Located in 1946, this tungsten mine is a fairly recent discovery. In 1949-50, the mine was worked by Carl Cooper and R. C. Peterson of nearby Gabbs. It was later worked by a Ray Ricketts.
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Kay Cooper Mine
Lakeshore Mine
Over the summer, I hiked up an old forest road to a mining camp that sits along the shore of a small glacial lake. It was a pretty neat find, nearly a dozen cabins in various states of collapse remain. A fallen mill sits just below the mine.
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Silver Lake and Iowa Mines
This was a really fun place to visit for me and one I’ve been trying to get to for some time. Weather makes it hard to get to most of the year and you have to climb up to the mine camp at 12,200 ft elevation.
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Mayflower Mill
The Mayflower Mill is one of the last fully intact mills in the Silverton, Colorado area. Also known as the Shenandoah-Dives Mill, it was the most advanced flotation mill for its time.
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Buffalo Boy Mine
The Buffalo Boy was a small gold and silver mine which started production around 1930. The mine is caved but the interesting thing about the site is the long and steep tramway heading up to it. The tram line is over 8,500′ in length and rises 2,500′ up cliffs to reach the mine at 12,550′ in elevation.
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Underground near Silverton
These are underground photos from a mine in the Silverton area that we explored. I actually didn’t have much underground time planned for this trip, but the mines we did check out turned out to be fantastic.
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San Juan Chief Mill
This scenic ruined mill site was built in the late 1890s and never saw ore from its namesake, the San Juan Chief mine. It is the second mill to be built on this site. In 1900, it had 2 roasting furnaces and 15 stamps.
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Sound Democrat Mill
The Sound Democrat Mill is an awesome find and one of the highlights of the San Juan Mountains. The mine was first discovered in 1899. Gold and silver ore from the mine was packed on mules over a 13,000′ ridge to the Sunnyside Mill in Eureka Gulch.
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Summit Mine
High up in the spires of the Sierra Nevada there lies a hidden and seldom visited mine where a trail goes through the mountain.
To get there, you have to follow a steep trail across jagged granodiorite cliffs. A thousand feet below is the old mining camp of Lundy and the views of 13,057 ft (3,979m) Mt. Dana across the canyon are quite spectacular.
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Ramshorn and Skylark Mines
I took a trip to a couple of mines high up in the Central Rocky mountains of Idaho. I love finding old mines with tramways and these two were great.
A large silver-lead strike was made at the Ramshorn mine (and the Skylark above it) in 1877 and the rush was on. By 1882, a smelter had been blown in, charcoal kilns built and 300 people lived in the town of Bay Horse that had sprung up down in the canyon below. The smelter was closed by 1897 but mining continued until 1925.
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