Look both ways, people.
history under ground
headframes
Looking through skylights of the payroll office toward the Cheratte No.1’s tower. This is where workers would wait in line to receive pay, surrounded by the mine workings.
Grand Army, as seen from a Gilman Tram grade.
The mine is sandwiched between village townhomes.
I liked the color of her hair against the rusty rock house and blue winter sky.
Cheratte lives on in the shadow of its abandoned coal mine, although most of the shops are abandoned and many of the city’s landmarks have fallen into disrepair. Like other Belgian mining towns, those who have stayed in the town have kept up their apartments, so much of the company-building duplexes and homes are in great condition.
Wind-battered catwalk lights between the shaft house and headframe/rockhouse building.
The modern shaft stands above the north side of Gilman.
The ruins of the the Hubert Mine over the ruins of Nevadaville. Its ore was taken through the town to a mill below it.
Taken from under the headframe.
On the National Mine property are two shafts, both serving the same workings. This one seems to have gotten some upgrades in the 1960s, judging from the condition of the metal.
Looking at the headframe for Shaft 3 from the tower for Shaft 1. Below is the roof of the Dry House. It was hard to remind myself that these building have been abandoned longer than I’ve been alive.
As my friend Jonathan would say, “on a human scale.”
National Mine and its rockhouse (?) as seen from Mammoth Hill. From this angle, I am fairly certain this was a crushing and sorting house. The bottom looks like it has two aerial tram doors as well.
Frontenac, as seen from the Missouri Flats area.
A bridge crosses the main street of the village; one that goes nowhere. Ambiguity intended.
This rockhouse was added below the shaft to load Gilpin Tram cars.
From left to right: shaft building, headframe, rock house, hoist house.
Mammoth Mine overlooks Central City from atop Mammoth Hill. In the distance you can make out Coeur d’Alene Mine (red), which operated from 1885 through 1940.
Looking at the town from a highway turn-off. This is how most people see it.
From the catwalks below the hoisting motor in Shaft No. 1.
An experimental shaft dug in the 1950s and its Hoist House.
There isn’t an unbroken window in the entire historic complex as of 2013.
Looking at the concrete headframe from street level. Acros 100 in Pentax 67
A hydraulic ‘bridge’ couple lower onto the tracks to bring mine cars into the shaft house, presumably for repair. I haven’t found this system anywhere else, but it makes a lot of sense.
Timbers overlap where mine cars plunged, a strange wooden fence traced the center of the beams.
An unshielded heaframe and single pulley.
When I revisited the mine in 2013, the hoists were scrapped and sitting by the road.
This is a great example of a combination rock house; the silos below used to fill trains with ore dropped from mine cars pulled to the top of the structure.
At the top of the Head Frame, over the silo, a space is hollowed-out for ore cars to dump their load before going back underground in search of copper.
An experimental shaft dug in the 1950s and its Hoist House.