The Kennecott Copper Mill is really quite impressive. Keep in mind that when it was first built,
there were no roads to the mine – and even now, the only road is an extremely
rough dirt road. So, a method of
transporting all building materials on a new railroad and road that they had to
build first! Really, it’s kind of
mind-boggling when one thinks about it.
But, while you ponder that, take a look at the mill and supporting
buildings – some have been restored, others not yet.
This is the mill – a 3 story building that had a definite
method to the design! The copper comes
into the mill at the top and then is slowly separated from the limestone that
it’s found in – larger chunks taken out in the second tier and then the
smallest granules are isolated in the 3rd and final tier. They spent quite a bit of effort to have the
copper be as pure as possible because the cost to transport materials via the
railroad was very high, and they only wanted to transport what would bring in
the revenue!
Here’s a side view of the lowest tier (in front) and other
tiers behind them. You can see how the
foundation has been shorn up – check out the log type structure in the lower
left corner of this image. The thing I
love best about this image is the texture of the wood on this building, tho!
I also loved all the windows in this mill. In today’s world, mills would probably have
very few windows – of course, today’s buildings have much better ventilation and lighting,
so they probably need fewer windows!
This is an image of the rebuilt old powerhouse of the
mill. This is actually a restoration of
the second powerhouse. The first
powerhouse burned to the ground in 1924, and a temporary powerhouse was rebuilt
in just 11 days! Again, keep in mind the
difficulty in transporting supplies and building materials – amazing isn’t
quite an accurate enough adjective to use!
I almost missed this while wandering the old copper
mill. It’s a chute that was used to get
some of the copper that was harvested in the upper tiers of the mill down to
the railroad cars. You can see the wood
of the infrastructure and the rails that the cars on the chute would ride
on. I sort of love this image of some
semi-forgotten history.
This last image is of the very bottom of the mill where the
railroad cars would be loaded with the copper – either larger chunks or small
granules. If you look at the first image
in this post, the area that is in the lower left corner leads to this
area. The railroad tracks are still
visible, as you can see in this image.
Enjoy!
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