Review by Steve Voynick
Mining – October 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
Mining the Hard Rock – In the Silverton San Juans
by John Marshall with Zeke Zanoni
published in 1996 by Simpler Way Book Company
ISBN 0-9632028-2-0
JOHN MARSHALL intended his second book to be about the people and the town where he lives — __Silverton, Colorado. But his research efforts only seemed to dig up material about the mines, which is not surprising, considering that hardrock mining has been the economic, social and cultural heart and soul of Silverton for more than a century. In the end, Marshall ended up with a book about both mining and Silverton (the two are inseparable), a book which captures and defines the essence of what was arguably the archetypical Colorado mining town.
Mining the Hard Rock is not a conventional history, but rather a mix of newspaper, book, and magazine excerpts that support a wonderful collection of “living history” tales from men and women who worked in Silverton’s mines and mills as far back as the 1920s.
The book is a fascinating, first-person look at underground mining from the perspective of the miners themselves. It touches on everything from acetylene lamps and hand-steeling (Silverton miners occasionally hand-steeled even as late as the 1950s) to machine drilling and blasting. One particularly interesting vignette is “Single-Jacking Fool for a Dollar a Day,” a young miner’s personal account of hiring out at the Highland Mary Mine during the depths of the Depression.
Marshall describes the Silverton area’s major mines, including the Old Hundred, Mountain Queen, Bagley Tunnel, Shenandoah-Dives, and the Idarado. He leads readers through mills like the Iowa and the Mayflower, where former mill hands offer eyewitness accounts of operating shaker tables and flotation-separation vats, and describe what is now the lost art of amalgamation–the use of mercury to recover gold.
Over the years, 50 aerial cable tramways transported ores from Silverton’s high mines down to the lower mills. Marshall’s tales of tram construction, operation and accidents are just as exciting to read as it must have been to actually ride those swinging ore buckets.
No account of Silverton mining would be complete without the story of the Sunnyside Mine, and Marshall provides a detailed, dramatic account of one of mining’s strangest catastrophes ever. It occurred on June 4, 1978, when 12,300-foot-high Lake Emma broke through the Sunnyside’s high stopes. Within hours, the entire lake flooded 1,700 vertical feet of mine workings, exiting through the two-mile-long American Tunnel and “spewing mine equipment, mine timbers and debris out the portal like a shot from a cannon.” By a phenomenal stroke of luck, the catastrophe occurred on a Sunday evening when no one was in the mine.
Marshall credits Zeke Zanoni, a longtime Silverton miner who collaborated on the book, for his painstakingly accurate use of the vernacular — the “lingo” of the mines — that makes the book ring true.
This 8.5×11-inch hardcover book includes maps, drawings, a glossary of mining terms, and nearly 400 black-and-white photographs, most of which appear in print for the first time. Unfortunately, a dark and contrasty touch to many photographs diminishes a bit of their visual impact.
John Marshall and Zeke Zanoni may not have known what direction their book would take when they started out, but they can be proud of the final product. Mining the Hard Rock is an outstanding contribution to mining history and lore that will appeal to miners and non-miners alike.
–Steve Voynick