Re: King Mine, but Detroit Spur?

The structure that burned was located on the King Mill Site, and that is privately owned by two fellows from Bayfield. There are the remains of a road that go past the existing Detroit structures (1980s era) that lead to the lower King mine workings and it is passable for a ways by 4-wheel drive vehicles. The Detroit was involved in an effort to reopen that mine along with the Little Dora and the North Star Sultan by a company known as P&G in the early 1980s and that's when the upper Detroit portal structure, that was so visible from the train, was altered for mining purposes. A lot of money went into those various tunnels and not much came out. The existing mill at Howardsville, and it just sold last week, was revamped for the flood of ore that never came. The P was for a fellow named Peck and G was for Glendenning. Subsequent highway work on the Champions, right above the Detroit mine portal, about 4 years ago, buried what was left of the portal opening and structures, and rock fall damaged the new trestle work put in place by P&G at the lower level. One boulder even crashed into the side of one of the SG&N boxcar bodies still sitting there that were converted into a warehouse. This is an interesting area. John's photo, along with others that I'm sure are out there could be the basis for rebuilding this tipple if there is a need to do so. We rebuilt the tipple over at Sawpit in 2000 on the RGS and its amazing what a little money and hard work can accomplish. The Sawpit tipple is about the same size as the King one with the cable station on top being angled compared to Sawpit. The sawpit tipple is owned by the BLM.