Eureka spirits are finest anywhere

 

Eureka, Colorado, about 1900. William Henry Jackson photo.

 Long suffering Ghost town trouble continues

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Right from the start, the spirits in the San Juan County ghost town of Eureka have seemed to want folks living in the place to suffer from time to time.

"Eureka is suffering more rapid erasure than the results of mere decay," wrote historian Lambert Florin in his 1970s book "Ghost Towns of the West."

"Its store buildings are torn down, the lumber to be put into more active service in Silverton. There is no main street in Eureka, which once boasted 'the finest saloons anywhere,' This pride in alcohol emploriums had been continuous since 1896, when, of the several buildings comprising Eureka, the saloon was the finest.

Recently, even in the years following Florin's advise, things don't seem to be improving.

January 21, 2022

The Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Interior (DOI), the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the State of Colorado announced a settlement with Sunnyside Gold Corporation and its Canadian parent company Kinross Gold Corporation resolving federal and state liability related to the Bonita Peak Mining District Superfund site, which includes the Gold King Mine and many other abandoned mines near Silverton, Colorado.

If entered by the court, this agreement provides for the continued cleanup of mining-related contamination within the Upper Animas Watershed and will protect public health and the environment by improving water quality, stabilizing mine source areas, and minimizing unplanned releases.

Under the agreement, Sunnyside Gold Corporation and Kinross Gold Corporation will together pay $45 million to the United States and State of Colorado, and the United States will dismiss its claims against Sunnyside Gold Corporation and Kinross Gold Corporation. The United States will also contribute $45 million to the continuing cleanup at the Bonita Peak Mining District Superfund site and Sunnyside Gold Corporation and Kinross Gold Corporation will dismiss its claims against the United States.

“Today’s settlement holds these companies accountable for their past mining operations at the site,” said Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. “This settlement demonstrates the Justice Department’s and cleanup agencies’ continuing efforts, together with our state partners, to ensure that Superfund sites are investigated and remediated.”

“This settlement addresses the cleanup responsibility of the private mining companies and the federal government and ensures that site cleanup work will continue,” said Acting Assistant Administrator Larry Starfield of EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “Working with our state and federal government partners, the cleanup will protect the environment and the health of the people who live, work, and enjoy recreational activities in the area.”

“This settlement will allow EPA to continue our important cleanup work at the site to protect human health and the environment,” said Director Betsy Smidinger of EPA Region 8’s Superfund and Emergency Management Division. “We look forward to working with our state and local partners to use these funds which will be utilized to improve the environment for the people who work, live, and recreate in the area.”

“The Gold King spill is a vivid reminder of the dangers associated with the thousands of abandoned and unclaimed hard rock mines across the United States, particularly in the West,” said Deputy Secretary of the Interior Tommy Beaudreau. “Mining companies should be held accountable for these sites that put communities and tribal lands at risk of disastrous pollution. I’m proud that the Department of the Interior was able to play a part in this important settlement.”

“We are committed to protecting where Coloradan’s live, work and play,” said Director Tracie White of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Hazardous Material and Waste Management Division. “This settlement will allow continued cleanup of this Superfund site, in coordination with our federal and local partners, to ensure the protection of human health and the environment for generations to come,”

EPA leads cleanup activities at the Bonita Peak Mining District Superfund site, and DOI and USDA retain authority on publicly managed land. Recent interim cleanup work at the site, including efforts to stabilize mine waste and reduce contaminant releases to surface waters from source areas, have improved environmental conditions and will inform the development of future cleanup remedies for the entire site under an adaptive management framework. EPA has already spent over $75 million on cleanup work at the site and expects to continue significant work at the site in the coming years.

December, 2021

Contractors working on an EPA mine waste drainage remediation project at the Gold King Mine, now owned by the federal government and lying more than a mile from SGC’s Sunnyside mine, breached the plug in the lowest-level tunnel, resulting in pressurized acidic water contaminated with heavy metals to burst out of the tunnel.

