An Awesome 1940s Silver and Lead Mine

all right blob of rubber but make it hit your foot I tried to kick it that thing's way too freaking heavy [Music] so we made it to the lower Orbin it's really neat because it has a tram Tower at the top of it and there's actually one cable attached and it runs all the way up to the upper tram terminal and I believe this was a gravity tram so they'd send a Full Bucket down and I would bring an empty bucket up and then just empty out the the full buckets into this uh Orbin you can see they had four ore shoots for this one bin so this was designed to hold a lot so here's a look at the Orbin from the top you can see the stationary cable runs all the way down here to the the anchor in the ground but the tram cars would just stop right here at the top of the bin and I don't know if you'll be able to see it on the camera but it looks like they use the lids and bottoms of barrels as a flashing on the sides of the Orbin to protect it and there's some riding on there I can see STC and I can't really make out the other other words are too small but it's kind of neat so now we're gonna do the steep climb all the way up to the Attic oh God well finally made it that is a steep climb it's pretty tough when it's hot outside like it is today here's a look at this upper tram terminal you can see that had a Trestle running out of the attic and they're dump it into that chute and load it into the tram cars right down there and you can actually see but the ball wheel is still there so I definitely want to go down there and take a closer look at that experience but right up here is the Attic it looks like uh they put a bunch of wood across it'll keep people out but it's pretty much all falling down now and there's a nice Cool Breeze coming out of it so I'm looking forward to getting out of the sun that's for sure so I'm down below the Trestle now and you got that main uh wheel there for the tram is pretty big it's about I don't know six feet in diameter and there's another bevel gear right down here that was probably used to drive the tram it goes on the other side of this ore Bend there's some footings that were likely for an engine she still spins she's this is how hernias are born so Xavier found something pretty cool it's a rusty can but it's not just any Rusty can it's an unopened rustic can that still has liquid inside and that is pretty unusual to find usually all of these have been opened we believe this can which has been opened um was the same type of can and you can clearly see it says SAE 30 on it and I believe this is a Texaco oil can plug white Parts going through it okay I just made it inside the portal and here's a look down that's at it supposedly it's 600 feet long you see my buddy um back there a couple hundred feet uh right here there's some wire that's strung up by an orc car Spike that hammered into the wall and on the right got some shells and a few pair of gloves huh I'm not sure what they're doing with this anyways let's go ahead head down this attic and apparently goes about 600 feet back to the vein all right I made it back a couple hundred feet and here in the rib of the mine there's a natural fissure that runs up there good ways and you can see the walls of the fissure are coated with crystals likely calcite yeah very interesting [Applause] you have an oil can here [Music] the label is missing it's not too interesting [Applause] we can tell that the the left hand side is smooth so they were following a fault back here a lot of times when they're driving cross Cuts they take advantage of the faults because the material was already partially broken up and easier to dig through you know you can see the foot wall of the fault here okay so it seems like I made it to the end of the main cross cut it uh continues another 25 feet or so until it faces out and offer to the left this should be a drift along the vein but I don't really see any mineralization in here looks like there's another Branch here to the right yeah just a short little heading they drove well there's some interesting boxes Zenith radio Corporation huh that's pretty neat looking there's a sign here it's in the house I don't know and we have some Regal pale beer boxes let's continue down this way [Applause] and uh we're reaching another Junction there's an orange shoot over there just running out that way and oh wow this is pretty neat well we have a a bench here with some bottles and jars Kearns apricot preserves as well as some Skippy Skippy peanut butter yep some La Mesa California port you know one half gallon as well as a bunch of nails see what this is some Ben Hur I believe that's a coffee I'm not sure and some Beverly regular grind peanut butter that's pretty neat what is this United States Rubber Company and right next to this bench this looks like maybe Dynamite storage maybe I don't know because this isn't a very solid door as you can see it's cardboard boxes yeah look at these these boxes here Barbara Ann bread yeah house no hours fresher hours fresher than other birds I guess got some pabco paints and headed in here got some boots from pieces of newspaper I barely see a date look up here well it's talking about the the Reich here the German rag so maybe this is from the 1940s or 1930s um oh we have a little stove here or heater look at that so yeah so this definitely was not Dynamite storage um this is like a little bit I know rest area for the miners ends vent pipe runs up this raise here yeah look at that ladder going up there good ways the one pipe ends but there's definitely a bit of airflow so this does connect up to the surface there are higher edits at this mine and yeah here's the the front side of this ladder you can see uh it looks like this part was an ore shoot at one time but they they blocked it up yeah it might be worth climbing up there those ladders actually look really good and let's go head off this way this looks like the drift that they just threw all their junk in looks like we have a trap door though okay you know this is all backfill not really expect to find much in here faces