Help needed to identify mine

[Kurt Maechner]

Hi,
When we visited the east portal this summer, we camped across Chalk Creek from this mine structure:

The photos is from the opposite side of the valley as the railroad, a short distance upgrade from St. Elmo.  Does anyone know which mine this was?  The C&S grade can be seen just above it.
Here is a screenshot of its location in Google Earth.


Thanks for any info.
Kurt

[Kurt Maechner]

Just noticed that the mine is a short distance downgrade from the Romley bridge (which can be identified in the below screenshot where the road diverges to go around the bridge).  

[Jeff Young]

Not a mine.  That's the site of the Golf Mill.

You can still see the remains of the tram-line cuts in the trees leading up Chrysolite Mountain.  (The principal mines up there were the Mary Murphy and the Iron Chest.)

There’s more info here: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.41377.n7.nabble.com/Romley-and-the-Mary-Murphy-mine-td2683.html#a2843

Cheers,

Jeff.

[Kurt Maechner]

Thanks, Jeff!  
On a side note, the buildings in my photo don't seem to correspond to the photo you posted (the roof is facing forward in the 2018 photo, while the old photo has roofs facing sideways).  Might these have been hidden by the large structure that is now gone?  Just curious.

[Jeff Young]

These two shots appear to show that the larger foundations are mostly to the side of the remaining tram house:





You'd think then that the tram house would be visible in the first shot.  Perhaps two different phases of mill structures?

[Randy Rieck]

Hi Jeff and Kurt,

The building in question is definitely on the site of the Golf Mill built by the British syndicate which owned the Mary Murphy Mine in 1912. The C&S had 2 sidings at the mill site.  The first for the delivery of coal went to the back of the mill on the upside of the hill.
The second for the shipping of concentrate was lower down on the front side of the mill.  The British syndicate dug the Golf tunnel into the hill behind the mill, and below the C&S railroad grade.  The Mary Murphy Mine shaft was deepened to intercept the tunnel.  The ore was lowered down the shaft and taken out the tunnel directly into the back of the mill. This did away with the cable tram at this mill site. At some unknown later date, the Golf Mill was demolished or burned.  It is my opinion that the building on the site now is not a tram house.
I believe the existing building was constructed as part of a later mining operation of the Mary Murphy.  The Mary Murphy was leased several times to different entities through 1982. A good source is the The Mary Murphy Gold Mine, a professionally filmed dvd, which was available in St. Elmo several years ago.  You can't believe how wet it is inside the mine and tunnel.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,
Randy

[Randy Rieck]

Here is a photo of the sealed entrance to the Golf Tunnel in Sept 2017.  I believe the tunnel was sealed by the EPA and the black piping relates to mitigation of a superfund site.  There are several test wells in the area.

[Jim Courtney]

So this photo would be of the Golf Mill, looking down from the C&S mainline grade, the coal delivery spur in the foregrounds, correct?




The photo was published in Goin' Railroading, and labeled as the Mary Murphy and the implied location was Romley.

Another view of the Golf Mill was published in the Klingers' book:




All three levels of track are visible, mainline grade at top, coal spur behind mill (a boxcar is partially visible at the left frame) and concentrate loading track in foreground where boxcars are spotted.

This would make a great industry to model.

Could you post a pic of "your" O scale Golf Mill, Randy?

[Jeff Young]

I lined up the tramlines and indeed the green building is not in line with any of them.  (Blue is the Iron Chest, Yellow is the Lady Murphy, and Red is the dog-leg Mary Murphy with midway transfer station.)



I also remembered this shot, which appears to show that the Iron Chest and Lady Murphy trams both ended at the C&S grade:



Note in Jim's post the Klinger photo appears to be when a tram still went to the mill, while the Goin Railroading shot appears to be after it was taken down (entry and exit apertures below and to the left of the spot, but no cables).  The mill building isn't at the correct angle for it to be the dog-leg tram line, though.  Perhaps there was an earlier Mary Murphy tram that went straight up to the top entry?

[Kurt Maechner]

Thanks everyone for the research.  This really helps especially for a Bogies and the Loop article I'm working on.

[Randy Rieck]

Hi Jim,

Since you asked, here are 3 pictures of the Mary Murphy Mill on my railroad.
Because a 3 dimensional mill would be massive and the space on the railroad does not exist,
it was built in 1 dimension only.  However, it does allow the train crews to switch coal cars and
box cars as at the real mill.  Again, because of space, the Golf Mill Tunnel had to be raised above the
C&S tracks.  More scenery is planned to complete the scene.





Cheers,
Randy

[Jeff Young]

Very creative solution, Randy.