7th Street Shops - (Revised Post 35 B) Romley, Colorado; Mary Murphy - Post 37

There were 3 mills built side by side at Romley,  - except that only one existed at a time. The last mill, after the 1908 fire stood in the immediate foreground. The 2nd stood  just behind the small trees and bush in the background. The first was built in 1882 and was beyond the tall pines out of view. 1987 - Poole photo. 

Tram station above Tram House, Romley, 1987 - Poole

Over time, the Mary Murphy lode was very productive, as evident by the expanding facilities at the property. The primary adit of level 4 was less than a mile up Pomeroy Gulch and roughly 300' below the Mary Murphy adit. According to the general narrative, this tunnel opened in 1883 as that was when the first tramway to Morley was constructed. The tram was a single, continuous cable, suspended by 50 towers over a distance of almost 5000 feet. (It is difficult to verify this distance on modern aerial maps). The towers were between 50 and 100 feet apart. There were 96, buckets on the cable; each with 200lb capacity. The buckets were self loading and unloading. A single operator at each end had a brake to stop the circuit when required. A full cycle of the circuit took 40 minutes (about 144 buckets an hour). Over a 24 hour period the tram could transfer 128 tons. With half of the buckets loaded at all times there was always ten tons of gravitational force to move the circuit. 

In 1910, the mining company paid each tram operator 20 cents per loaded coal car . If the tram ran 24 hours continuously, it could fill a little more than 5, 25ton capacity cars.  Since 1897 the C&S had  been modernized its coal car fleet with over 500 new 50,000lbs capacity units. There were very few of the older 10 to 20 ton cars left.

At Mile Post 155.6 (Post 32) there is still a terminal tram house above the foundation of the second mill. When the first mill burned down in the early 1890s, it isn't clear if the tramway terminated within the mill itself. The mill had stood very near the railroad's iron truss bridge. It is possible the tram house pictured here is the original building, however, it seems more likely that this was a later construction.

There were at least 2 tramways out of Pomroy Gulch to Romley (detectable in aerial photos). In addition to the tram from Level 4, there was also a later tram that connected either Level 8 or Level 9 to Romley. Level 9 in particularly, was important to the West and East Pat Lodes because they were accessed only from that level within the mine complex. The Tram in question was probably built much later after the second mill burned down. 

Settling ponds were reinforced with timbers - Poole

Tram House from Col. Kelley's road above Romley, 1987 - Poole.

Not all ores were the same. The high value metals taken from Chrysolite were gold and silver with copper, lead and zinc in more abundance. The Iron ore was the most abundant. The complex at Romley, clearly reflected the way different ores were sorted and handled. High value ore, the gold and silver, were passed to the stamp mill where they were pulverized, concentrated and in the case of gold, amalgamated. The concentrations were dried in settling ponds (located below the railroad grade and above the town of Romley).

Less valuable ore (iron, lead, zinc, etc.) were loaded into open top cars. This ore, stored in bins was sent down a wooden chutes to a waiting coal cars. Photos disclose chutes existed at a couple of locations above the railroad sidings. 

The railroad grade at Romley was 4%. Empty cars were spotted on the siding above the chute and eased under the chute with the aid of gravity. As each car was filled it was drifted down the 

siding to await pick up by the proper train. This meant there was often strings of loaded coal cars sitting on the Pomeroy bridge. It was most likely that this operation was the primary reason for the additional trestle next to the Iron truss bridge. The framed trestle was installed in the early 1890s (bridge 1178 -1/2 see part xx).

It appears that a tram was also installed in the early to mid 1890s from the Pat Murphy which opened on the east side of Chrysolite Mt. to the rails above what would become the location of the Golf Mill. This tram terminated at a tram ore bin at that location. This was at about M.P. 154.7; not quite a mile below Romley. There was probably a rail siding at this ore bin as well.

By the turn of the century, there were several levels (arterial drifts) within the mines. Tunnels were drifts started on the side of the hill and bore into the rock in hopes of striking the lode. Ore was usually transported from the tunnels to loading or milling facilities by tramways.  

In 1904 the MMMC sold the entire property to an English syndicate. The new owners, headquartered in London, formed the Golf Mining Company,  The sale included both the Mary and Pat Murphy mines, all of the property at Romley (that included the townsite) and the property near the 50,000 gal. Lady Murphy water tower that was 3/4 of a mile below M.P. 155.6). 

 Among the first improvements, the GMC replaced of the 2nd mill at Romley after the 1908 fire. In 1911 George Colling (apparently the manager of the GMC?) began construction of the 200 ton capacity Golf Mill. This was the 100 stamp concentrator located  between the tram house loading bin and Lady Murphy tank.  The complex was below the railroad grade on the south side of Chalk Creek. The complex included the mill, a large power house and settling tanks along the creek. The operation used a new process that could make lower density ore pay and many of the existing tailings were reprocessed at both the Golf and Romley mills.

