Pounding, rather than grinding

Running the Yellow Jacket

 The Western Museum of Mining and Industry (WMMI) is home to an actual working stamp mill, the Yellow Jacket, that they fire up during special events a couple times a year. Stamp mills were used to pulverize ore from the mines.

In May, WMMI member Charlie Connell taught a Stamp Mill 101 course for anyone wanting to learn how to run the museum’s historically important Yellow Jacket II Stamp Mill. Included in this course were instructions on safety, how to run the various components such as the stamps themselves, the Wilfley Concentrating Table, and the water flow, how to care for the parts, and other related topics of interest. The museum may be conducting additional courses in the future.

If you’re interested in signing up for similar educational programs, please contact museum director Rick Sauers at rsauers@wmmi.org or call the museum at 719-488-0880. The Western Museum of Mining & Industry is located at 225 North Gate Boulevard in Colorado Springs (Exit 156 of Interstate 25).

Visit the museum’s website, www.wmmi.org, to learn more about the museum and its programs.

Photos by Rob Carrigan

WMMI welcomes back Machinery Days

After 17 year hiatus, tractors and machines spin again

Photos and Story by Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

The Western Museum of Mining and Industry (WMMI) hosted the return of the annual Pikes Peak Antique Machinery Days on their historic 27-acre Reynolds Ranch, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, May 12 to May 14, with displays by WMMI, the Arkansas Valley Flywheelers, Front Range Antique Power Association, antique automobile clubs, tractor pulls, and more. A line of tractors, not seen since 2000, ran around perimeter of the grounds.

“Not a bad showing for being gone for 17 years,” said Harold Hopkins of the Front Range Antique Power Association and Arkansas Valley Flywheelers. “Pretty good, in fact, for our first year back.”

The event, which featured antique tractor pulls, unique items at the silent auction, antique engines and tractors on display, as well as the museum’s operating steam engines, was held for 14 years from 1986 to 2000, but left for complicated reasons, said Hopkins. At the height of the show in past years, he said they were able to draw 400 engines and 200 tractors.

Antique cars shared the row with tractors and machines

Gene Wesback, of Franktown, has owned his orange, modified Model A for 68 years now. Since he was just 13, and could only drive around his parent’s yard. Wesback has tinkered with it.

But it was kept in pretty much the configuration as when bought it all those years ago, until he got into high school, he said.

Then, he dropped a flathead Ford engine in it, changed the wheels, modified the firewall with a chrome version, painted it. But his first car is still with him, and he likes to show off at events like the recent Antique Machinery Days at the Western Museum of Mining and Industry.

The former Air Force officer and fighter pilot, is member of Rocky Mountain Model A Club, and attended the recent event along with other antique car owners.

Photo information:

1. Gene Wesback, of Franktown, takes a shade break on the bumper of his modified Model A he has owned for 68 years now.
2. Sandy Boese, and her family gather around 1931 Auburn Phaeton, that has been a member of the family since 1966.
3. An Edsel maneuvers into place.
4. Model A peeks around the corner.

Perfect weather for WMMI harvest festival

Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan@yourpeaknews.com Every fall the Harvest Festival at Reynolds Ranch draws thousands to pick out a pumpkin or two, experience the lost arts of stamp milling, black smithing, cider pressing, gold panning and maybe — take a tractor ride and watch the steam shovel operate. "Colorado Springs has been growing at an unprecedented pace for more than a century now and much of our colorful and unique history is being lost in the process. The Western Museum of Mining and Industry is located on the property now known as the Reynolds Ranch," says information from the museum. "We are all ready for it," said Rick Sauers, executive director of the Museum, earlier last week at a Chamber of Commerce function. "Expecting good weather and large crowds." Weather for the two day event over the weekend was exceptional. The annual celebration is fundraiser for the museum and features all of the above, plus a whole lot more. "In the early 1890s, Sara and Joseph Reynolds moved west to Colorado from Pennsylvania and built the Little Red Farm House. Their farm became a working ranch that included a saw-mill and dairy farm. Over the following century, many people important to Colorado Front Range history called the ranch home, including Lazarus Khan – namesake of the mineral Khanite – and founder of the Colorado Springs Mineralogical Society," according to officials at the museum. "The Reynold’s house was originally part of the town of Husted, CO. Husted provided many of the raw materials necessary for the rapidly growing urban center of Colorado Springs, including milk, ice, lumber, and fox fur. With the slow decline of mining around the Front Range region, Husted slowly faded away into history. During the 1950s, the US Air Force purchased the land that Husted occupied and removed all of the remaining homes and buildings," according to their research. The only house that survived the too common fate of Husted was the Reynolds home and their ranch. Once over 700 acres, it is now a 27-acre museum dedicated to preserving and interpreting Colorado’s mining, industrial and regional history. "Included in the State Register of Historic Properties in 1997, the Reynolds Ranch House has two distinctive characteristics. First, it is a Queen Anne Farmhouse in a rural setting. Second, it is the last vestige of the once-thriving community of Husted, a former Denver & Rio Grande railroad supply town and depot. Prior to the museum’s ownership, nine different families owned the house. The Previous owners have made minor modification over the years. The museum intends to restore the home as an 1894 Queen Anne farmhouse before providing tours and other interpretive activities," museum information says. ### Photo Information: Apples, raised near in Pueblo, decorated a vendor table Saturday morning. Board member Mark Yoder and volunteer Joe Gray gear up the cider press. Rachael Foote (9), and Robert Foote (7), look over the pumpkins in the patch. Riley Ewel (left) is showing a small nugget of color in the gold pan. Beckett Anible, almost 2, and his parents, Scott and Nadine, find the donkey livestock (Nugget and Chism) captivating. Doing the height check on the great pumpkin in the yard. Tomatoes, beans, potatoes, eggplant, peppers and other produce galore. Steve Barry captains a 1936 John Deere tractor for tours of the facility.

