20 Stamp Ore Crusher
20 Stamp Ore Crusher, Detailed View, Superstition Mountain Museum, The Apache Trail, Arizona. ⇑
What has captured the attention of ambitious men in Arizona since the early 1800′s is the chance to strike gold. Indeed, just a stone’s throw away from the Superstition Mountain Museum, along The Apache Trail in Arizona, are the relics of the town of Goldfield. Goldfield was a thriving gold mining town that that grew around a rich deposit in the mid-1800′s. When the vein tapped out, the town quickly died. However, the inhospitable mountains of Superstition still echo with the legends of hidden gold and lost secret mines.
These photos feature one of the key technologies used in the gold mining industry of the 1800′s, the stamp ore crusher. This unit, carefully reconstructed at the Superstition Museum, is a well preserved 20 stamp ore crusher. This contraption was considered state of the art for recovering gold in the 1800′s. Looking at its gives a sense of the hard work it took to mine gold in those days, and the creative means employed to do so!
These two photos were shot with an Olympus E-300 with 14-42mm lens & polarizer filter. Mouse click directly on each photo to see a higher-resolution version of each image.
20 Stamp Ore Crusher , Superstition Mountain Museum, The Apache Trail, Arizona. ⇑