Chemung Mine

 ruins, town, mine

Located a short distance away from Masonic, the Chemung Mine was discovered in 1909 and continued to operate until about 1938.

Inside are the remains of two concentrators. These giant belt-driven eggbeaters mixed a slurry of crushed ore in (now gone) redwood tanks to concentrate the gold bearing quartz at the bottom and float off the lighter sands. Outside the mill are the remains of a giant steel tank and a canvas covered wood wheel. The canvas on the wheel was coated with a mercury solution which picked up the gold and silver out of the rock slurry soup as it was spun though the tank. The gold/mercury amalgam was scraped off the canvas and recovered.

In the remains of the mechanical room is a small oil-fired boiler. This boiler probably powered an air compressor for the drills in the mine and machinery in the adjacent machine shop. The small size makes it unlikely that this unit powered the stamp mill or other mill machinery. Underneath the floor is a large fuel oil tank and piping to feed this thing. The Chemung mine closed in 1938, well after earlier miners had stripped the surrounding hills of firewood to run wood fired boilers. To the west are the ruins of several cabins, probably worker’s residences.