Crop from  photo above; structure is sheathed with brick-pattern embossed metal, painted red. Metal  sheathing helped protect structures from fire. Note also; the location is private property, 1987 - Poole

Level 14 Tunnel, Pomeroy Creek, above Romley, 1983 - Poole

 

In 1914 they were processing ore at 0.28 oz of gold per ton. For perspective, it took 10 tram buckets to equal a ton of ore; therefore it required 36, 200lb capacity buckets to convey 1 oz of gold. Of course, the Golf operation had multiple sources of ore and of course, they produced far more than just gold.

The 100 stamp complex was the location of the famous Golf Tunnel. The tunnel was over a mile in length and 800 feet below the older works on Chrysolite. 

In the early 1900s the Leadville mines were converting their tunnels from animal power to electric power and undoubtedly the Murphy complex was doing the same. Two 2 parallel tracks were put down in the Golf Tunnel to convey the ore by electric locomotion. 

In addition to the Golf Tunnel, more aerial tramways were strung from both the Pat and Mary mines. The Mary tram was started at the Level 4. It came across the north west shoulder of Chrysolite Mt. in a straight line to the Golf mill. The second Pat tramway paralleled the first tram; except that it continued across the railroad and terminated inside the Golf mill.  

To accommodate Golf, the railroad installed more than a half mile of track on the spur to the mill. The switch for this spur was located a mile and a quarter down the main grade from the Romley depot. The spur itself was nearly 1900 feet long and sidings were constructed on both the south and north sides of the complex. Coal and other supplies were spotted on the upper (south) siding while out going production went from the lower (north) siding.

Around 1919, the boiler for the power plant at Romley developed a crack in the crown sheet. This effective ended  ended operation at Romley and the company simply shunted the ore to the Golf mill. By this time the mining operations were re-running old tailings and operations across the State were in decline. The new process was likely more profitable than employing hard rock mining crews. The trams from level 4 and level 14 were probably used primarily for moving the mountains of tailings from those locations to the Golf mill.

Boarding house near Level 4 bunked 60 men, 1983 - Pool

Coal for the power plants at both mills came over Marshall Pass by way of the D.&R.G.R.R. from Baldwin north of Gunnison over Marshall Pass. Rio Grande coal cars are seen in a photo on the upper siding of the mill. Apparently, it was cheaper for the C&S to pay the per diam on the cars for the short distance from Nathrop than than to transfer the loads to their own cars.

Mining in Colorado had been on a decline from about 1910 and as the United States entered WWI, mining was receding all across the State. It seems likely most, if not all of these improvements occurred before 1919. Yet the GMC operated at least parts of the property well into the 1920s.   

All Colorado & Southern narrow gauge traffic had to be transferred to or from the Rio Grande at Buena Vista or Nathrop in order to connection with the rest of the system. The Rio Grande operated three rail 

Pat Murphy tram and ore loading above  Golf mill, 1985 - Poole 

track between Leadville and Salida until 1925. When it was clear the Rio grande was pulling the third rail in 1924 the C&S abandoned Chalk Creek line and production at the GMC quickly declined. It closed before 1930. The mines had operated almost continuously for over 50 years. They had produced some $60 million dollars in metals (at $32 per oz of gold).

Ironically, the primary reason the Colorado & Southern continued to run a single mixed train up Chalk Creek 3 days a week, after the line was orphaned in 1910, was to the service GMC operation. On the other hand, it was probably the abandonment of the railroad that hastened the end of the mine's orations altogether. 

Over the decades since, the mines have occasionally been leased, especially when metal prices (gold in particular) fluctuated favorably. Ore from the Mary Murphy Level 4 tunnel and tailings was hauled out by truck. The trucks used Col. Kelley's wagon road down Pomeroy gulch to Romley where they crossed over the old Pratt truss on the railroad grade now a state highway; at least until the State deemed the bridge unsafe for even ordinary vehicle traffic.

Turning from the Pat Murphy ore and tram at the railroad  the view looked like this, about.1918. The switch on the main line was nearly 1/3rd of a mile to the right (East) of  the camera.  Coal cars were spotted in front of the power plant on the upper (South) side. The cars in this view belonged to the Denver & Rio Grande, mid 'teens - Poole Col.

Settling pond below R.O.W.and first mill still evident in 1942. Weis - Poole Col.

With the exception of many tram towers that may still stand and the ruins of many other structures over the ares there isn't much left of what was once one of the largest mining districts outside of Leadville. Even the railroad grade is becoming less recognizable as the State improves the road by grading and realigning. Yet Mary Murphy is still the iconic soul of the Chalk Creek district.