Treasures At The Rainbow Mine - Part 1

Well, as promised in the 16 to 1 Mine series, we are back with a fan favorite (Duane) to show us around the Rainbow Mine. The Rainbow Mine was rich with gold, but it is now perhaps even richer with history! In fact, there is more than one “first” or “close to first” with this mine... What do I mean by that?

How about that Pelton Wheel for starters? To clarify, this was not the very first experimental Pelton Wheel as those were mostly made with wood. However, this was the first commercial Pelton Wheel off of the manufacturing line…

The first experimental Pelton Wheel made of iron was tested at the Mayflower Mine in Nevada City in 1878. However, Pelton did not patent his famous wheel until 1880 when he had perfected his creation. In a happy coincidence, the 10-stamp mill for the Rainbow Mine that you see in this video was built in 1880. Needing power for the mill, the Rainbow Mine purchased the very first commercial (non-experimental) Pelton Wheel.

This purchase of the first Pelton Wheel (along with many other details on the Rainbow Mine) is described in “The Gold Mines of the Alleghany-Forest City Mining District” by Raymond Wittkopp and Wayne Babros.

I mentioned more than one “first” at this mine… The remains of that aerial tramway that we were checking out by the creek? That was one of the first aerial tramways to be built by Andrew Smith Hallidie. Who was A.S. Hallidie? He was the promoter of the Clay Street Hill Railroad of San Francisco and is, therefore, widely regarded as the inventor of the cable car and the “father” of San Francisco’s famous cable cars.

We’re not done… Did you know that the world’s first long distance telephone line was run near the Rainbow Mine? Built in 1877 by the Ridge Telephone Company, the line ran from French Corral to Bowman Lake. It covered a distance of 58 miles and was operated by the Milton Mining Company. The site is now a California Historical Landmark.

Few of the gold mining towns and communities that used to exist in these mountains are here anymore and of those that remain, they are a sleepy shadow of their former glory. However, this area was the Silicon Valley of its day. The California Gold Rush unleashed a flood of innovation and experimentation to make the finding and getting of gold as efficient and as profitable as possible. These innovations soon spilled into the non-mining world.

With modern mining companies, such as Rio Tinto, experimenting with autonomous haul trucks and almost entirely automated mining operations (a guy in a control room watching robots mine), mining remains a pioneering, high-tech business.

However, technological development in sexy sectors like space exploration, genetic engineering, microprocessors, wireless communications, etc. have captured the public’s imagination and eclipsed the advances still being made in mining. That doesn’t mean dramatic advances aren’t being made though! And the Rainbow Mine is a reminder that mining has been helping to drive them for a while - long before Moore’s Law or Code Division Multiple Access or ion propulsion.

Thank you again, Duane, for a great tour!

*****

All of these videos are uploaded in HD, so I’d encourage you to adjust your settings to the highest quality if it is not done automatically.

You can see the gear that I use for mine exploring here: https://bit.ly/2wqcBDD

As well as a small gear update here: https://bit.ly/2p6Jip6

You can see the full TVR Exploring playlist of abandoned mines here: https://goo.gl/TEKq9L

Thanks for watching!

*****

Growing up in California’s “Gold Rush Country” made it easy to take all of the history around us for granted. However, abandoned mine sites have a lot working against them – nature, vandals, scrappers and various government agencies… The old prospectors and miners that used to roam our lonely mountains and toil away deep underground are disappearing quickly as well.

These losses finally caught our attention and we felt compelled to make an effort to document as many of the ghost towns and abandoned mines that we could before that colorful niche of our history is gone forever. But, you know what? We enjoy doing it! This is exploring history firsthand – bushwhacking down steep canyons and over rough mountains, figuring out the techniques the miners used and the equipment they worked with, seeing the innovations they came up with, discovering lost mines that no one has been in for a century, wandering through ghost towns where the only sound is the wind... These journeys allow a feeling of connection to a time when the world was a very different place. And I’d love to think that in some small way we are paying tribute to those hardy miners that worked these mines before we were even born.

So, yes, in short, we are adit addicts… I hope you’ll join us on these adventures!

#ExploringAbandonedMines
#MineExploring
#AbandonedMines
#UndergroundMineExploring

Видео Treasures At The Rainbow Mine - Part 1 канала TVR Exploring