Homestake Mine

The Homestake mine in Lead ,South Dakota had perhaps the biggest fleet of compressed air locomotives for their extensive gold mine operation there . Unlike most mines that favored electric locomotives ,Homestake had their many miles of tunnel rigged with compressed air lines so locomotives could work underground ,being recharged wherever needed .A lot of these locomotives (most built by Porter) survived ,and are displayed all over the place . I know of one at Creede . The "Lead" (pronounced"leed") is one of the longest and largest gold veins in the world .It is 40 miles long and dips a mile down into Mother Earth's crust before resurfacing at Spearfish ,South Dakota . It was one of t he longest-worked mines in history , startibng in the 1970s . I do not know its present status , but the mine may be inactive because of the long slump in precious metals prices . A simple rule about mining - the deeper you go ,the more expensive the metal is to extract .