One Final Adventure

Ahhhh, sweet peace and quiet. While Adam and the kids are out at the Nickle-A-Play video arcade and the baby is snug in his bed, I have time to post. We had one last "exploring Colorado Springs" adventure before all the fun of July vacationing begins. Today we went to the Western Museum of Mining and Industry. It was a really cool museum exploring mining and the industrial advances that came about as new techniques for mining were needed from the "Forty-Niners" through today. We attended the tour, which was interesting enough to keep the boys mostly listening, watched a video, and then explored on our own.

The museum was full of hands-on exhibits and large steam-powered machines. The tour guide turned some of them on and they were loud; they freaked Josh out so much that when we were going to go back through on our own he refused at first because he thought we'd have to hear the loud ones again. It was one of those museums that make you glad to live in 2008, with all of our modern conveniences, safety laws and labor laws. Just looking at pictures of the young boys, the "Grease Monkeys," Zach and Ben's ages, that worked oiling the machines or those just a few years older who were already going into the mines as full-time, 10 hours-plus-a-day miners, made my heart lurch. In August, they are having their Outdoor Machine Day where we get to see the big Steam Shovels like MaryAnn in Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel in action. We are excited to go! Sorry about all the commentary on the pictures below, obviously I was way too fascinated by this museum, I felt like everyone needed to be educated!

Weighing the different ores...this is coal mined in the Western States, some of the cleanest burning coal in the world.

Zach panning for gold, this is early-style mining called Placer Mining, or surface mining. Gold was discovered in Colorado in 1859 and then came the Placer Miners with the slogan "Pikes Peak or Bust!"

Before the deep blast mines came (where they blasted out rock with dynamite deep into the earth), this is how they got gold out of rocks...one hammer ping at a time. Seriously, this was their livelihood they were working for.

After hammering away for awhile, they used this tiny scoop to scrape out any small gold pieces that may have been chipped off. Can you even imagine the tedium of it? Thank goodness for salaries!This part of the museum had the loudest of the loud machines, the steam-powered jack hammers for drilling holes in the rock face in which to place the dynamite. The tour guide turned on one of the jack hammers and said there would be four going at the same time all day...many of the men went deaf at an early age. Surprised? No.

Modern mining safety gear; I don't think Ben is ready for the mines yet, since the boot is as long as his leg.

Zach operating the elevator on the miniature late-ninteenth century mine. Talk about dangerous jobs!

This was the biggest steam engine they had, one of the biggest ever built. Amazingly, it was pretty quiet compared to some of the smaller ones when it was running. This would be used in one of the larger mines to power any number of things, elevators, water pumps, electricity, etc. This is the one the little 6 to 8-year-olds would be running up and down oiling with little cans.

This is one of the noisy small engines I was referring to. This was used to power the pump to pump water out of the mine. Even though it was noisy, it does sound so cool, like listening to the past.

This was Josh's favorite steam engine, because it was red like his shorts and they didn't turn it on.