The west portal of the tunnel is open, and if it wasn’t for the rough track, I would think by looking at it that a train could be coasting up behind me any moment. Mamiya 6/Portra 160
history under ground
rocks
A tram that once linked the Sunnyside Mine to the mill in Eureka has been reduced to a single cable. Nearby, an open adit drips water into a tributary of the Animas River.
The tailings boom is the first and last thing you see when approaching the mountaintop shipwreck.
Like a railgun pointed at the Rockies… the boom would direct tailings–junk rock–outside of the dredge pond.
Bricks from the demolished buildings.
Bricks from the demolished buildings.
Bricks from the demolished buildings.
300 tea lights illuminate what Greg Brick calls the Rotunda, under the brew house proper, which was part of Christopher Stahlmann’s natural cave.
Looking into the mouth of the hopper which mine carts dumped into at the top of the Concentrator.
An abandoned ranch on the east side of the tracks. This was not the Colmor Cutoff they were waiting for.
The people that stayed here carved bowls from the mesa itself to collect water.
Taconite Harbor’s main road, now overgrown and leading to nothing. Just asphalt between caved-in curbs.
The city has taken steps to prevent the curious and the desperate from going into the elevators, including piling rocks against the doors and windows.
The ruins of the the Hubert Mine over the ruins of Nevadaville. Its ore was taken through the town to a mill below it.
Looking across the whole milling operation from its dedicated powerhouse stretching across Eagle River.
A rusting disconnect gangway. The smokestack is for a boiler, if I recall.
Some of the workings inside the ruins of the Gold Prince Mill are still obvious, such as this steel ore chute over that used to feed a floatation tank.
Although the caves deviated little in their year-round temperature, it was common to use blocks of ice to cool beer immediately before shipment. This is the ruins of the ice chute.
The last tailings on a broken conveyor belt.
Will coming down “Darwin’s Ladder”.
Taken from under the headframe.
Taken in a closet in the middle of the demolished coke ovens. No doubt, these charts were for equipment in the ovens.
The rumors were true. Success is sweet.
Freezing groundwater in the drain has created this ice wall in Buckingham Creek Drain, which is nearly all blasted natural stone. Lit with several LED panels. It was a cold night.
The right portal used to go straight into the basement of the hotel, judging from the ruins.
Sidewalks to a boarded barracks, each making the other obsolete in the night.
Check that waterfall!
The dredge is divided into four levels. The top level has controls for the tailings boom and, when it was there, the bucket excavator.
Core samples archived under the laboratories.
Chester Creek Infall, near Duluth’s old Armory. The creek will not emerge again until it is near the Lakewalk.
Between the ice chute and the back of the north section of the cellars, a little pillar shows where a room used to be. The ceiling’s disintegration has since filled the space, which seems to be the last point of expansion in the cave–this was last carved in the mid-1840s.
After climbing the elevator shaft to the illusive second level, a new pallet of colors were revealed.
In the mountainside are a number of air shafts, indicating where the tunnels traced under the rocky surface.
A tunnel connecting the two larger caves in the hill; those that Jacob vented in the rear. The vents are still extant!
Modern ruins of the Gilman-Belden tram…
A typical summer storm on Lake Superior.
Below Grand Army Mine is Gold Collar. A ‘collar’ is the braced section around the portal of a mine shaft.