Colorado Springs: Mining, Money, Movie

Who hasn't seen an old western movie where someone lights a fuse and the tension mounts as it sizzles away to a culminating explosion?  KA-POW!

Wednesday, August 12th our group set forth to tour the Western Museum of Mining and Industry less than 30 minutes and 20 miles west of our home base at Pole Pine Point. When we entered the museum, we came face to face with full size examples of large machinery used in mining operations and behind them, as a backdrop, was a large mural exemplifying the layout of a typical mining town. The large red piece of equipment is a combination Skinner Automatic Steam Engine and Westinghouse DC Generator circa 1906. The tour guide ran it for us and the noise was very impressive. Each piece of equipment of this type was custom made to the specifications and needs of the mine owner. The black vertical piece of machinery in the foreground is a Downie Steam Pump used somewhere in the time frame between 1889 and 1907 in the Wolverine Mine in Colorado to de-water a mine shaft. It had a kind of alternating whoosh and shrill whistle tone to it.

Opposite the engine, generator, and pump, Margaret and John are looking at a Corliss Steam Engine. This particular engine was used to power an entire paper mill in New Hampshire but it is typical of equipment used in the Colorado mines. It was not powered up for us but is sure was huge, reputed to develop 500 hp at 100 rpm using intake steam at 150 psi!

I found it interesting that there was a display devoted to the saloons in mining towns. Saloons were an important part of the economic and social relations in mining towns. The variety of bottles and the signs with clever sayings were engaging. A sampling of the pithy quips were:

• If you wish to remain, do not swear or talk profane.
• My liquor is good, my measure is just; but, gentlemen, I will not trust.
• Grandma, throw down your corset, we need a hammock in the back yard.

The museum was intent on pointing out the omnipresence of minerals throughout our daily lives. I kind of suspected nail polish and toothpaste would have minerals, but I was a bit taken aback about the items we ingest, such as M&Ms, and TheraFlu.

There were working models of all sorts of mining equipment throughout the museum. Dredges were floating mining machines that were designed to scoop off edges of river banks, sieve the gold out of the sludge, and return the water to the river. Margaret is looking at a model of one.

Here is a diagram of its operation.

Frank is studying a cutaway model of a mine where the diagonal upward path is following the vein of a mineral. The mineral could be silver or something else and not necessarily gold. We were taught that the four operations of a mine were drill, blast, shovel, and haul.

Another interesting exhibit was a full scale model of the capsule used to rescue the 33 Chilean miners who had been trapped underground for 69 days in 2010. Apparently there is a book about the men's experiences, Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free, which I have put on my "to read" list. Frank had the opportunity to experience what it was like being inside the capsule. At 6'3" he fit, but it sure was tight. Here is a sequence of photos showing him entering and inside the capsule. Getting in was tricky, especially wearing a hard hat.

Being inside was very cozy. Note the guide wheels to help keep the capsule on track going up and down the shaft.

But Frank did have room to cross his arms and change their position. Imagine the bravery of the man who volunteered to go down in it for the first time to assist the miners up?

For a sense of scale, here is Frank standing beside the elevated capsule.

The tour guide for the indoor museum was excellent. There was an exhibit where children (or adults, too, for that matter) could pan for gold. The troughs were seeded so success was very probable. What was fascinating, also, was the role of children in the mining operations. Children in the mines were called nippers and that is where the phrase "little nippers" comes from today. The hey-day of mining occurred before safety laws were in place, much less enforced, and child labor laws were non-existent. Children, because of their small size, were sent to take lamps into far mine reaches and check air quality, act as couriers distributing fusing devices, and do many odd, undesirable tasks. The elevator engineer never left his post during an 8-10 hour shift, having to remain in place and respond to bell signals about raising and lowering an elevator to various levels. Children were given the task of bringing him his food and drink and also emptying his "honey pot" when he relieved himself.

Once outside the museum we took a short hike up a hill to see the stamping operations. At the base of the hill Frank pause near a walled off adit.  An adit is a horizontal or almost horizontal entrance to a mine. This one was a blind one for show, not leading anywhere, but according to our tour guide it made a great hideout for local critters.

