Friday, June 1, 2012
Cheri June-1-12
9:51 PM | 
Posted by
Sharp's Travels
We were on our way this morning to Cripple Creek by 10:30am. It is cooler there by 10 to 15 degrees than it is in Colorado Springs due to its elevation at 9,494 feet above sea level.
This historic town sits on the southwest slopes of Pikes Peak. More than 100 years ago gold mines attracted tens of thousands of gold-seekers. Gold mines are a part of the areas colorful history.
Our first stop was the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine. It’s a one-of-a-kind tour of a vertical mine shaft. This mine was started, owned and operated by a woman, Mollie Kathleen.
We bought our ticket and were in a group of 12. We put on our hard hats and they crammed 6 people into a small cage and raised them up in the air so the second cage came up to ground level. Our group sandwiched in along with our guide. Ready or not, we are off for our 1-hour tour.
We were taken down the shaft 1000 ft. below the surface and we all unloaded and started our tour. This mine produced $5 million in gold from 1891 to 1961. We were lead through the shaft and shown how drilling and blasting explosives were set from the early days up to the air-powered tools that were used in later years. Our guide showed us veins of real gold and a 75 ft shaft with ladders where the men worked. We were given a ride on the air-powdered mining train.
They had donkeys that worked down in the mine from infancy. They never saw the light of day.
Life was very hard for the miners. They made only $3.00 per day and worked round the clock in 12 hr shifts. They were each given 3 candles each day to last their 12 hr shift and many times they worked in the dark.
It was an excellent tour, if you find yourself in the area, don’t miss it.
After returning to the surface we ate at the Miner Diner—a full scale Pullman dining car. The food was good and we were ready to move on.
The Cripple Creek Heritage Center was just down the road. It is an 11, 600 sq ft resource center. We watched the movie on the history of Cripple Creek, looked at Gold Mining yesterday and today, geologic & human history and dinosaur fossils found in the area.
We checked out the Cripple Creek District Museum also. They had an extensive mineral collection and mining machinery, two Victorian apartments, a turn of the century Assay Office and two historic furnished cabins. All were so interesting.
It was time to head home; it was a full and informative day. We ran into a couple of small rain storms on the way back, plus we saw one deer and a herd of elk we were just in time for the rush hour traffic once again. The high altitude really gets to both of us. We were glad to be back home and settled in for the night.
Gay has uploaded pictures of the day. Click on this link https://picasaweb.google.com/sharpstravels Then click on album Gold Mine & Cripple Creek.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments: