gilded Age up to the 1970s. Many of these sites feature a combination The site assemblage includes many of intact archaeological and architectural examples of mines arrested in states elements ranging in age from the district’s ranging from small, poorly developed earliest boom years up to the 1970s. prospects to massive, industrialized While many of the mine sites have been operations. The assemblage of mine sites stripped long ago of their buildings and are both proximal to historic townsites, machinery, the remaining archaeological and they include individual residential evidence often clearly reflects the physical complexes. As whole, the mines and constitution of the surface plants, dates of residential complexes can illuminate operations, the natures of the operations, settlement patterns. and associated residences. The The Creede Mining District archaeological record also includes buried possesses many reasons that favor deposits such as trash dumps, cellars, and preservation and future cultural resource privy pits which have the potential to analysis. Today, other historic mining enhance our current understanding of life districts are loosing integrity to and culture in Western mining districts. development, gaming, and environmental The large mine sites include many remediation, making Creede all the more standing buildings ranging from small important to Mineral County, the state of explosives magazines to offices to Colorado, and the United States. The massive ore sorting houses. The aerial historic resources at Creede constitute a tramway terminals and sorting houses are rare example of a heavily capitalized, ponderous, well-engineered structures wealthy, and well-engineered mining unique to Western mining. On an district, and an example of a time and individual basis such structures are rare, place in history quite different from and the assemblage of these structures today’s culture and economy. possessed by the Creede district is

157 BIBLIOGRAPHY

General History

Abbott, Carl; Leonard, Stephen; McComb, David Colorado: A History of the Centennial State University Press of Colorado, 1994 [1982].

Bennett, Edwin Lewis and Spring, Agnes Wright Boomtown Boy in Old Creede, Colorado Sage Books, Chicago, Ill, 1966.

Brown, Ronald Colorado Ghost Towns Caxton Printers, Caldwell, ID, 1993 [1972].

Conlin, Joseph Bacon, Beans, and Galantines: Food and Foodways on the Western Mining Frontier University of Nevada Press, Reno, NV 1986.

Dallas, Sandra Colorado Ghost Towns and Mining Camps University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1984 [1979].

Eberhart, Perry Guide to the Colorado Ghost Towns and Mining Camps Swallow Press, Athens, OH 1987 [1959].

Feitz, Leland Creede: Colorado Boom Town Little London Press, Colorado Springs, CO 1963.

Fell, Jay, Ph.D. History Professor and Mining Historian Personal Interview Boulder, CO 1999.

Greever, William S. Bonanza West: The Story of the Western Mining Rushes, 1848-1900 University of Idaho Press, Moscow, ID 1990 [1963].

Henderson, Charles W. USGS Professional Paper 138: Mining in Colorado: A History of Discovery, Development, and Production U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1926.

McElvaine, Robert S. The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941 Times Books, New York, NY 1993 [1984].

Mumey, Nolie Creede: The History of a Colorado Silver Mining Town Artcraft Press, Denver, CO 1949.

Leonard, Steven and Noel, Thomas Denver: Mining Camp to Metropolis University Press of Colorado, Niwot, CO 1990.

158 Ransome, Frederick Leslie USGS Bulletin No. 182: A Report on the Economic Geology of the Silverton Quadrangle, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1901.

Schulze, Susanne A Century of the Colorado Census University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO, 1976.

Smith, Duane A. Colorado Mining: A Photographic Essay University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM 1977.

Smith, Duane A. Song of the Hammer and Drill: The Colorado San Juans, 1860-1914 Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 1982.

Smith, Duane A. Rocky Mountain West: Colorado, Wyoming, & Montana 1859-1915 University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM 1992.

Voynick, Stephen M. Colorado Gold: From the Pike's Peak Rush to the Present Mountain Press Publishing Co., Missoula, MT 1992.

Wolle, Muriel Sibel Stampede to Timberline: The Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of Colorado Swallow Press, University of Ohio Press, 1991 [1949].

Wyman, Mark Hard Rock Epic: Western Mining and the Industrial Revolution, 1860- 1910 University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1989 [1979].

Geology

Burbank, WS; Eckel, EB; and Varnes, DJ "The San Juan Region" Mineral Resources of Colorado State of Colorado Mineral Resources Board, Denver, CO 1947.

Burbank, Wilbur S. and Luedke, Robert G. USGS Professional Paper 535: Geology and Ore Deposits of the Eureka and Adjoining Districts, San Juan Mountains, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1969.

Cross, Whitman; Howe, Earnest; and Ransome, F.L. Geologic Atlas of the United States: Silverton Folio, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1905.

