Handlebars
NAXJA Member #135
- Location
- Albuquerque, NM
Some ingenious mine owner figured out how to make his mine continue paying after all of the good ore was gone… he offers public tours. This is a very educational tour for anybody who is interested in the inner workings of a hard rock mine. Old Hundred Mine is located a few miles out of Silverton, Colorado at the foot of Galena Mountain. Galena is a lead ore, interestingly there is very little of it found in this mine according to our tour guide Dan. He had an example of galena ore to show us, but he said it came from the Sunnyside Mine where he worked in the 1980‘s.
The first stop is the mine office where you pay your $18 and get a hard hat and a rain slicker. The slickers only come in two sizes- small and double extra large. A very self-conscious woman in our group squeezed into the small and didn’t look very comfortable. The rest of us were happy for the coverage provided by the xxl coats as there is cold water dripping everywhere once you get underground. The air temperature in the mine during our visit in August was 48 degrees. During the depths of winter it cools off to as low as 47.
Suited appropriately for the tour we hop into the mine tram and are taken 1/3 of a mile into the mountain. You can see the hands on gold panning area next to the track as this group is shuttled in:
Getting off the tram, Dan takes us for a walk through the mine showing artifacts from the daily life of a miner. His favorite item here, if the amount of time spent talking about it is any sign, was the pie can. That is the combination water bucket/lunch box that all miners of his day would take into the mine with them. Some of the antique mining equipment he also talked about were the candle holder that hangs on the wall in the center of this photo and the carbide lantern on the table. Going from working by candlelight to the lanterns brought about a huge increase in mine safety.
DingDingDing! DingDingDing! Dan rings out a code for the operator of the Coffin Hoist. The moniker was given due to the mine elevator’s shape and it’s habit of dropping miners to their deaths. Putting one worker in charge of the hoist for the entire time that miners are on duty was another big safety improvement. There was a bell at the operator’s station as well as at every level of the mine. The string rang all of them together so anyone near the elevator on any level knew when to watch out for the hoist. Dan told us that the elevator operator could tell not only who was requesting the elevator by the way it rang, but also what kind of mood the bell ringer was in!
Next we learned how the miner went about digging a mine. Dan and a wary volunteer demonstrate hand drilling technique from the bad old days. Imagine having to swing a 4 pound hammer for 8+ hours a day at 10,000 feet elevation! Most of the time they were drilling horizontally or overhead, not downward as in this demonstration. To the left of Dan are some pneumatic drills designed for drilling upwards, to the right is one set up for horizontal drilling.
The horizontal drill was hooked up to an air compressor so Dan showed us how it worked. Lemme tell you, that thing is LOUD. Most miners did not bother with ear protection as becoming deaf wasn‘t the seroius side effect of this tool. The large volume of rock dust produced by the early models of these drills rapidly destroyed the lungs of the miners, causing silicosis, or “rocks in the lungs”. Because of this, the drill gained the nickname Widowmaker. Later, improved versions pumped water out of the end of the drill, turning the dust cloud into a harmless slurry. Before this modification, miners usually would not live to see 40.
“Fire in the hole!” Dan tells us about how they set up a shot after drilling the holes in the correct pattern, as well as what happens if the charges are not properly set up. The very center hole was left empty to give a direction for the rock to blast towards. Each blast would extend the tunnel 6 feet, the length of the drill bit used to create the holes in which the dynamite was placed. They would usually blast twice in an average 8 hour shift, putting the miners 12 feet deeper into the mountain each day.
If the miner were lucky he would work in a mine that had one of these compressed air powered ore loading buckets. Otherwise he had to move the rock by shovel. This thing was powered up and once again it was a very loud machine!
One last piece of equipment that was important to the comfort of a working miner… can you guess what it is?
The tour was a little less than an hour long but before sending us on our way Dan mentioned that the mine tour was only half the story. To learn how the ore was processed we would have to visit the Mayflower Gold Mill for a self guided tour. It is the mill just outside of Silverton with the intact aerial tramway. We were running out of time on this trip and did not stop in for a visit, despite driving right by it on the way home. Maybe next time!
