Kingston Mine

The Kingston Mine was C&H’s last hope. Opened on a conglomerate lode of the same name, this would be the last shaft driven by C&H. It was hoped to be the life-extended C&H desperately hoped for, but unfortunately never had the chance to prove itself. In 1969, only 5 years since it opened, the Kingston closed for good and with it the great C&H ceased to exist. An entire region mourned its passing, and forever this area would be changed.

The Kingston Mine was the most modern shaft / rock house built by C&H. It was of a common design, seperating the shaft building from the rockhouse vie a short section of exterior skip road. The elevated rock house sat atop a large rock bin, where the copper bearing rock was stored before it was dumped into waiting rail cars. This design is very similar to Centennial, Osceola #13, and even the Gratiot mine we featured earlier on this site.

The hoist building is actually two connected buildings; a narrow and short building in which the hoist cables entered and a larger building shown here. The sheer size of this building would suggest it held a large piece of equipment, possible the hoist itself. However, modern hoists (as this mine would have used) are powered by electricity and are much smaller then their steam powered ancestors.

One of those things that you often don’t think about, as we didn’t, was how workers at a mine got to work. Before the advent of cars (or at least their permeation in the Copper Country) workers simply walked to work. But the post war consumerism of the 50’s changed all that. Suddenly modern conveniences such as cars became necessities, and even the Copper Country was not immune to the thinking. Now mine workers drove to work, and mines suddenly needed parking lots. Kingston was one of those mines.

While underground workers needed to worry about many things that could injure then while in a mine, getting enough air to breath was not one of them. Besides the far ends of drifts that may contain somewhat stale air, the rest of the mine was actuality well ventilated. This was due mostly to the natural movement of air underground, and companies seldom had to employ artificial ventilation in the mines. Colder air on the surface would sink into the shafts as warmer air from deep in the mine would work its way to the surface.