The personal and professional website of Douglas Van Bossuyt
Driving through St. Elmo after coming over Hancock Pass was a bit of a shock. I thought this was supposed to be a ghost town but evidently no one told all of the people living there or all of the tourists.
Some neat old buildings off the main drag.
I wonder what St. Elmo was like in its heyday. There must have been a LOT more people.
The old Mary Murphy Mine has an extensive and well-preserved tramway system for hauling ore from the upper diggings down to the site of the former ore processing mill. The towers still stand in the forest as you head up the access road to the lower portion of the mine.
A Honeybadger and a few land cruisers heading up the hill.
Up at the lower part of the Mary Murphy Mine. There are many buildings that are surprisingly intact.
The old middle terminal on the ore tramway.
Looking into one of the buildings near the road. Sooner or later this will collapse.
At one time, this probably was offices for the mine.
Time to check out the ore tramway terminal! Ore would come down from the upper diggings to this terminal, dump out into a chute, and then be loaded into other tram cars that would take it down the mountain to the mill.
Travis and I went inside to check out the old workings. It’s basically an old school ski lift setup.
The business end of the drive system. This would have been powered by a steam piston and big leather drive belts.
The cable gets clamped by these teeth to pull it around the wheel.
Looking up toward the ore dump for the upper tramway.
Travis scoping stuff out. The building appears in remarkably good shape in this part although the floor is getting unstable. In another few years, this building will probably also collapse.
This is a small creek running alongside the tramway terminal. The rocks outside of the creek aren’t that color. There is some nasty stuff coming out of the old tunnels of the Mary Murphy Mine. I most certainly wouldn’t drink this water.
The creek in question.
The back side of the old tramway terminal isn’t holding up so well. It will probably collapse in a few more years.
The roof already caved in many years ago.
Heading back down toward St. Elmo. The big structure on the left is one of the tramway pylons.
Down the road further, we spotted this neat old railroad bridge.
At one point you could drive a car across it but now the road bypasses the bridge below.
