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September 1940. Eureka, Colorado. "The Sunnyside mill, now abandoned. There is still gold ore here but the best has been taken out and now the lower grades which are expensive to process do not attract the mine and mill operators." Acetate negative by Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
Thanks for the history. Wonder what it sounded like?
I was looking at the picture and wondering how the gold was processed when ManyBuicks mentioned the flotation method. Hmmm. Lookup gold and flotation leads to videos of small scale operations. Which leads to where did they get the water to run the mill. No visible pumps. Aha. They took water Lake Emma, above the site of Eureka which led to
An 'Oh Crap! moment' in Colorado mining history
http://coloradorestlessnative.blogspot.com/2014/03/an-oh-crap-moment-in-...
Photo via Google satellite.
Back in 1940, gold sold for $35 an ounce. If the mining company could mine and refine it for less, they did. If it cost more, they didn't.
The production cost in 2018 is about $1250 an ounce.
The mill structure used the flotation process for extraction. Gravity played an important role in the multi-step operation, thus the hillside construction.
Only the stair-step foundation remains in this recent Google photo.
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