Blacksmith, architect, model builder, preservationist, Ross pounds it out with precision

There is a Finish proverb that holds 'No one is a blacksmith when they are born.' But sometimes, a deep interest in history, a gift for precision, strong focus on detail, and an opportunity to learn — point folks in that direction.  Lowell Ross, of Woodland Park, was practicing the craft Saturday afternoon Oct. 11, at the Western Museum of Mining and Industry, near Northgate Road and I-25. 
"It hasn't been working much since the 1990s," Ross said of the WMMI smith works, as he pounded out several curved knives at demonstrations during the weekend harvest festival. He thinks he might have been the last one operating it, in about 2001.
"Our Blacksmith shop is now up and running and we had blacksmithing demonstrations this weekend at our Reynolds Ranch Harvest Festival," said WMMI director Jeff Tapparo about Friday's and Saturday's (Oct. 10 and 11) events. 
Ross said there are eventual plans to restore completely, the complex line shaft machine shop that incorporates trip wheels, clutch mechanisms, and flat belts to power grinders, drills and other equipment.
He picked up the trade watching a few old timers that knew a thing or two about black smithing and the skills go hand-in-hand with his day job.  He is an architect with Fine Line Design Studio, LLC,  of Woodland Park. 
"I’ve been a practicing architect for years, designing commercial and residential structures throughout the world.  I have also been building professional commercial models for clients all over the county."  He also professes a love of history that has helped in the creation of Anvil Mountain Models, a sideline that develops historically accurate scale models.  
"I started scratch building scale models in my early childhood, winning my first model contest at age 14.  Since then many of my models have won national awards  – best of show and several first place awards at National Narrow Gauge Conventions.  Being an architect, I offer well thought out kits with innovative and time saving techniques and clear comprehensive instructions.""At a very early age my family spent our free time exploring old ghost towns and mine sites, fostering a love for historic structures.  Since childhood I’ve continued to explore old mine sites and ghost towns throughout the United States, and have spent countless hours hiking to hundreds of remote mills/mines/ghost towns," he said.
"My personal sketch books are full of detail drawings documenting these sites and great old structures.  Living in Colorado allows me the opportunity to continue exploring many historic sites.   In the 1990’s I lived in Telluride and Ouray Colorado during which I fell in love with the history and beauty of the San Juan Mountains.  Since then I have spent a considerable amount of time researching and documenting many of the structures throughout the San Juan's – many of which are from Silverton." 
"The kits I offer come from these years of research and documentation. I personally model Otto Mears' three railroads with a special emphasis on the Silverton Northern.  Many of the kits offered and future offerings will reflect my personal interests."
To top that off, he is also restoring, in his shop locally, RGS Inspection Car #1, rebuilt from a converted Model T Ford, as an inspection vehicle for Superintendent W.D. Lee on the Rio Grande Southern. Although not a Goose, the forerunner perhaps led to development. It rolled into the Dolores River according to the lore in 1913, and Lee and his wife jumped before it hit the water. Road Master J. C. Gilland didn't, and was seriously hurt. Mrs. Lee reportedly refused to ride it after that mishap, saying it bounced too much. In 1925, it was wrecked again, this time, beyond repair, and was scrapped.
Locally, his accurate scale models appear in the Cripple Creek Heritage Center, a complex replica of the Will Rodgers Shrine of the Sun for  El Pomar, and new project that will replicate the tram line at the Buffalo Boy Mine for the Silverton Northern Interpretive Center. 
Ross said he started smithing in the 1990s when he wanted to create historically accurate brackets for one of his buildings and hired a blacksmith to build them. "They asked me if I wanted to give them a hand, and that was the start of it. "
 He says that typically, blacksmithing was a trade learned as master/apprentice but there are not those same opportunities available today. He estimates he spends about 1,200 to 1,500 hours a year at the craft — usually at three or four hours at a time, because it takes long time to get the forge hot. 
He would eventually like to develop it, as a business, perhaps with architectural hardware development as the focus. 
He has a lean-to type shop at home and plans for whole new building, where he might incorporate the use of two vintage air hammers (a 100-pound and 50-pound, the largest weighs nearly 4,000 pounds and takes up significant space. Plans also include line (modeled after the ones used from about 1918 to 1930) that enables him to run his other vintage equipment via flat belts and other related technology of the period... "my own mechanical mini-museum." 
Ross says a person can get into to smithing for near nothing, by using makeshift equipment in the form of an anvil made of railroad rail for $50 to $80, and brake drum modified  to become a bellows for the forge. But vintage anvils now go for about $5 per pound (which adds up with the weight of an anvil) and other equipment that was often scrapped in '70s and '80s as blacksmithing was seen somewhat of a 'dying art.'
Today, there has been a major resurgence. 
"Historically, it was fixing tools and making tools, wheelwrights, ferriers, and such. But recently there is a new-found appreciation for the art aspects based on raw skill and craftmanship. It goes along well with my work as an architect with the expression of joinery of materials, it is an easy transition..."
As an architect, the overlap for him is manifested in the economy of architectural preservation, joinery of timbers, and old-fashioned arts, used to build structures that place emphasis on beauty of material, structure and details. "Instead of taking any two pieces of material and unceremoniously slapping them together," Ross said.
Structures that locally that demonstrate some of that forethought include work that he has collaborated on including Keller Williams building in Woodland Park, structures at Sturman Industries, Focus on the Family, and many Church buildings all along the Front Range.