Emmons, William H and Esper, Larsen S. USGS Bulletin 718: Geology and Ore Deposits of the Creede District, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1923.

Kemp, James F. The Ore Deposits of the United States The Scientific Publishing Co., New York, NY 1896.

159

Larsen, E.S. "Recent Mining Developments in the Creede District: USGS Bulletin 811: Contributions to Economic Geology U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1929.

Larsen, E.S. and Cross, Whitman USGS Professional Paper 258: Geology and Petrology of the San Juan Region, Southwestern Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1956.

MacMechen, Thomas E. "The Ore Deposits of Creede, Colo." Engineering and Mining Journal March 12, 1892 p301.

Ratte, James C. and Steven, Thomas A. "Ash Flows and Related Volcanic Rocks Associated with the Creede Caldera, San Juan Mountains, Colorado" USGS Professional Paper 524: Shorter Contributions to General Geology U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1965.

Ransome, Frederick Leslie USGS Bulletin No. 182: A Report on the Economic Geology of the Silverton Quadrangle, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1901.

Steven, Thomas A. and Ratte, James C. USGS Professional Paper 487: Geology and Structural Control of Ore Deposition in the Creede District, San Juan Mountains, Colorado U.S. Geological Survey, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 1965.

Vanderwilt, John W. Mineral Resources of Colorado State of Colorado Mineral Resources Board, Denver, CO 1947.

Mine Sites

Colorado Historical Society, Denver, CO Colorado Bureau of Mine Manuscripts. Creede Mines Box 640, v24.

Colorado State Archives, Denver, CO Mine Inspectors' Reports. Bachelor Mine Box 104053 Corsair Mine Box 104053 Creede Exploration Co. Box 104053 Emperius Box 104053 Equity Mine Box 104053 Happy Thought Mine Box 104053 Holy Moses Mine Box 104053 Kreutzer-Sonata Mine Box 104053 Last Chance Mine Box 104053 Monon Mine Box 104053

160 New York Mine Box 104053 Outlet Tunnel Box 104053 Phoenix Mine Box 104053 Soloman Mine Box 104053

Creede Camp [No Publisher] 1892, Colorado Historical Society, Box 1170C4:113.

Francis, J. Creede Mining Camp Press of the Colorado Catholic, Denver, CO, 1892.

"General Mining News: Colorado, Mineral County" Engineering and Mining Journal 1895-1925.

"General Mining News: Colorado, Rio Grande County" Engineering and Mining Journal 1889-1892.

"General Mining News: Colorado, Saguache County" Engineering and Mining Journal 1893-1894.

Schwarz, T.E. "Colorado" Engineering and Mining Journal Jan.2, 1892 p55.

Mining Technology

Bailey, Lynn Supplying the Mining World: the Mining Equipment Manufacturers of San Francisco 1850-1900 Western Lore Press, Tucson, AZ, 1996.

Bramble, Charles A. The ABC of Mining: A Handbook for Prospectors Geology, Energy & Minerals Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, 1980 [1898].

Brunton, David W. and Davis, John A. Modern Tunneling John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1914.

Colliery Engineer Company Coal & Metal Miners’ Pocketbook Colliery Engineer Company, Scranton, PA, 1893.

Colliery Engineer Company Coal & Metal Miners’ Pocketbook Colliery Engineer Company, Scranton, PA, 1905 [1893].

Colliery Engineer Company Coal Miners’ Pocketbook McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, NY, 1916.

Croft, Terrell Steam Boilers McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, NY, 1921 p18, 53.

Eaton, Lucien Practical Mine Development & Equipment McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, NY, 1934.

161 Engineering & Mining Journal Details of Practical Mining McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York, NY, 1916.

Foster, Clement A Textbook of Ore and Stone Mining Charles Griffin & Co, London 1894.

Gillette, Halbert P. Rock Excavation: Methods and Cost Myron C. Clark Publishing Company, New York, NY, 1907.

Greeley, Horace; Case, Leon; Howland, Edward; Gough, John B.; Ripley, Philip; Perkins, E.B.; Lyman, J.B.; Brisbane, Albert; Hall, E.E. “Babcock and Wilcox Boiler” The Great Industries of the United States J.B. Burr, Hartford, CT, 1872.

Ihlseng, Magnus A Manual of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1892.

Ihlseng, Magnus A Manual of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1901.

Ingersoll-Rand Drill Company Today’s Most Modern Rock Drills & A Brief History of the Rock Drill Development Ingersoll-Rand Drill Company, New York, NY, 1939.

