If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 552

 

 

 

 

 

Crystal Mill also known as Deadhorse Mill at Crystal City, Colorado

[Photo:  Marc Schuman]

 

This unused R.C. Bishop distributed card from Colorado has a color photo of Crystal Mill also known as Deadhorse Mill by Marc Schuman.  The card was printed in Australia using Colorscans.  The number 1021 appears at the upper left corner on the reverse.  A blurb on the back of the card tells us that this area produced lead, silver and gold in the 1880s.  The site was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1985.  This is another card from the batch shared by friends J & K.

 

The wooden powerhouse seen in the picture was built in 1893 by the promoters of the Sheep Mountain Tunnel and Mining Company, George C. Eaton and B.S. Phillips.  It is a compressor station using a water turbine, and is built with a horizontal wheel.  Originally it was used to generate compressed air for the miners in nearby silver mines.  Sheep Mountain Tunnel mine closed in 1917 at which time the power house fell in disuse. 

 

Today it is called Crystal Mill or Old Crystal Mill probably because it is located on an outcrop above the Crystal River in Crystal, Colorado.  However, in the past it was variously called Sheep Mountain Power House, Lost Horse Millsite, or Lost Horse Mill.  Even though the information on the card labels it as Dead Horse Mill that does not appear to be one of the more common names.  It is called a mill because there was a stamp mill for crushing ore in an adjacent building.  That building is no longer standing but the photo shows wooden debris that could have been part of that structure.

 

Stamp mills crush material like ore instead of grinding and they aid in the extraction of metallic ores.  Heavy steel or iron shod wood stamps are fitted into a frame where the stamps slide up and down.  Cams lift the stamps on a horizontal rotating shaft.  As the cam moves the stamp falls crushing the ore below.  Crystal Mill was a 3-stamp mill.  Stamp mills have been in used since ancient times. Remains of stamp mills used by Romans have been found in Western Europe.  The process requires large amounts of water and the mills are built on natural or artificial bodies of water.  Not shown in the picture is Crystal River as it flows down a small waterfall, only partly visible, at the lower left. 

 

Thanks as always to J & K for sharing the card.

 

For more information, see:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Mill

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamp_mill