A hoist was simply a tool. The building which housed it – shelter. The existence of both were strictly functional, their purpose was simply to make money for the company. The hoist and its house were never intended as art, or as some great monuments to the past. But here they sit a century later decayed and ruined under the shroud of foliage and a piece of art is exactly what they have become. Unlike the poured concrete monoliths we find at more modern mine sites which appear to have been simply built by man, these old stone and sandstone beauties looks to have been crafted. Even when profits were king, the capitalists of old seem to have taken pride in their empires which shows even to this day.

At least that was the impression I got as we stepped through an opening into the Trimountain No. 2 hoist foundation. All around us stood towering walls of rock, set into dignified and stately forms. Most impressive was the foundation to the hoist itself, which was capped by a pair of stone mandibles embellished with sandstone quoins.

To think that this was simply the foundation to a piece of machinery is amazing. Whoever laid these stones did so with a sense of artistry, as the structure has a certain stoic beauty to it. Of course the choice of sandstone at the corners is actually an engineering choice (much easier to hold a right angle with the sandstone then the rough rocks), but its artistic merit cannot be easily ignored.

Surrounding the hoist’s foundation stands a second one, this one for the building itself. This massive wall would have supported the outer walls and roof along with the building’s main floor once sitting above our heads. Due to the lack of any wall structure left above the basement level I would guess that the rest of the building was a simple steel-trussed wood-framed affair.

Standing between the hoist and outer foundation is a wide corridor we like to call a maintenance trench or tunnel (depending on whether the roof is intact). We have always suspected that this corridor was used for running the steam and exhaust piping for the steam engine, but lately we have learned that it existed mainly to insulate the building’s structure from vibrations emanating from the hoist itself.

Making our way down the maintenance trench towards the front of the building we came across the brick lined opening we had witnessed from the outside. The use of the bricks around the entire opening would suggest a steam pipe entered the building here.

And just a short distance down the corridor we find yet another brick-lined opening. This one looks to have been sealed up at some point during the hoist’s operation. This one sat down closer to the ground, which meant any pipe coming through here would have been underground.

It was at the end of the corridor that we discovered this surprising detail. This tunnel was cut through the massive hoist foundation, right up against the building’s west wall (the wall facing the shaft). Peering through the opening we could see that an identical archway had been cut through the opposite mandible of the hoist foundation as well. Lining their tops were stately brick-lined arches – a seemingly stylized embellishment. Besides the artistic element, these tunnels raise an engineering quandary. If the maintenance trenches existed to isolate the hoist vibrations from the outer walls, then these tunnels seem to work against that principle. Here the hoist foundation is indeed directly connected to the building’s outer walls.

Of course this hoist might have some unique principle that allows this, considering this is the first hoist ruin where we have found these tunnels. In every hoist ruin there is another trench at this point which disconnects the hoist foundation from the building’s walls. For some reason this one is connected.

To be continued…