Vindicator Valley - Abandoned Mines & Derelict Mine Shafts
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- Опубліковано 2 жов 2024
- Underneath these Abandoned Mines, over 3-Million dollars of Gold were once raised from the Earth. Along the 2-mile loop trail, the land is littered with the remains of abandoned mines & shafts; the remnants of a collection of mines that lasted nearly 60 years.
I had an amazing visit to Vindicator Valley and encourage you to also visit. However; be sure to call ahead to the main office (719-689-4220) to ensure no blasting is happening and you are ok to enter. Also, be sure that you obey all posted signs and enjoy. That being said; the “Vindicator Valley Trail” is one of the “Trails of Gold” outside of the town of Victor, CO. It is not a difficult trail but is distant from large cities. You can find lodging in Victor or Cripple Creek Colorado. Enjoy views of the Sangre de Cristo mountains and the countless abandoned mines, hoists, and buildings.
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I am amazed that so many ore bins, hoist houses, and assorted support buildings are still standing. The Cripple Creek & Victor open pit mine has swallowed up a great deal of history in their search for microscopic gold. The area around and between Cripple Creek and Victor is known as the Cripple Creek Mining District. At one time it held over 500 mines while many small towns sprang up to house and serve the miners. Electricity reached the district in 1894. This lead to the creation of the Golden Circle Electric Railway in 1901 that operated the High Line and Low Line routes transporting miners and surface workers from the many towns to the mines and home again at the end of their day.
There were two major strikes in the district, both resulting in violence. In 1894, the Pharmacist Mine arbitrarily changed the miner's workday from eight to nine hours while reducing the daily wage from three dollars to two and a half dollars. Mine owners claimed that revenue from the mine had decreased, prompting the changes though the investor's stock reports continued to show a healthy profit. As the strike progressed, miners built a fort of logs up on Bull Hill intent on keeping sheriff's deputies away. In March, six deputies roamed too close to the striking miners who quickly surrounded them. This miners hauled their captives up before a Justice of the Peace and demanded they be charged with carrying concealed weapons! Unfortunately, the verdict of that court case has been lost to history. The strike that took place in 1903 was the result of workers in the Colorado City mill making claims that they were being mistreated. Since they too, were members of the Western Federation of Miners, all miners were required to honor the mill workers call for a strike. Since the mine owners realized that no demands were being made of them, they decided that bringing in non-uni on miners was justified. This lead to many of the non-union miners being threatened, beaten up, and even killed. After striking union miners attacked and beat up a group of non-union miners that included a Justice of the Peace, Governor Peabody called out the National Guard to quell the violence, but still, the violence escalated. On January 24, the night shift, consisting of 13 non-union miners, were in the elevator heading toward the surface when the car was released, causing it to drop hundreds of feet into the shaft's sump. All but one miner was killed. On the night of June 6 the station at Independence was blown up. Twenty-Five miners were waiting on the platform when the blast occurred, killing thirteen, mutilating, and injuring many more. A strand of wire lead away from the station, but no one was ever charged with the horrendous crime.
In an effort to quell the violence Governor Peabody ordered the National Guard to deport anyone they considered to be a troublemaker. They were taken, under guard, to the Colorado Kansas border where after just a few had crossed the border, Kansas authorities arrived calling a halt to Peabody's action. The miners were then allowed to wander off back into Colorado and off the pages of history. The strike was finally settled when mill operators made agreeable changes to wages and work conditions.
The hoist was the primary means of transportation vertically in every mine with a shaft. The importance of the hoist operator couldn't be over-emphasized. To that end, many mining companies as well as the communities they existed in passed laws that made it a crime to distract the hoist operator while he was working. A minor distraction, a momentary lapse in attention could cost many lives. An occurrence that wasn't necessarily rare in hard rock mining was when a miner, pushing an empty ore cart toward a shaft, would fail to look up to see that the car was not in the opening. The ore cart would tip as it reached the open shaft and the miner would instinctively retain his grip on the cart, causing him to follow the cart down, striking timbering on the sides of the shaft finally landing on top of the elevator car. A hoist operator failing to answer the bells to bring the car to the surface was the cause of these tragedies.
