The Silverton Mine Trip

摘要

Editor's Note: Over the past year, Mines Magazine has brought you Thomas J. Trumbull's (E.M. '38) story about a young man who, during the depths of the Great Depression, took a job as an apprentice miner in a cold, isolated camp near Cunningham Gulch, located south of Silverton, Colo. It was a time when hunger and the need for a job dictated the actions of people. Three miners lived in a frozen, flea-infested bunkhouse. For a dollar a day, the miners hauled equipment without the benefit of mules. Mining was not conducted by machinery, but by elbow grease and hard manual labor. The last excerpt from the July/August issue described how the miners were increasingly besieged by snow storms and the threat of avalanches. In addition, their food supply, reduced to soda crackers, was nearly gone. The three miners decided to leave the camp in a blinding snow storm to return in the spring. After a four and a half-hour struggle in the snow, they made it to Palmer's house where they finally rested and "ate pork and beans with great relish, and dropped gratefully into bed without a thought for fleas, thankful only for having been allowed to get this far. " Now, the final chapter in the Silverton Mine Trip.