At the top of the hill was a replica stamp mill. A stamp mill is where ore was crushed to smaller bits and then the small particles bonded to some other substance that has a affinity for the desirable mineral. Afterward the amalgam was treated chemically to leach out the desired mineral. Huge amounts of ore were crushed to yield fractions of a percent by weight of the sought after mineral. One agent used to absorb the mineral was liquid mercury. Imagine the constraints for an operation like that today with our OSHA standards!

The Western Museum of Mining and Industry also adopted two burros an homage to the work these animals did pulling carts and such in the mines. Local volunteers care for them and the local fire department comes and maintains a clean fresh water supply for them. These are signs around the facility in case they escape from their quarters. No burros made any appearances during our visit.

I am addicted to watching home design shows on the home and garden television network, HGTV. The weekend before we were there, August 7-9, the museum had hosted the first ever Tiny House Jamboree, an exhibition of tiny homes, 200 square feet or less, and some were still on site. Apparently, the museum had been mobbed with crowds in attendance just days earlier.

As an unexpected treat for me, there was a collection of tiny homes on display at the property of the mining museum. I got to see up close a typical structure within them.

I initially thought they were locked and began to take pictures through the windows.

Then I was shocked to see people inside the homes. The locks were on the doors but the tiny houses were not locked and I could go in.

No space is wasted, even under the stairs that go up to a mattress platform over the kitchen.

There was even a portable tiny chapel. There were stained glass doors at the entrance...

... and a vaulted ceiling to encourage worship within. This is quite different from the Cadet Chapel at the Air Force Academy but I found it inspirational. It kind of reminded me of the humble focus on religion itself and not the ornate trappings of a cathedral.

Wednesday would be quite full, since after this museum we also headed south to have lunch in downtown Historic Colorado Springs at a restaurant called Dat's Italian and visit the ANA Money Museum. The following map has these locations on it as well as Garden of the Gods, Glen Eyrie Castle, and the Air Force Academy, that we visited on Monday and Tuesday, not to omit the Walmart Supercenter that we appear to frequent.

At Dat's Italian in Old Colorado Springs downtown we selected from pasta dishes, italian sausage specialty sandwiches, and salads for a lunch .

Afterwards, Frank and I briefly browsed the stores and shops for a half hour while Joe & Margaret, and John & Sue opted for a brisk walk instead. I found a quilt shop where I added to my collection of local fabric license plates. I blogged about my purchases there in my Diane Loves2Quilt blog post entry for August 19, 2015.

We next went to the ANA Money Museum (American Numismatic Association) where there were displays about the history of coins. I learned the parts of a coin and that the more correct terms for heads and tails are the obverse and reverse sides.

I took this photo of the casting of a stamp mold maker because I thought it was intriguing and somewhat artful.

I learned the background behind the phrase "Just joshing you". Josh Tatum was a deaf mute in the late 1800's who took Liberty Head Nickels and applied a thin film of gold plate on them so they resembled the similarly sized $5.00 gold piece. He would go into shops and make purchases that cost less than five cents and collect  $4.95 or more in change. He was prosecuted by the law but found not guilty; 1) because each purchase was so low in price and 2) as a deaf mute he had never said the coin was a gold piece. Since the Liberty Head Nickel had a Roman V stamped on it but not the word "cents", this fraud was easier to commit. The US mint now adds the word "cents" on its coins as a deterrent to this deception. If someone tries to fool you, you tell them to "stop joshing me".

Before heading home we stopped at, where else, good ol' Walmart - again - to get steaks to grill and potatoes to bake for dinner. No gaming tonight – instead we retreated downstairs stairs to the video lounge to watch a DVD.

We watched the movie  Now You See Me and I daresay a few of my companions – not me, of course – took little snoozes throughout bits of the movie.

Starring Mark Ruffalo, Now You See Me is a fun, action-packed film, with many twists and turns, about a group of magicians who band together to perpetrate some ingenious, jaw-dropping robberies. The catch phrase of the movie is, "The closer you look, the less you'll see." Is the converse true? Did napping allowed us to see more? We had each seen the movie before so we all remembered everything anyway. Really... I am just "joshing" you.