Last Update: 10/22/1997 - Jens Moller
On the Main Road
| When you drive between St. Elmo and Hancock, you pass thru Romley. Romley existed as a town to service the Mary Murphy mine. The Mary Murphy produced quite a bit of Silver, and enough gold to survive the Silver Panic of 1893 (the price of Silver dropped significantly). The Mary Murphy was worked until the early 1920s, which is why the out buildings around here are in such good condition. Just west of this building (the picture looks east) is a large 2 story house, and just past that is an access road that goes up to the area near the top of this building. The access road is a has a few larger stones in it, but could be navigated by many regular cars. There is space to turn around up there and come back. Why does this structure exist? Before it broke in half and slipped down the hill, this used to be a ore loading platform. The roadway that you drove on to get here used to be a narrow gauge railway bed and ore cars would come up to here and take on 10 to 30 tons of ore to be trucked down to a mill and processed. |
 the main road up from St. Elmo |
Narrow gauge ore cars don't stand all that tall, and the goal of this building was to use gravity to move the ore into the cars as fast as possible. The front support beams have collapsed and the pivot point on the ore chute cause the entrance of the building to become detached from its foundation, and the whole thing slid out and down a little. Who knows, a curtains, a fresh coat of paint, some flowers and you have a nice home in an established neighborhood, with large trees and easy access to the main road - wood siding and great view; Some people might complain that the floors are not level - what do you expect from a 100 year old building? There are additional out buildings up near the top of this facility, one was a blacksmith shop (and has a peculiar, but quite different lean to it), as well as an office that has a rock the size of the rear wall embedded into it, as the result of a rock slide.
The Mary Murphy Mine Site
 from the top of the Tailings Dump; Mary Murphy Mine |
You'll need higher ground clearance to get to this. The road is not that bad, but there are occasional rocks to avoid, and its a bit steep. My Subaru and 1976 VW Bus have been up here a number of times without difficulty, but you have to take your time and be careful if you take the access road up to it. The mine is around 3/4 of a mile up the Mary Murphy Mine access road - You could walk it, but unless you are into high altitude hiking on moderately steep roads, take a car, if your vehicle is capable of it. As you drive up, you'll pass the remains of the ore bucket towers that brought down ore from the mine way up near tree line on the mountain. |
This photo was shot up on the upper level of the mine site. You can drive there if you continue on the road you came up on, and look for the very last road that turns up to this level (the other access roads take you to different levels, and are difficult even in my Jeep Cherokee) - this road is about as difficult as the access road you came up in. There is a large parking area up here and you can see the cables from the tramway, the ore tramway building, and many other ruins. The bunk house in the picture gives you some idea of the quality of life the miners had. You'll see that the out houses (what's left of them) are behind the bunk house and are down a steep hill.
| The steam boiler is also near the top of the upper level, to the North. It was used to drive the tramway. The rusty steel cables that you see here used to have an ore bucket attached to it every hundred or so feet. Each bucket would hold between 200 and 400 lbs of ore, and gravity was used to move the ore down from around tree line. Look up at the mountain and you'll see that the mine entrance (you can't see it, but you can tell where the trees stop) was quite a distance from the level you are standing. Miners would jump into the empty buckets that were on the way up to get to the mine, to avoid the 3 mile walk to get to the entrance. The tramway operators were always on the lookout for drunk miners (a common problem), and they would prevent drunk miners from jumping into a moving ore bucket. Many fatal accidents occurred as a result of this method of moving people to and from the mines. The boiler is pretty interesting, it reminds me of the construction of locomotive boilers. The area around this is quite steep, and there is a lot of water still draining from the mine. |
 Mary Murphy Mine |
 the Mary Murphy Mine |
Near where the Jeep is parked (in the picture with the bunk house) is the
tramway machine house. This has some huge and beams to hold up the larger
castings within in. The photo shows the drive wheel that was used to
hold onto the steel cable. While its hard to see in the photo, there are
hundreds of little fingers that direct the cable into the drive wheel - they
are all loose (but you can't remove them - if they were easily removable,
they would all be gone by now). This building is in pretty bad shape - I
suggest that you stay out of it (the floor is mostly missing).
This is all surrounded by a giant tailings dump. I've found some silver ore here (the general store down in St. Elmo sells silver ore samples for $1.00 to $3.00 dollars - you might want to get a piece there before coming here so you know what you are looking for). While most of the rocks are just rocks, there is a lot of low grade ore laying around. Be careful on this rock-pile, there are bits of broken up lumber and steel laying all over the place. |
Ruins of the tram building at the Mary Murphy Mine
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