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SILVER MINE TOUR DIG INTO TOMBSTONE HISTORY
There was some silver ore lying in a pile so that we could see how it looked. We were also shown several veins of silver through out the mine. I would have passed it by. It is very dark in color, it just looked like a dark rock to me. Our guide said it would take about one ton of ore to yield 14 ounces of silver. Some of the artifacts that were uncovered during the restoration of the mine gave a glimpse of working in the mines in the 1860s. The miners dug for silver in total darkness except for candles. Silver was not flamable so they were able to use fire. Some of the mine shafts are barely big enough to crawl into but not turn around and come back out. Some of them were very large caverns where you can see several levels of tunnels. Reminded me of the video game Spelunker. The mine shafts are ventilated. The ventilation was miles and miles of tunnels. They ran two 10 hour shifts leaving 2 hours for explosives to be set. It only took about two hours for the dust to clear after explosives were used in the 1800's. This meant that the miners did not have respiratory problems. All merchants above ground in Tombstone were open 24 hours a day. The tour lasted about an hour and we had a great time.
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We took the silver mine tour that recently opened up in Tombstone, AZ. The first thing that everyone noticed is that it is about 70 degrees and very pleasant. The air was crisp and clean.
I was looking around for spiders and other creepy crawly things, but there weren't any. The mines twist and turn for hundreds of miles in the Tombstone hills. The information was nicely presented by our guide Kerry.
