Also called The Shannon Drift.
RARELY easy access (if not counting a thousand yard+ haul up another insanely steep slope) for old District mine on this side of Mt Belmont and Continental Divide. Yes, old wagon roads... pioneer hill climb contests, tho. Saw photos of this trip, considered a feature then noticed one existed. Lower res Vivitar handheld at time. Dispensed with captions; mostly obvious although would have reordered.
The thumbnail shows the only trace left of a tram tower, this located higher up on Divide ridge. A telling shot looking at this ridge from mine site is obvious for the remaining snowpack. Tower would be to left, almost out of this frame near top of ridge. In the little bowl between used to be, far as can tell, the Shannon camp/tiny town. Not a scrap of lumber left. Subaru parked on Ottawa Gulch just below Divide at last forested gulch whereupon it's time to climb. Incl uphill/downhill/across road pics; brief spin. Easy to locate; ref Up Ottawa Gulch At Insane Speed.
This essay longer than video! But cool history, yo. Insane for this one: first a "secret find" of a super rich discovery by one guy refusing to reveal location with associated drama. All true! Eventually sold it and good yield. The metal screen caps a 650-foot deep vertical shaft. Small trees, brush growing around mouth, lame cam can't show how scary it is to walk over it despite being strong enough to hold a car. The access hatch freaky just to consider!
More REMARKABLE is the mentioned tram line, a series of towers to run ore cars 2.5 miles up that last bit of Continental Divide and down the steep rugged west side into the big Gloster mill. Gloster was running out of ore but had that giant mill. Mine-boggling efforts. These tram towers were all thought gone (at least by me and satellites) but see Rediscovering Gloster where several where stumbled upon, many still standing hidden by new trees. None shown in Expedition Gloster but ones above that mill show up in whatever other Gloster vid is posted.
Finally: 2 paragraphs from Montana DEQ's narrative, then a link to the full District narrative page loaded with history on this and other district mines. Note Shannon is lumped under heading of Piegan-Gloster and Shannon.
"In 1915 the Barnes King Company also took over operations of the nearby Shannon mine. A 2.5 mile aerial tramway was constructed to connect the mine with the mill. The Gloster mill was changed in 1916 to an all slime plant to treat the Shannon ore. With this treatment 95 percent of the gold and 68 percent of the silver was recovered. At the peak of this period in 1917, 52,885 tons of ore were processed, which returned 31,282.10 ounces of gold and 71,847 ounces of silver. In 1920, the Piegan - Gloster properties ran out of ore despite considerable prospecting. The combined property reported $726,181 in total production from 91,385 tons of ore (Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology; Sabin 1933; Pardee and Schrader 1933).
The Shannon properties continued heavy production to 1924. This mine was developed by a 650 foot shaft with more than 19,596 feet of levels and raises. In 1923, development proved disappointing. Tools were hoisted and the final production consisted of stoping of the shaft pillars until all the ore was removed. The mine closed December 5, 1923 (Knopf 1913; Pardee and Schrader 1933; McClernan 1983).
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