Old mining operation

Steph and I took a tour of the Argo Mining operation in Idaho Springs last weekend.  It was pretty neat for fifteen bucks we got a short talk about the history of the Argo Mine and Tunnel; a slide show of different minerals and historical pictures; tour of a mine and stamp mill and a couple bags of "pay dirt" which you could pan out and find the "guaranteed" gold pieces in them.  The talk and slide show was pretty cool although most of what they spoke about I learned from Granda years ago.  The tour of the mine and mill was very cool.  I had to laugh at the bags of pay dirt though.  I have panned out enough soil to know what the amount of black sand and flour looks like.  The bags they gave us I swear was a mix of sand they got off of the freeway spiked with a pinch of black sand and flakes of gold that they got from a different source.  Not that I'm complaining though, the 'pickers' in the two bags pretty much tripled my gold collection.  I have to say though that panning out two bags of dirt wasn't as satisfying as finding the gold myself.  

Here is a picture of Steph and I at a mine, not the Argo but a smaller one that predates the Argo by a few years.

This is a picture of the Argo tunnel.  At the time it was built it, I think it was the longest tunnel in the world.  It went four miles under two different mountains and came out the other side near Central City.  It was built as a drainage conduit for other mines to purge their seeping water buildup.  Things were looking good for the Argo company.  They were able to sell the ore that came out of the tunnel as it was being built.  Other mines were able to stay in business by draining their water by hooking up with the main line going out to Idaho Springs.  This all came to a tragic end when some guys were working on a mine A (I can't remember the name) doing some blasting.  There was an abandoned mine nearby (I can't remember the abandoned mines name so I'll call it B) that had filled up with water.  The guys working in mine A thought that mine B was farther away than it really was.  So they set the charges and boom, followed by a swoosh!  I could only hope that the poor guys that were near the rush of water were instantly killed rather than drowning slowly.  There was another guy that made it out and I guess when he finally got to the end of the tunnel the water running by him was waist deep.  The running water had done significant to the support timbers in the main tunnel, thus closing the tunnel forever.