I have just received an e-mail from Patty Salter, personnel officer for
Cominco at the Sullivan Mine that I thought might be of interest to this
page. I had asked Patty about the plans to turn the Mine into a mining
museum after it closes in two years.
"There is an extensive project in the works - Ther Sullivan Mine
Interpretive Centre will be built near the Powerhouse. The Powerhouse
has been opened to the public - you ride the Bavarian City Mining
Railway (BCMR) - it is a 9 km ride through switchbacks, tunnel through
the valley of Mark, disembark near the Powerhouse for a tour and
continue on. Eventually a skipway to the 3900' level (from the
powerhouse up the wall of the valley to the 1915 portal) [will be built?
-EOP]. The portal will be restored and will be the focus of a display
of mining equipment. A replica of a miner's 1920's home will be
constructed next to the downtown BCMR station. A replica of the old
Orpheum Theater will be constructed again near the downtown BCMR
station. A geological exploration camp will be set up near the BCMR
maintenance shop in the Mark Creek valley - there was a short tunnel
driven into the hillside some years ago - the camp will house core
drilling facility and drillers' camp. An old diamond drill will be set
up. An old locomotivce and small cars will be positioned on a piece of
track at the entrance to the tunnel. The repair shop for the mine's
loci will house restored equipment and artifacts. And of course there
will be hiking trails.
So, as you can see a lot of work is going into ensuring that the
history of the mine is maintained.
Patty"
This means that the three mining centers of real interest to me
(I worked in two of them) have become mining museums. This is, of
course, going to be even more of a "tourist trap" than the other two
(the "Bavarian" city always irritated me), but it does mean that the
sites will be preserved for the foreseeable future.
In view of some of the discussions I have read on this page,
perhaps historians will find the attitude of a "working miner" in this
regard to be of interest.
1. This is the only way that the sites will be preserved.
2. The working mine today is nothing like the mine I remember - the
portal they will
be restoring was for many years the trademark of the mine. I
didn't realize
until now that it would naturally have had to be dismantled to
permit the entrance
of trackless equipment. Many of the places that I worked
(including major
skipways) have had to be eliminated to make way for surface
strip mining
and other modern methods of removing the pillars we left in
place.
3. There would be nothing lost if they used some of the open pits for
landfill.
It would probably be a very good thing if some of the less
visible and less attractive
areas were restored to nature in some way.
4. There is no doubt that entrance to most of the actual workings
MUST BE
PREVENTED. Even when I was mining in the Sullivan, in 1950,
some of the
old workings were no longer being maintained (were even being
undermined),
and were bulkheaded off as too dangerous for experienced miners
to enter. In
my childhood access to old mines wasn't possible. I always
understood that the
government required the companies to destroy all entrances when
they abandoned
a mine - certainly our miner fathers warned us about old
workings, and asked us to
report any old adits that we found so that they could fill them
in. This is, therefore,
the only way that any parts of the mine will be maintained so
that they are safe to
enter. Considering that most of OUR old mines were never
timbered, I shudder to
think of casual hikers entering abandoned coal mines where
timbers will likely have
rotted.
If I live so long, I will cerainly try to visit the museum. I
am intrigued with "the little ore cars". I wonder if they are the same
equipment that I observed twice while I worked underground, but was
never permitted to examine. No doubt, I will find some displays
disappointing and some of the interpretation to be incorrect, but I will
appreciate the effort that has been made to preserve the site.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
