Hi Charger,
Interesting read.
The Kentucky Consolidated Gold Mine Co. was one
of dozens of hard-rock mines in the area that
between 1853 and 1900 produced gold worth $8
billion at today's prices, Donaldson said. It was a
modest operation, small compared to the 60-stamp
mill at Jamison Mine just over the hill.
Old gold mine a treasure-trove
of education
By Jane Braxton Little
Bee Correspondent
(Published Sept. 22, 1997)
SIERRA CITY -- Halfway up a hillside between
the Yuba River and Sierra Buttes, a group of tourists
pauses at the entrance to the Kentucky Mine.
Ahead of them a slender trestle perched on 40-foot
poles angles across a heart-stopping ravine to a
six-story building teetering above the river. Behind
them a 7-foot opening in a precipitous slope leads to
an 1,800-foot tunnel into the mountain.
When Emil Loeffler ran the Kentucky Mine earlier
this century, ore moved across the trestle from mine
to mill in one-ton rail cars. There, 10 foundry-cast
stamps crushed it into sand to extract the gold. Since
the mine closed in 1953, the trestle has carried only
tourists.
Lately, however, miners have been swarming over
the structure and inside the tunnel, the first mining
activity the Kentucky has seen in decades. But these
contemporary miners, all employees of the Original
Sixteen to One Mine Inc. in nearby Alleghany, are
investing time and labor for education, not gold.
The crew is mucking out the rock and slough that
has blocked the Kentucky Mine tunnel since the
1950s. Already through 25 feet, the goal is to clear
the remaining 25-foot slide and make it accessible to
the public, said Karen Donaldson, curator of the
mine and museum near Sierra City.
"It's expensive, and there's no gold in it for us, just
dirt. But we're doing it for history and the
educational value," Donaldson said.
Now owned by Sierra County, the Kentucky Mine
is California's only original operable stamp mill open
for tours, and one of just a handful to take tourists
underground into a gold mine -- although they now
can only go inside a short stretch because of the
rubble.
Along with the mountains, the river and Sierra City
a mile down state Highway 49, the Kentucky Mine
gives a unique sense of gold mining in the Sierra
Nevada.
Its preservation is important, because it shows a
typical turn-of-the-century mining operation, said
Michael M. Miller, president of the Sixteen to One
Mine.
"The mine, the mill, the tailings, the countryside --
at the Kentucky, a person can get an appreciation of
the human effort that went into these things," he
said.
Donaldson's tours of the mine and stamp mill
resurrect the ghosts of Loeffler and his son, Adolph,
who was killed in a 1944 mine explosion.
Donaldson also sketches the mine's 144-year history
and explains how quartz ore was processed into
gold ingots. When she activates the 45 horse-power
Pelton wheel that operated the mine's drills and air
compressor, Donaldson's audience gets a
water-in-the-face taste of the actual mining
operation.
The Kentucky Consolidated Gold Mine Co. was one
of dozens of hard-rock mines in the area that
between 1853 and 1900 produced gold worth $8
billion at today's prices, Donaldson said. It was a
modest operation, small compared to the 60-stamp
mill at Jamison Mine just over the hill.
But the Kentucky Mine retains the processes of a
19th-century working gold mine -- complete with
authentic equipment that re-creates the original
ear-splitting din.
"The noise alone was enough to drive the women
and children away. And the mill operators went deaf
within six months," said Donaldson.
In addition to the constant clamor of 1,000-pound
stamps crushing ore into sand, mill workers had to
endure 600-degree furnaces and mercury fumes.
Inside the tunnel, miners lived with the constant
threat of collapsing ceilings and explosions.
"Hard-rock mining wasn't for sissies. It still isn't,"
said Donaldson.
As they clear the tunnel, the Sixteen to One crew is
erecting hand-split lagging and notched peeled poles
for reinforcement. The work exactly replicates
19th-century techniques, said Miller.
Earlier this summer, the same crew restored the
trestle, replacing rails, ties and cribbing in the
narrow structure. The work was funded by a
$20,000 state Parks and Recreation grant -- along
with "a whole bunch of community service," said
Miller, a Sierra County resident since 1974.
Inside the six-story stamp mill, rough-sawn beams
glow in the September sun, wafting a faint pine
perfume among the cobwebs clinging to the
unpainted window jambs. The stamp mill itself has
required little restoration work, said Donaldson. The
Loefflers themselves had duplicated a late-1800s
stamp mill "with pride and attention to detail,"
salvaging parts from mills abandoned in the local
hills, she said.
Along with the tours, Donaldson oversees the
Kentucky Mine museum for the Sierra County
Historical Society. Along with cases of wildflowers,
Chinese artifacts and a 7-foot monitor used to blast
dirt from rocks in the quest for gold, the museum
features a picture of a 19th-century woman reclining
on a faded red fainting couch reading "The Ashes of
Love." |