The change room in your video was the site of a constant competition between the miners and the mine owners. On one side, the miners, considered absconding with a bit of gold, known as high-grading, was a miner's right. On the other side, the mine owners considered it just plain theft. Gold is most often not visible to the naked eye as it is trapped in the worthless country rock that surrounds it but in some gold mines the gold is actually visible and is referred to as free gold. When this free gold occurs miners have always considered it a miner's right to augment his three dollar a day salary with a quantity of that gold. After all, if it were not for him, the gold would stay right were it was and be of no use to anyone. The mine owner considered this to be no more than criminal theft of his property and he was intent on devising methods to put an end to it. A search of the miners as they reached the surface did not sit well at all with the miners which brought about the creation of the change room. Miners were required to change out of the clothes they wore while working but continued to hide gold in lunch pails, hats, socks, and finally, in crevises best left to the imagination. This resulted in the jump bar, a bar that was a matter of feet and inches above the floor that each miner was required to launch himself over, naked, with the mine owner anticipating that any gold contained on, or in, the miner's body would fall free. This requirement did not go over well with the miners. They would take umbrage at the fact anyone would impinge their integrity, even arguing the point as grams of gold dropped from their bodies to the floor. Regardless of the miner's outrage attempts at halting high-grading continue to this day in gold and diamond mines.
An Irish immigrant miner standing above a prospect shaft he has spent some time sinking is asked if there is any gold down there.
"Not a wee bit and even less as ye go down," he responds.
Hope you don't mind.
I don't mind at all! This was a fascinating read and was filled with great insights. In-fact I am planning a follow-up video to cover much of the history you wrote about. I would love to reference some of your comment (with your permission). It was very helpful, especially the changing room information and some of the day-to-day life of the miners. Thanks for putting the time in to this. It was a true contribution and a pleasure to read. All the best
Doug, I would be pleased to see any of my interest in mining history put to use since my wife doesn’t share my fascination. She sort of tunes me out when the topic comes up. I’ve found my cats to be very unappreciative also so feel free to use whatever you like. Stories abound regarding the Cripple Creek mining district and it’s a shame and a tragedy that as time passes they are retold fewer and fewer times. I'm glad to see you saving these places. It’s a real shame that the Cripple Creek & Victor Mining Company has erased so much history with their open pit mine and cyanide leaching pits. It’s important that people follow your advice regarding asking permission to sight-see on their property. The last time I was there I was caught three times by the same person who finally threatened me with incarceration. I didn’t know I was on their property until he told me they own everything everywhere!
You mention in your video that the mines of the district were operated on a leased basis. I meant to include that fact and what a major part it played in how ‘high-grading,’ or theft of gold, by those swinging the picks were treated but I simply forgot (not a rare occurrence).
When a mine is leased the lesser has a specific amount of time in which they are allowed to send a crew in to remove as much valuable ore as they can. Miners working under those conditions quite often felt that the standard wage for underground toil, three dollars per day, was insufficient reward for their effort. In gold mines where the gold was visible to the naked eye it was often the practice for miners to fill their pockets with some of this gold which came to be known as high-grading. Of course, a mine owner would attempt to bring a halt to this theft and any miner caught would face termination at a minimum. When a mine was leased the lessee was forced to be ambivalent toward this theft even when faced with undeniable evidence such as a miner falling on the floor of the change house so weighted down with booty in pockets, shoes, pant cuffs, hat, and waist band that he was unable to right himself without assistance. Should the lessee attempt to discipline the miner there was a very good chance that the entire shift would force a work slow down, a very costly situation as the clock was always running on the lease.
