Ophir Mine Exploration

Steve and I joined a group of people for an exploration of a mine last weekend. The mine is in the town of Ophir which is on the other side of our mountains between Tooele and Lehi. The mine is privately owned which turns out to be pretty lucky. Apparently the federal government is trying to close old mines permanently by collasping the tunnels for good. Back before the 1970's it was a full functioning mine, but the company ran out of money so it was bought for the price of the back-taxes owed. So this person that bought the mine, bought the whole mountain for which the tunnels are beneath. The tunnels add up to about 22 miles. Our tour was given to us by Mohave Underground, which is a company that is trying to protect these mines from destruction and to try to save history. They are fighting the federal government over these mines and the ones that are privately owned are safe but the rest are at risk. 

These pictures are of the old carts and mine entrance. It's pretty cool seeing all of these old things. We learned that to create these tunnels would take a long time. Each shift would come to work and move forward 8 feet. They would use dynamite and then have to remove all of the rubble which would take an entire shift. Then the next shift would come and start all over for the next 8 feet. So you can imagine how long that would take to get these tunnels created. They would follow the metal in the walls and that's how these tunnels were made. 

Most of the tunnels are very safe as it is solid rock around you. But there were parts that they told us not to touch any of the wood that is supporting the walls and ceiling because they were not sure of how sensitive it would be. You would look at the wood and you can tell that part of it was rotted out from the moisture in the tunnels. The picture in the bottom right corner above is of a ladder that went over a hole. We had to climb over that to get into another room. It was sure a little scary because you have no idea what's below because it is so dark. All the light we had was from our headlamps. 

These pictures above were found where the main cables were. Most of the tunnels has lights strung throughout. They had pin-ups of women on the wall to look at. Back in the day, they believed that it was bad luck to have women in the mine. So I guess being stuck in there all day with men, they atleast had to have pictures to look at. 
To bring the carts of rock up from the bottom of these tunnels, cables were used to pull them. The men that operated the cables were elected into these positions because the men in the tunnels had to trust them. From the bottom of the tunnels which could be 400 to 1000 feet below, the men would use a system of bells to communicate with the cable operaters. The operator had to have very good hearing and a good grasp of how to work the cables. When the men were done working, they would ride up in the mine cars. 
Above is a picture of one of the old electrical converters. These are massive compared to what we are used to today. Inside some of them is oil. They told us that this oil is no longer used due to it being highly carcinogenic. This picture is of different things we found in the tunnel. The middle is of Betty Crocker chocolate pudding. The label started to flake off when the guy picked it up. It was so cool to see the things left behind. Old magazines and newspapers were everywhere. We found this eggshell still intact. The miners would bring eggs in to eat but not how we would eat them now. They were raw and the would tap the tops off and suck out the egg for protein. 
The blue stuff on the wall is some sort of calcium. The top right picture is of water that filled one of the tunnels. The spots on the picture is dust that was in the air. A lot of our pictures had these spots which was unfortunate. The sign "this way out" led to the tunnel with the water. There was another sign in the water that said "this way out". There are a few emergency exits that they posted like that. In one room, we all turned out our lights and it's incredible how dark it is in there. You can't see a thing, not your hand an inch from your face. I couldn't imagine if you lost your light and had no one around you. You would be in trouble and would either have to wait for someone to find you and try to crawl your way out. 

We really had a lot of fun touring this mine and learning about the history of mines.