The Kennecott Mines
| ABOVE: The Bonanza in its heyday |
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Bonanza, Jumbo and Erie mines all had
a south-westerly orientation, placing each mine site in its own unique
position to catch the setting sun. Each mine sat a thousand or more feet
below the summit of Bonanza Ridge and was therefore also in the path of
rock slides and avalanches. The tree line was somewhere below the angle
station at 3,800 feet. Even the brush line ended well short of even the
lowest camp. Each was at the head of an aerial tram line. The Bonanza tram was 16,100 feet long and had a monthly capacity of 16,000 tons per month, using six-cubic-foot capacity buckets. The speed of travel was 500 feet per minute. The Jumbo tram was 16,500 feet long. It ran at 525 feet per minute. The 5000-foot long Glacier tram connected to the Jumbo at about the halfway point at the Junction Station, which showed on the map as Station No. 3. The angle station at 3,800 feet, was the midway point for the Bonanza aerial tram. The Jumbo and Bonanza trams terminated at floor level twelve of the mill at 2,300 feet. The tram at the Erie was for personnel and supplies. The tram at Mother Lode extended from the upper camp at the 5,200 level eastward to an an abandoned lower camp at McCarthy Creek. The company rebuilt the tram in 1920 as an alternative means to supply the upper camp, but the 6,000-foot tram remained out of use in 1924. Another tram extended from the Mother Lode upper camp to the Marvelous adit, two hundred feet above. The ore from the Mother Lode was trammed underground through the thirty-three degree Bonanza incline to the Bonanza adit at the 150 level, where the Bonanza aerial tram transferred the ore to the mill. |
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BELOW: The Bonanza
only thirty years after Birch visited it for the last time
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