off that way keeps heading that direction yeah it faces out and Yep this just faces out over here nothing interesting about it so we found a cardboard jack-o-lantern here pretty strange and I missed this we have a Marco dog and cat food box and there's a drift running off this way and there's some pretty cool stuff over there by the looks of it got some band camps pork and a big horseshoe here okay we have a winds here this is awesome got a big RPM oil drum and whoa that goes down a fair distance wow yeah so this shoot was a for the head frame they would have sent a bucket up right here and then it would flip it up into the chute and going underneath the chutes we have a little ladder running up here we have a can here they're used to hold something and for this wins I'm guessing the the Hoist was sitting right there yeah most likely that's probably how it fit in all right so we came back to this winds um to try to repel it according to the report she goes down 175 feet I'm not sure if there's any levels off of this but it looks like it's kind of a narrow stop heading down because you can see it's stuck on that side and it's stoked out underneath me and you can see there's a platforms going off um see I'm really curious to see what's at the bottom so I made it down the winds Maybe 40 feet 50 feet or so and I'm on this little Landing over here there's a stop that I've dug out and uh looks like down below they have a little platform heading over to the bottom of it you can see the shaft uh Mellows out a little bit and behind me we have a short little drifts with a Edwards coffee box here you can see the ore body it's pretty colorful okay I made it down another 15 feet or so and I'm at this other Landing over there is a drift heading off I don't think it goes very far but I'm going to get off of there and uh wait for Xavier to come down looking down the rest of the shaft you can see a roller and I can see the bottom another maybe 60 feet down so it's not too much more and then behind me we have the bottom of this one stop and we also have a Coca-Cola bottle by the looks of it I'm gonna go head over there and check that out a bit closer yeah so here's this Coca-Cola bottle not sure how old it is Maybe 1950s and you can see it's broken which is unfortunate here on the bottom it says uh Bakersfield California okay so I'm in the short drift Xavier is making his way down um over there is where that Coca-Cola bottle is and yeah this drift doesn't go anywhere it's too bad but um you can see the vein really well here lots of uh iron oxides but look of it where's the next run gone okay sometimes life just be like that are you filming this I am I like your slide okay to the viewer I forgot my gloves down at the truck so that's why I'm using a piece of wrapped cloth as gloves don't do this at home kids it's dumb it wouldn't die is what this is so should I just continue on down or what do you think if you'd like unless you want to stop here uh I'll probably just keep going and that way we can leap frog Okay so it's all cleaned up I still can't see the bomb oh no I can see the bottom yeah that's not too bad I'm gonna go to the bottom and then uh yeah now this point isn't too bad like this is this has got me going good all right so I made it down another 60 feet or so and met up with Xavier and apparently this is not the bottom of the shaft the ladders and the buckets slide actually turn here turn 90 degrees and go that way and that is a really uh strange setup I've never seen that uh before and you can see right here where the cable's been grinding into the timber anyways behind me we have a few artifacts we have a lid to a Beverly regular grind coffee can on this Xavier believes they're using for either an air filter or a muffler it's just a can with some steel mesh shoved in there and out the other end has some holes poked through we have a um Hills Brothers Coffee can use for uh storing oil looks of it but we have this really cool newspaper here and uh it's the Fresno Fresno what have you been able to make this out is it Fresno B yeah that's that's what it is like a little bumblebee yeah there's a little bee right there wow but anyways check out this headline it says Ranch Hand admits sex laying of Huron baby blames marijuana wine you know that Devil's lettuce uh really makes you do horrible things I guess yeah pretty wild hidden line definitely not a very enjoyable read oh yeah I didn't show you guys the date it says uh November 1949 of course there's another B right there in pretty rough shape U.N votes to make Libya independent that's a pretty up headline what's that thing that says 666 on it liquid or tablets is your answer to Cold's miseries oh try 666 yourself I don't know about that asthma mucus loosened Ryder will eat football if Irish can beat Pro 11. I wonder if you ate that football yeah I kind of want to know now I mean I'm pretty sure they brought it down here for toilet paper probably well the bottom of it's missing yeah but I don't think we've ever found one with this many pages in it cost of private atom shelter is declared prohibitive working my way down from that 90 degree turn and about 20 feet below me the shaft makes another 90 degree turn that is pretty crazy so I guess they're just following uh the narrow ore body down because it seems like in this mine The Ore body is not so much a vein it's more like a pipe a pipe uh along a fracture in the rock so here's this other turn in the ladder and you can see right here we have some sheet metal placed down and protect the the uh the cable from The Rock anyways I think that might actually be the bottom it's about 40 feet down from where I'm at but it might not be this mine has been uh pretty crazy so far so Xavier is almost down to this uh short little level I'm on right there we have a Edwards coffee can and uh I think this is the bottom of the shaft I think that's just a sump because this you can see is a sheet metal ore sheet they have to funnel the orange or the bucket and behind me we have a small stop no I think it was me actually we got this box of uh safety fuse