Skeletal Elevator

The hoist signal dangling beside the modern mine shaft would ring a bell next to the giant electric motors that would send the men and machinery into the underground.

In the background you can see the crane, which would in the weeks to follow bring all you see here to the ground.

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.

When I wasn’t paying enough attention on the rotten balcony, I accidentally put my foot through a rotten floorboard. I snapped a picture to remember the moment.

The same view in 2007. Superior, WI, some have said, is a suburb of Duluth, MN. It’s more like a sub-suburb, I would argue. It’s the industrial district that is technically in another state, one that sells beer on Sundays. Perspective is looking out of the mostly-disassembled larger (newer) elevator.

I’m not sure, actually, whether this was an outhouse (right), but it seems likely. In any case, it was connected by a covered staircase to the Bunk House (left). The soil here was not all tailings, so there is a bit of thick grass–almost the only in sight!

The offices were cut in half, letting the fog roll in and the photographers roll out.

The elevator works on gravity… this is where a conveyor belt was to move the grain toward the main elevator to be loaded into ships.

William Duncan built this house for his family in 1879. It has become one of the most popular structures in the ghost town of Animas Forks.