Come join us for a slice of Americana with a helping of conservative politics on the side.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"
This weekend's ramble took me to the Kentucky mine, I live in the valley dust so any excuse I can make to head for the foothills I will. Talked to a fellow working his claim with a suction dredge, cool set up I tell you. I had to play dumb tourist from Alabamaer to get him to talk but it worked because I was a dumb tourist from Al. Not anymore....I bluffed, I won, secret kept. I know where to look now and how to do it.
The stamp mill for the Kentucky mine where they crushed and refined the gold ore, they have tours, but the next one was too long a wait so I will return. I didn't note anything of when it shut down but I would assume it was about the same time as the Empire mine in Grass Valley and the crash of hard rock mining in the early 1940s. There is a nice little museum on site and I met a tourin' Aussie and after a nice chat I clued him to many of our hidden bits of history including the Empire mine .
The view from the top, while gorgeous, also shows how it worked, the track on the right leads to the tailings, bad rock, and the one on the left sent the rich ore to the mill. The Chinese immigrants made millions catering to the crazed gold rushers and built most of the infrastructure, roads, etc. They had much success reworking the tailings of careless, inexperienced miners, as well as they moved on. There is a monument for them in the picnic area surrounding the museum.
This is the mine entrance , basically a workshop of what was needed to run a mine as it disappears into the mountainside, carpenter, blacksmith, all powered by the "Pelton wheel", basically a high tech water wheel for its time. Many of the miners built their houses right above the entrance to their mines in order to protect them and they dot the hill country still today and can give driving down some back country dirt roads a true "Deliverance" feel . There is a lot of marijuana grown and methamphetamine made in those hills and lonely dirt roads. I try to blend in and not look like a tourist at those points and stick to the road, a 4x4 truck just bumping down the road is nothing to to look twice at.
A look inside the mine entrance, the Pelton wheel is is just outside the bottom right of the picture, and the spring that powered it still flows, it ran the various compressors and pumps sending air in and pumping water out shown here. There is still a whole lot of gold in the hills of the Mother lode country and I am going to try and find me some of it, the saga will continue ....
My father worked many mines in that part of the country. He may have even worked that one, but I was so young I wouldn't know. I love seeing pictures of those old mines.
David Copperfield is something else. How he did that is beyond me, but how he does any of his stuff is beyond me.
You are welcome, Rick, as soon as I get a GPS I will start geo caching some cool spots. I will use a business card, or pen/pencil with my business name as my 'token' and of course the log. Some I have read on peaks dated back a half a century or more. It's a blast to log in to a real journal.
Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, 'What should be the reward of such sacrifices?' Bid us and our posterity to bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war, to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!"- Samuel Adams
2 comments:
My father worked many mines in that part of the country. He may have even worked that one, but I was so young I wouldn't know. I love seeing pictures of those old mines.
David Copperfield is something else. How he did that is beyond me, but how he does any of his stuff is beyond me.
Hope you're having a wonderful Sunday! :)
You are welcome, Rick, as soon as I get a GPS I will start geo caching some cool spots. I will use a business card, or pen/pencil with my business name as my 'token' and of course the log. Some I have read on peaks dated back a half a century or more. It's a blast to log in to a real journal.
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