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                                STEP INTO THE PAST

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  This is one of 12 books about the first gold mine town in Colorado and the people who have lived there. Gold was discovered in 1859 by a group of prospectors. It was first found in a creek in Denver. A group of men followed the creek up to the town of Boulder where they camped. Then it was on up the creeks to the Gold Hill area.                                                     History

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 WHAT ABOUT ALL THESE MINES AROUND HERE, GEORGE?

"All these holes around here, where you can see a hole big enough to bury a car in it, well those were outcroppings of gold. A miner would come along and see an outcropping and he'd dig to find the vein. If he found the vein he would dig, but if he didn't he wouldn't. Well, you can tell if you're down a shaft, they go all kind of directions. The Slide Mine, you go down maybe straight for 300 feet. Then you start to slide on a 45 degree angle, and you might slide that way for a while, then you'd be the reverse and slide 45 degrees angle on the other way. On the roller, see. And the cable would, the bucket would tip from one side to the other and you might be riding on the south side of the wall going down on these skids at a 45 degree angle and make a real sharp turn and be going the opposite way on another 45 degree angle. Well, when you got down to a level, you start tunnels. A tunnel is a tunnel underground from the shaft that runs vertical. Then if you go in you might be at the 500 foot level in the tunnel and run onto a vein that starts up, then you start following that up. It's called a stope. You start back up again in the stope. You'll find tunnels and drifts, and stopes, and shafts. Everything in one mine.
"The Slide Mine is about 1,700 feet deep. Half way down over the L you can come in at the 550 foot level and run into three or four miles of tunnels. You can go up the St. Joe and come out the Cold Spring Mine. You can go in the Slide Mine and come out on top of Horsfal Mountain by going through Horsfal shaft. They're connected together."

WHAT ONE IS IT THAT GOES DOWN INTO LEFT HAND CANYON?

"That's the Cold Spring. You can go down in the Cold Spring Mine and come out in the St. Joe at the bottom of the hill, 1400 ft. below and come out of the tunnel down there. Or you can go in at the 550 ft. level on the Slide and come up through the Horsfal on the top of the hill. They try and keep that open because after you get in 5 or 6 hundred feet in the tunnel you got to pump air. They've got to have a compressor to pump air because the air is no good. So they connect, they want a connection between the Horsfal and the Slide Mine. It eliminates them having to pump air because they leave that circling but they don't leave the whole shaft open because it would be too cold. You couldn't work in there so they like to have a hole connecting the two of about a foot in diameter. It holds down the draft but yet it keeps good air."
They did have pumps and they run smokes, just like a stove pipe in there. It wasn't heavy pipe it was just galvanized heavy pipe like a chimney, and it was pumped in there. Forced in. Powered by a blower."

WHAT POWERED THE BLOWER?

"Forced air, or a bellows. Some used a fan like you might use for a circulator in a house. The Clark Mine still got a Model T Ford sitting over there. They used the Model T to blow the draft down in there. The thing of it is, if a mine is kept ventilated all the time it is all right. But if you was to go down in a mine that hadn't been worked for maybe three or four weeks it would be very dangerous to go down there. There wouldn't be any miner go down."
"Then if they wanted to start this mine up again, they would start the bucket up and down in this shaft. He'd do nothing all day but let the bucket go up and down to disturb the air and get it to moving and get it coming out. Because there's something in there, bad air, and you don't know it until you get down there. It cuts your wind off and you drop on your knees and before you know it you're helpless."