While the miners who worked underground were known to help themselves to some of the riches they were by no means the only people who would take, ‘…just a sample…’ to show the folks at home. Investors would arrive from ‘back east’ with the ubiquitous briefcase to tour their investment and even though they could not tell the difference between porphyry and granite they knew what gold looked like and they would slowly gather ‘samples’ that were spirited away in their attaché’ cases. Occasionally, enough samples were placed in a briefcase that it became a major effort to drag the case from the elevator to a waiting carriage. These ‘samples’ could cost the lessee hundreds of thousands of dollars every time the investors arrived for an inspection. The lessees could try to withhold an estimated amount from dividends if they were being paid but stock holders would threaten litigation as it was common during that period also. Gold is heavy. Stolen gold is even heavier.
I realize that some of this is already addressed but it’s easier for me to create rather than edit.
fantastic place mate.... thanks
I really appreciate you watching and am glad you enjoyed. 🙏🏻
Excited for this!
I hope you enjoyed ❤️✌️
I’m looking forward to this video!
Hope you enjoyed brother
Great video mate, love the look of this place. Great work
Thank you kindly 🙏🏻 I was really taken by this place as well. I appreciate you watching!
Really cool location and history you could easily spend all day here Exploring
Hi 🙋🏼♂️ Thanks for watching bro! You're totally right. I honestly didn't have enough time in the day to see it all.
I can hardly weight. Can you drop a camera down the Shaft and show what they look like now?
Lol, "weight", good one. We cannot and would not lower a camera in to the mine. A lot of this has to do with what is allowable by the Numont corp. However; no one should get within 100 feet of a vertical opening. Stay safe and all the best.
Another good explore..
Thanks again mate! I appreciate you watching and commenting. Best wishes!
Cool video.
Thank you very much! I am very glad you enjoyed!
That dog at 6:02 is too cute!!!
Thanks!
Really cool explore, thanks for taking us with you. I bet there was a lot of rivalry between workers from different mines. All going after the same gold for their wages.
thank you for watching, it’s honestly appreciated! Their were tons of rivals and alliances. Even a year long war between the owners and miners. I hope to cover the war and dark-side of this place in spring.
the knobs are known as insulators...
🙏thank you kindly, I was struggling for that one. All the best!
welcome, cool vidoes man
Hey man I love you work. I used to live in Colorado and unfortunately had to move to Florida when my family got tired of snow when I was 10. I'm 26 and still stuck here. Hope I can get myself into a financial situation that allows me to move back comfortably sometime soon, but in the meantime you're videos have been holding me over.
Your work is way too good to be made for free, is there a way to support you?
I was in a similar situation as you are; I moved away with my family and longed to come home to Colorado. I made it back in the early 2000s and never looked back. I hope your homecoming is sooner than later!
Thank you so very much for the kind words and for asking how you can support me! It genuinely means a lot, and your the first person to directly ask. That's astonishing when you consider I started the channel 4 years ago.
One of the best ways to support me is to purchase a t-shirt or an item from my UA-cam store:
ua-cam.com/users/DerelictDougstore
(I don't have a ton of products yet, but check back)
That said; simply watching, sharing, liking, and commenting is another great way to support my videos. Thank you again and all the best!
They won't be breaker boxes they would have fuses in those white things or insulators wire was strong from one to another
Ohhh, very good point! Thanks for the feedback and thanks for watching!
Nice stuff out there, have you see my 3 new abandoned vids in Arizona yet?
I have. sorry for the late reply. I have been sure to hit the like button and love what I have seen so far. Best Wishes! I miss the Quiznos in our area. I was honestly craving a Quiznos club-sandwich after your video
Cyanide doesn't exactly help "clean the environment," though it did eradicate the initial mess resulting from the sludge water. Great video and tour! So difficult to imagine being a miner at all, let alone back in those days. Lots of lives were sacrificed making other people wealthy. 😷👍 for ya'.!
I honestly appreciate you watching. Agreed on all accounts. In a later video I plan to cover the man made mountains of waste that exist from the modern mine. And no simpathy for the line owners here. Best wishes ✌️💙
@@DerelictDoug sounds good and I look forward to the next installment in your series here. Take care and have fun!