The World Museum of Mining, located adjacent to the campus of Montana Tech (formerly known as the Montana School of Mines) in Butte, America, occupies the old Orphan Girl Mine site. The mine closed in 1956 and what remains of the mine today is the head frame, the hoist house, and the tramway. As a part of the World Museum of mining, the remains of the old mine share the grounds with mining artifacts brought in from elsewhere.
Butte, by the way, is a mile high (referring to elevation) and a mile deep (referring to the depth of the mines). The Orphan Girl Mine only went down 2,731 feet.
Shown above is a Rocker Box, also known at a Cradle, which is used to separate gold from other materials. It is hand-operated, easily homemade, and portable.
Shown above are the showers and mine dry. According to the display:
“Miners coming to the surface from their shift could be soaking wet from ground water present in the minds or water to stifle dust during drilling. They could also be covered in machine grease and oil used to keep moving metal parts lubricated in their machines. Having a place to shower and change back into street clothes was the purpose of the dry.”
Some miners would step in the showers fully clothed and then use borax soap to wash away the grease and copper water (copper water was very acidic and could destroy a set of clothes in a single shift). The wet clothes would then be hung in baskets to dry before the next shift. The dry room was kept hot.
Shown above is the recharging station for the miners’ headlamps.
Shown above are some of the drilling tools used in the mines. According to the display:
“Silica, in the form of quartz, is part of most ore and associated rock. When silica gets into the lungs, it stays there forever, gradually building up and sealing off more and more of the alveoli, so the blood gets less and less oxygen. Eventually the miner can’t breathe and dies a slow, painful death from silicosis, also known as miner’s consumption, ‘the con’, or ‘rock in the box.’”
Shown above is one of the large compressors which created the compressed air to run the drills and other machinery in the mine. Compressed air was piped throughout the mine and was used to run loaders, hoists, hand tools, ventilation fans, and pumps.
Shown above is the head frame for the Orphan Girl Mine. From here, cages were dropped into the mine which carried miners and ore. The ore was hoisted at 1,550 feet per minute, but the miners’ cage traveled at only 800 feet per minute (modern elevators run at less than 450 feet per minute).
The cage shown above would carry ten miners.
