Crede, CO mining

Linda and I have both been fascinated by the buildings at Crede that are left from the Mining, mostly silver but other metals also.

As we have driven thru the mining area and stop to look at the buildings that are left and the debris from other structures that have deteriorated or been damaged by vandals we both say we would like to go back in time for a day or so and just see how all of this stuff worked.

There were many hundreds of workers here in the heyday and we can only guess at how things went down. We have gone on line and to the local library but can not find any specific information about how the mining and processing was done.

Anyway here are a few pictures from our latest visit a week or so ago. I am thinking we will head back up there again and visit the local museum to see what we can find out.

This building is all that is left of a larger structure. It was used to separate out the ore and load it into wagons.

If you look close there are two structures here, both built on very steep ground.

here are some close ups of both.

And here is another neat building, I think this is another ore tipple

You also have to wonder how they found all of the ore. What gave them the clues. We do know that for gold they looked for outcroppings of quartz.

As usual you can click on any picture to see it larger and here is the link to Picasa to see all of the pictures we took that day. There are a lot of duplicates as I was experimenting with the polarizing filter at the time to see what would change.

https://picasaweb.google.com/rufnitII/20110818CredeMining?authkey=Gv1sRgCJKliduX6u6MhQE#

The drive up from the town of Crede is all gravel and in some spots very steep. When we pulled over to take pictures in one spot I had to back up onto the road as going forward I just dug two holes with the tires.

Enjoy

love to all of you

Jim and Linda