The Down Town Mines of Leadville: Penrose Switchback, and on to the Bison.

[Chris Walker]

Where I left off at the Bon Air Spurs.



This image is from the David S. Digerness Mineral Belt Vol-I, pg 301.  Note this view shows the Bon Air with a trestle out over the C&S 3-rail & a growing wasterock pile.  
The Penrose, Starr, Bohn, Weldon No.2 and P.O.S. Shafthouses stand out above the old Harrison Smelter.  The Midland has since disappeared.





The Weldon spur show disconnected, and the Bison spur gone.

The P.O.S. Shafthouse(Patriotic Order of Sons of America;shortened?) in this cropped Denver Public Library Special Collections X-6314 view.


A wider view of DPL X-6314 taking in the adjacent Midland Shaft.

Note the Weldon Spur goes between the P.O.S. Hoisthouse and Shafthouse, while the Penrose Spur is in the foreground and the Sw-St. for the Bison Spur is visible beside the Midland cribbing. Tight quarters on this trackage; excellent modelling opportunities abound here.


Denver Public Library Special Collections X-491 crop 1924 image of the P.O.S.


Moving up the Weldon No. 2 Spur for these images.







Denver Public Library Special Collections X-491 crop 1924 image of the Weldon No.2


Now on the Penrose Spur; to be seen are C&S Coals.


While at the Penrose Ore-loading tracks we see both D&RG alongside C&S.

Hiding away here is one of the original Side-Dump cars intended for this Wasterock service at both the Cloud City and Penrose Mines.




Continuing right along here are close-ups of the Orion Spur and Bison Spurs shoehorned between Barns and Houses.



By this time the Orion is looking a little worse for wear...
Denver Public Library Special Collections X-493


The missing link: USGS, Mine dumps west of Carbonate Hill, Leadville #364


That unidentified Shafthouse image taken from the Penrose dump, of what appeared to be a random Leadville Minedumps photo from the USGS, turns out to be the Bison/Caribou, confirmed by the McHarg higher up.   The curving C&S spur cuts across the image to a single-side ore-loading Apron.
How do I know this? The McHarg was disused, and repurposed as a Mill according to the Herald Democrat newspaper, which in turn lead to an image in the DPL of a party of Finnish miners at a small Headframe(below those triple Kingtruss bridge spans), which the caption then gave up the name of the distinctive roofline of the McHarg.
The small Shafthouse to the right is one of the Crescent group, and was served by the D&RG; a Highside gon can be seen under the loading apron there.






Denver Public Library Special Collections X-493



Leadville in 1924, all the tracks at this end appear out of service, the Mines shut down or worked sporadically by Leasers.
Denver Public Library Special Collections X-491


But wait, there's more......