International Correspondence Schools Rock Boring, Blasting, Coal Cutting, Trackwork International Textbook Co., Scranton, Pennsylvania 1907.

International Textbook Company A Textbook on Metal Mining: Preliminary Operations at Metal Mines, Metal Mining, Surface Arrangements at Metal Mines, Ore Dressing and Milling International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1899.

International Textbook Company A Textbook on Metal Mining: Steam and Steam- Boilers, Steam Engines, Air and Air Compression, Hydromechanics and Pumping, Mine Haulage, Hoisting and Hoisting Appliances, Percussive and Rotary Boring International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1899.

International Textbook Company Coal and Metal Miners’ Pocket Book International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1905.

International Textbook Company International Library of Technology: Hoisting, Haulage, Mine Drainage International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1906.

International Textbook Company International Correspondence School Reference Library: Rock Boring, Rock Drilling, Explosives and Blasting, Coal-Cutting Machinery, Timbering, Timber Trees, Trackwork International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1907.

162 International Textbook Company International Library of Technology: Mine Surveying, Metal Mine Surveying, Mineral-Land Surveying, Steam and Steam Boilers, Steam Engines, Air Compression International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1924.

International Textbook Company Mine Haulage: Rope Haulage in Coal Mines, Locomotive Haulage in Coal Mines, Mine Haulage Systems, Calculations, and Cars International Textbook Company, Scranton, PA, 1926.

Hoover, Herbert C. Principles of Mining McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, NY, 1909.

Ketchum, Milo S. C.E. The Design of Mine Structures McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, NY, 1912.

Kleinhans, Frank B. Locomotive Boiler Construction Norman W. Henley Publishing Co., New York, NY, 1915.

Keystone Consolidated Publishing Company Inc. The Mining Catalog: 1925 Metal- Quarry Edition Keystone Consolidated Publishing Company Inc., (no location given), 1925.

Lewis, Robert S. Elements of Mining John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, 1946 [1933].

Linstrom, C.B. & Clemens, A.B. Steam Boilers and Equipment International Textbook Co., Scranton, PA, 1928.

Morrison’s Mining Rights Denver, CO, 1899 [1882].

Peele, Robert Mining Engineer's Handbook John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1918.

Prelini, Charles Earth & Rock Excavation D.Van Nostrand Co., New York, NY, 1906.

Rand Drill Company Illustrated Catalogue of the Rand Drill Company, New York, U.S.A. Rand Drill Company, New York, NY, 1886.

Simons, Theodore E.M., C.E. Compressed Air: A Treatise on the Production, Transmission, and Use of Compressed Air McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York, NY, 1921.

Staley, William Mine Plant Design McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, NY, 1936.

Tillson, Benjamin Franklin Mine Plant American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, New York, NY, 1938.

163 Tinney, W.H. Gold Mining Machinery: Its Selection, Arrangement, & Installation D. Van Nostrand Company, New York, NY, 1906.

Thorkelson, H.J. Air Compression and Transmission McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York, NY, 1912.

Thurston, R.H. A Manual of Steam Boilers: Their Design, Construction, and Operation John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1901.

Tinney, W.H. Gold Mining Machinery: Its Selection, Arrangement, & Installation D. Van Nostrand Company, New York, NY, 1906.

Trennert, Robert A. “From Gold Ore to Bat Guano:Aerial Tramways in the West” The Mining History Journal 1997 p4.

Twitty, Eric “From Steam Engines to Electric Motors: Electrification in the Cripple Creek Mining District” Mining History Journal, 1998.

Twitty, Eric Reading the Ruins: A Field Guide for Interpreting the Remains of Western Hardrock Mines Masters Thesis, University of Colorado at Denver, 1999.

Young, George Elements of Mining John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1923.

Young, Otis E. Western Mining: An Informal Account of Precious Metals Mining, Prospecting, Placering, Lode Mining, and Milling on the American Frontier from Spanish Times to 1893 University of Oklahoma Press, 1987 [1970].

Maps

Sanborn Map Co. Creede, Mineral County, Colorado, 1893 Sanborn Map Co., Brooklyn, NY 1893. Sanborn Map Co. Creede, Mineral County, Colorado, 1898 Sanborn Map Co., Brooklyn, NY 1898. Sanborn Map Co. Creede, Mineral County, Colorado, 1904 Sanborn Map Co., Brooklyn, NY 1904. Sanborn Map Co. Creede, Mineral County, Colorado, 1910 Sanborn Map Co., Brooklyn, NY 1910.

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