Old mine on friend's property Options

[Dypheron]

So I spent the weekend relaxing on our friends property off of Gold Camp Road which is right on the edge of the mining district near Cripple Creek. There's a lot of old mines up there, most are just depressions with small tailing piles but there is one that is quite interesting.

Near as I can tell it was a lead mine, the ore samples from the tailings sure looks like Galena. Looks to me that at some point the top of the shaft collapsed, probably after the vein dried up. No idea how far down it actually goes because the water table is so high that it's full of water. There is still piping from the original pump to keep the shaft dry but the pump is long gone. The vein itself is clearly visible at the entrance and it's at a pretty steep angle, probably 45 degrees or so.

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[CP]

Thanks for sharing the pics, that's a very interesting old mine for sure.
I'm sure it would have been quite a sight to see that winch draw up an ore cart full out of that drift. I'd say you're probably close on the guess of 30's-40's, there was a boom so to speak about then and I'd say it may be a chalcopyritic vein which of course may have had galena in it's make up but the dollars would have had to dictate more than just lead I think to make a profit back then.
Makes you wonder if the mine owner back then was trying to avoid paying another claim owner to access his ore via another claim owners tunnel. That was very common for Cripple Creek back then also, many mines like the Molly Kathleen made more on the other 7 mine owners using their shaft to bring up their ore at a percentage per ton hauled up.