it's very cool bear brand and uh over here we have a little room tucked back in here but I don't think it goes anywhere I think that's the end would be a real pain to get down into there because I have this uh built over I think this was an ore shoot for this section of the stove though it's interesting as you can see some of that flinty rock that we saw outside in the vein here up stay stay it does keep going not much to like put your feet on this ladder there we go this is much better he said [Music] my bad thanks Nick I'm Gonna Stand Back okay you're welcome I just wanted to make it more Dusty for you this is the knot come on don't be like that there we go this carbide 10 I did not oh nice guys it's a halfway good Nick except it's got a whole blown right at the bottom there's some more newspaper okay see if you can bring it up here maybe oh I guess we can just use the ladders cheese is on toast it wasn't this hard going down that's for sure thank you we made a boss we made it make my boy we made it so I made it up two sets of ladders um this one is definitely not the greatest so uh yeah I wouldn't really recommend uh using it don't try this at home anyways keeps going up this slider is a lot nicer and uh yeah no end in sight so far well made it up that ladder and you can see uh here's the orange shoot all the rocks are getting clogged right here anyways it keeps going up I had a uh incline so I'm going to check that out so this is pretty cool we have a half gallon jug here that's all intact looks like they're using it for drinking water that is a cool find okay so I broke into kind of a stop here and the Rays keeps going up to the upper rabbit we checked out before but I don't think I'm gonna climb up this any further it's pretty slick right there well I also noticed that we have uh a dead mouse here as well as a dead uh Raptor maybe that's another mouse feel bad for uh Jerry and uh Remy here I also found this very beat up velvet tobacco can time to get the hell out of here I figure I'll go uh refilm some of these artifacts may have passed over them a bit too quickly the first time yeah if you guys wanna read this newspaper feel free to pause the video see what else on here all right okay [Applause] Spirit of Norway keep your snacks got a pair of socks here big pay the national work glove I also found this other one too which is really nice looking Xavier found a nice uh Rock specimen here it's more of this glassy flinty material we've been finding it's got this well these ones aren't really making the sound but it sounds like glass or ceramic there's really strange stuff yep nice find so we hiked up the Mountainside a couple hundred feet and found an upper at it and I'm just gonna Dive Right In and supposedly this addeds and the one below connect um through that or shoots and a lot of your man away we saw I can definitely feel air getting sucked into the tunnel okay so it looks like we're out of t ight that faces out goes off to the left to head off here first I'll just check out the branching tunnels first and yeah this one looks like it's gonna dead end I can see all the rat's nests okay continuing down the main tunnel I didn't mention this yet but this is a very short added I'm gonna hunch over to walk in here and we've reached another branch and I see the top of the Winds as well as some ladders going up yeah oh hey man does that go up anywhere no I just looked about here and that's about it so it's just a small little stop yeah but there is a winds going down and I'm guessing that this will connect up with that uh or we saw in the lower Addison yeah I'm pretty sure this does that goes down a really long way you can see the vein they were clearing out here and this was a lead and Silver Mine by the way and they were chasing this vein down here you can see the frame will winless that they built into that false floor so likely this was started as a wins and then they dug that lower at it and raised up and connect uh connected to these Stokes here and then from there they just sent the ore down to the lower at it okay there's that wind and I'm gonna continue down the main attic however [Applause] looks like uh this is a backfill so this is pretty much the end I hope I can see the face over there I also found this roller here so that may have been for that winds before they connected it with the lower at it and yeah this definitely connects because the air is moving and this drift and then going down and the air was we could feel it coming out to the lower at it there's a bit of very faint miners graffiti on that wall but I cannot make it out so we made it to the highest workings of this mine and we found a little structure here and this must have been a small miners cap and you can see it actually had a fireplace built into it so yeah it's a very small but pretty neat structure and it looks like there might be some workings right over there oh this doesn't go anywhere yeah there's a little rays heading up that way because I'd actually go to the surface oh no that just faces out yep mattress faces out and this one does so yeah goes nowhere so let's go down into the one right below me and maybe we'll have better luck so I just got out of that short at it um here's the other one actually looks like a slight incline and they were following the zip of the vein right outside we have it looks like or it might be a hand Steel the tip's broken off though [Music] but anyways I don't think this is going to go in very far either this looks like a Rat's Nest to me yep that's the end right there so yeah not really too much to these these upper workings but this is where the vein outcropped so they decided I guess I guess these prospects were good enough that they decided to drive those lower edits foreign

Channel: Forgotten Mining History

Views: 26,306

Keywords: mine, mines, minerals, geology, gold, silver, lead, silver mining, mining, ore, exploring, exploration, abandoned, history, historic, california, desert, mojave

Id: SCgf18o5Bho

Length: 37min 32sec (2252 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 26 2023