Country Boy Mine - a gold mine in Breckenridge, CO

Country Boy mine was developed in the 1880s and produced gold at first. Then after the war, lead and zinc to make ammunition and galvanize steel, respectively.

Avits are the horizontal tunnels that are drilled and dynamited into the side of a mountain to get to the gold, lead, zinc or silver.

To blast a hole 1-1/2 foot deeper into the rock, miners had to pound 25 strategically placed holes in the rock. At first this was done with a hammer and puncher. Then the drill took it's place. The drill became known as the "widow maker" because the men who operated the drills died after 3-4 years of dust in the lungs. Then they added water to the drill, creating the pneumatic drill, which kept the dust down.

The only light was candlelight. There were no floorboards underneath. Just rails for the carts carrying stone debris and horizontal logs placed a few feet apart perpendicular to the rails. Men who lost their candlelight would get out by following the rail and the path of the water, which trickled downhill, as the avits are on a slight 2% grade to ease the removal of heavy debris.

There used to be 23,000 mines in Colorado. Now only one is operating, due to EPA and homeowner issues related to the arsenic and other chemicals required to process the ore. Now most gold mining is done in either South Africa, South America or Indonesia.

We didn't pan for gold flakes, though we had the opportunity.

See photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/vickijbrown/sets/72157622186827646/

French Gulch Road
Breckenridge, CO
$18.95 per person

Don't follow the GPS coordinates on their web site. They lead you up a very poorly maintained dirt road to nowhere.