Mammoth Consolidated Gold Mine

Diana and I got up early one day in the recent past and took a walk around the lake to Cold Creek Campground which is the site of the old Mammoth Consolidated gold mine.

It was pretty neat as many of the old buildings were still intact

These were some of the old bunkhouses for workers

Here’s what’s left of the cabin of a later miner.  Notice on the roof of the porch all the coffee can lid patches and cracker tin repairs that were nailed in place to stop leaks. (and we think we’re such good recyclers.)

I think the restoration value on this old sedan is near nil!  I don’t think it’ll be moving anywhere soon!  I can’t begin to tell you what kind of car it was, but we did make out that it once had a trunk!

Here’s part of an old generator/air compressor that sat half way up the side of the hill!  I wonder how long it took them to get it up there.

And look at the flywheels on these 100 hp single cylinder engines!  I’d hate to have been a mule back in the days that these were shipped in and hauled up here.

Here’s Sadie, returning from as long day of work in the mine!

And finally, the view from the top

As a side note, we visited another mining section further down the valley on a different day and it comes to mind now since I was talking about how heavy some of this equipment was way back then.  This picture includes pieces and parts of a stamp mill  that someone had set up in the mid 1800’s.  I can’t begin to imagine how hard it was to get this to its site and installed before the advent of good roads and modern machinery to help!

It’s all cast iron!

And it’s ¼ mile off the nearest modern road, up a draw, across a creek, in the middle of what is now nowhere!