She liked to joke that she was my “tripod sherpa”.
history under ground
roofless
The roof came down on the locker room in the basement of the poor house. This may be for employees, or perhaps there are showers around the corner–the building was too unstable to go further.
Tarpaper telling time-
Wood wittling weather-
Rust rot ruins.
If you look closely, you can see the rain dropping into the building. This is the part of the chapel with the collapsed roof–not the carvings on the choir loft.
2011. Harris Machinery as seen from the roof of ADM-Delmar Elevator #4.
I included this image to illustrate the height of the headgrame and the distance between it and the hoist house. Of course, compared with the depth of the mine shaft, this distance is short.
In some places in the mine shops, you can still make out narrow gauge track in the floors.
The machine shop today.
I am not sure what this structure is, but it seems to be put together like a gold mill. It existed in 1952, and seems to be from about that period.
The side of the main elevator, severed by “Woodchucks”.
Copper poured from this furnace and was cast by the autocaster on the right into billets.
Judging from old pictures and maps, raw ore was dumped through these hatches, stamped into a rough powder, and hastily sorted before sending the best ore to the mill. Mills charged by tons of rock sent to them, so it did not pay to send them obvious tails.
The second floor was hit by arson years ago, but it still carries the telltale features of its original design, specifically the woodwork below the roof.
The Cross of Loraine served as the international symbol of tuberculosis; it was traditional to find these on sanatorium smokestacks like this, which was part of the old steam plant, behind the Refractory.
While the maps name this the compressor house, I believe, based on its size and number of heavy machine mounts, that it also housed the pumps to drain the mine.
From the roof of the Clemens House, looking toward downtown St. Louis.
A wide view of the poor house. Look at the smokestack and elevator shaft, which show the former roofline.
Hales & Hunter sign, as it looks today.
Looking out from what little remains of the second floor at the poor house, which was in terrible condition. No roof and no floors. Soon to be ruins.
“The fresh snow mixed indistinguishably from the ashes of the half-demolished power plant.”
This was not always the top of the elevator.
Thanks to the demolition (I’ll never say that again), the inner structure of the bins are revealed. So much wood!
This roof hasn’t budged under the weight of snow, instead it just filters-through the light onto the floor.
This gives a sense of the scale and the water damage of the old side (brick, rather than concrete) of the roundhouse.
An unplanned skylight. It’s unclear why some parts of the building had wooden roofing, while others were highly reinforced with brick.
In the background you can see the crane, which would in the weeks to follow bring all you see here to the ground.
Many outdoor areas of the plant have become unofficial city dumps. The skeleton doesn’t care.
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.
Arson seems to be a big problem on the former sanatorium property.