The waste flooded into Cement Creek, high above the mountain town of Silverton. The bright yellow-orange wastewater flowed into the Animas River and caused panicked reactions by communities downstream as far away as New Mexico and Utah. It also caused communities to shut down drinking water plants and irrigation diversions.

EPA scientists said the contamination was mostly iron and that other metals in the water posed no human health hazard.

Earlier, in 1991

In 1991, after more than 140 years of mining activity, the Sunnyside mine, the last major mining operation in Silverton, Colo., closed down. In its heyday Silverton produced two million ounces of gold, 51 million ounces of silver and hundreds of millions of pounds of copper, zinc and lead from the enormous collapsed San Juan volcanic caldera.

 August 5,  2015

On August 5, 2015, contractors working on a mine-waste drainage remediation project for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) breached the plug in a tunnel at the entrance to the seventh level of the Gold King mine on Cement creek, above Silverton, Colo.

The pressure of an estimated three million gallons of water laden with metals including mostly iron, but also lead, aluminum, zinc, and cadmium blew out the plug installed in 2003 and poured down Cement creek into the Animas river, creating a plume of yellow-orange water that panicked residents as far away as New Mexico and Utah, but which was quickly diluted and according to EPA chemists was never toxic to humans. View an animation of the Gold King Mine plume.

To put this in perspective the EPA says on its Gold King mine website, “The Gold King Mine release was equivalent to four to seven days of ongoing GKM acid mine drainage. The total amount of metals entering the Animas River following the 9-hour release was comparable to the amount of metals carried by the river in one to two days of high spring runoff. However, the concentrations of metals were higher than historical acid mine drainage. Samples collected did not exceed EPA’s recreational screening levels.”

June 4, 1978

 

Famously here in Colorado, there was Lake Emma, and the Sunnyside Mine incident.

"On June 4, 1978, a major physical disaster struck the Sunnyside Mine. At that time rich gold was being mined on the Spur vein under Lake Emma. Although previous core drilling had been done to determine that the mine was a safe distance from the bottom of the lake, 70 feet above.  The lake had been formed thousands of years ago by the scouring action of a glacier. When the glacier passed over the hard quartz-gold vein, it plucked a thin sliver of rock from the downhill side of the vein.  The sliver, about 20 feet in diameter, extended downward about 65 feet below the bottom of the lake," wrote Allen  G. Bird in "Silverton Gold," in 1986.

"On a Sunday afternoon, when the mine crews were at home, lake Emma broke through the spot and emptied thousands of gallons of water and over one million tons of mud into the mine. The crater on the surface was the length of three football fields and about 500 feet wide. The water and the mud had about 1,800-foot fall to reach the American Tunnel level. A 20-ton Plymouth Locomotive parked below the main ore pass was completely flattened. All timber, except for a 200-foot section between "G" and "F" levels, was stripped from the Washington Incline Shaft. All mining tunnels, including the mile-long Terry and the two-mile-long American were filled to the top with mud. Although the mine was insured for $900 million, the insurance company refused to pay any damages. After an expensive court battle, the insurance company was ordered to pay, although they actually paid only about $5,500,000. Had the breakthrough occurred any time other than Sunday, over 125 men would have been killed, leaving no survivors," wrote Bird.

"We all had a close call when Lake Emma  flooded and caved in the mine," said Silverton Miner Terry Rhoades in oral histories captured in "Colorado Mining Stories, Hazards, Heroics, Humor" by Caroline Arlen. " The engineers had actually tested it under the lake for depth. They figured it was a fault going up there, because there was real bad water coming through. They didn't realize it was half full of mud," Rhoades said.

"The guys that were driving that stope — I think it was Fred and Harry Castle — they refused to go to work that Friday night because they said that water was pouring out of there. That Sunday it came through. Luckily nobody was underground. There were places, like where I had been working, where the mud wouldn't have got you, but there was no way you would have been able to make your way out of there, You would have starved to death." 

In the same book, Rick Ernst agrees.