Old Hundred Gold Mine: N37 49.455 W107 35.109
Mayflower Gold Mill: N37 49.731 W107 37.654
The first stop is the mine office where you pay your $18 and get a hard hat and a rain slicker. The slickers only come in two sizes- small and double extra large. A very self-conscious woman in our group squeezed into the small and didn’t look very comfortable. The rest of us were happy for the coverage provided by the xxl coats as there is cold water dripping everywhere once you get underground. The air temperature in the mine during our visit in August was 48 degrees. During the depths of winter it cools off to as low as 47.
Suited appropriately for the tour we hop into the mine tram and are taken 1/3 of a mile into the mountain. You can see the hands on gold panning area next to the track as this group is shuttled in:
Getting off the tram, Dan takes us for a walk through the mine showing artifacts from the daily life of a miner. His favorite item here, if the amount of time spent talking about it is any sign, was the pie can. That is the combination water bucket/lunch box that all miners of his day would take into the mine with them. Some of the antique mining equipment he also talked about were the candle holder that hangs on the wall in the center of this photo and the carbide lantern on the table. Going from working by candlelight to the lanterns brought about a huge increase in mine safety.
DingDingDing! DingDingDing! Dan rings out a code for the operator of the Coffin Hoist. The moniker was given due to the mine elevator’s shape and it’s habit of dropping miners to their deaths. Putting one worker in charge of the hoist for the entire time that miners are on duty was another big safety improvement. There was a bell at the operator’s station as well as at every level of the mine. The string rang all of them together so anyone near the elevator on any level knew when to watch out for the hoist. Dan told us that the elevator operator could tell not only who was requesting the elevator by the way it rang, but also what kind of mood the bell ringer was in!
Next we learned how the miner went about digging a mine. Dan and a wary volunteer demonstrate hand drilling technique from the bad old days. Imagine having to swing a 4 pound hammer for 8+ hours a day at 10,000 feet elevation! Most of the time they were drilling horizontally or overhead, not downward as in this demonstration. To the left of Dan are some pneumatic drills designed for drilling upwards, to the right is one set up for horizontal drilling.
The horizontal drill was hooked up to an air compressor so Dan showed us how it worked. Lemme tell you, that thing is LOUD. Most miners did not bother with ear protection as becoming deaf wasn‘t the seroius side effect of this tool. The large volume of rock dust produced by the early models of these drills rapidly destroyed the lungs of the miners, causing silicosis, or “rocks in the lungs”. Because of this, the drill gained the nickname Widowmaker. Later, improved versions pumped water out of the end of the drill, turning the dust cloud into a harmless slurry. Before this modification, miners usually would not live to see 40.
“Fire in the hole!” Dan tells us about how they set up a shot after drilling the holes in the correct pattern, as well as what happens if the charges are not properly set up. The very center hole was left empty to give a direction for the rock to blast towards. Each blast would extend the tunnel 6 feet, the length of the drill bit used to create the holes in which the dynamite was placed. They would usually blast twice in an average 8 hour shift, putting the miners 12 feet deeper into the mountain each day.
If the miner were lucky he would work in a mine that had one of these compressed air powered ore loading buckets. Otherwise he had to move the rock by shovel. This thing was powered up and once again it was a very loud machine!
One last piece of equipment that was important to the comfort of a working miner… can you guess what it is?
The tour was a little less than an hour long but before sending us on our way Dan mentioned that the mine tour was only half the story. To learn how the ore was processed we would have to visit the Mayflower Gold Mill for a self guided tour. It is the mill just outside of Silverton with the intact aerial tramway. We were running out of time on this trip and did not stop in for a visit, despite driving right by it on the way home. Maybe next time!
Old Hundred Gold Mine: N37 49.455 W107 35.109
Mayflower Gold Mill: N37 49.731 W107 37.654