"When Lake Emma caved in and flooded the mine, that was the beginning of the end, right there. The lake was over the mine. I guess they had us mine up too close to it. It was real lucky it waited until Sunday to cave in. it could have happened any other day of the week. Nobody was underground Sunday. The usual shift was about 125 people. It would have killed everybody," Ernst said.
 

But there were other tragedies prior.

 

1860s 

 

"The  beginnings of the place were in 1860, when Baker, (for whom Baker's Park, the locale of Silverton was named) and his party did some digging in the banks of the rushing Animas River. Eureka was no boom-town, but grew steadily and slowly. The Sunnyside mill was easily the leader as a producer of income for the populace.There was even train service available to Eureka beginning in 1896," Florin noted.

"Looked at from above , on the road continuing up the canyon, the town is seen to be situated on an 'island' extending over the elbow formed by a curve in the river. This got the center of the town out from under the terrific avalanches so common in late winter, though fringe areas were devastated," he said.

1938

 

"When the Sunnyside mills closed 1938, the town died. Now, even the mill is gone. Only impressive foundations run up the steep mountainside of camp town glory days."

1911

In 1911, William Terry enlarged and refitted the Eureka Mill with a zinc ore separator, which increased its operations. Joseph managed a workforce of 90 employees producing 180 tons of ore per day, double the usual average per worker.

 1917

In 1917, the U.S. Smelting, Mining, and Refining Company (USSRMC) made a generous offer to the Terrys for the Sunnyside Mine. Forming the Sunnyside Mining & Milling Company, the Sunnyside, Washington, and Gold Prince groups were consolidated. The company made plans for yet another mill at Eureka capable of treating 500 tons per day and of finishing driving the Terry Tunnel from the mill site to undercut the vein system at great depth.

Sunnyside Mill fire in 1919.

But, no sooner had they bought these mines when the company was plagued by problems, including the Sunnyside surface plant burning down, forcing the mine’s temporary closing, the influenza epidemic of 1918, avalanches, and power blackouts. However, the Sunnyside Mill was completed at Eureka, the surface plant was rebuilt, and the mine complex housed 220 workers.

During these busy construction days, Eureka was busy, as workers filled the available housing and provided business for local merchants. With the Sunnyside Mill finished in 1918, the town’s permanent population grew to about 250 people. The town boasted several boarding houses, a barbershop, J.F. Warnock’s Mercantile, McJunkin Station that sold feed and fuel, the Eureka Hotel and restaurant, A.L. Lashbaugh Livery, a doctor named William Carter, C.F. Worden’s billiard hall, as well as several mining companies and assayers.

Pool hall in a ghost and gold-mining town in 1940. Russell Lee photo.

 1920

A national recession hit, in the early 1920s and industrial metals’ price dropped to the point that operations at the Sunnyside Mine were suspended once again. In 1922, the mine reopened, 216 men were working, and 500 tons of ore were processed per day. The company then began to focus on developing its adjoining claims, and by the next year, its workforce reached 360 men.

Sunnyside Mill, Eureka (San Juan County) Colorado; shows mining ore processing buildings on a hillside, in 1929.

1930

The Great Depression caused the Sunnyside to suspend work in 1930, and it remained closed until 1937. That year, the Sunnyside Mining & Milling Company was Colorado’s largest gold producer. The accessible ore reserves were almost gone, and in 1939, the company laid off the workforce and closed the mine.

1939

The Silverton-Eureka segment of the Silverton Northern Railroad also stopped operations in 1939. In the final years of its operation, the railroad operated a unique railcar and a favorite of the miners. The little railbus “The Casey Jones” was built in the shops at the Sunnyside Mill. It can be seen today at the San Juan Historical Society’s museum in Silverton.

1941

The Sunnyside Mill continued to operate until 1941. The railroad removed its tracks in 1942, and the post office closed the same year. The mill facilities were sold for scrap in 1948. By this time, the town was abandoned and comprised of empty buildings.

Automobile modified to be a rail car at the Sunnyside mine, Eureka (San Juan County), Colorado.  William L. Fick photo.