ODDS’N’SODS — Hanging around

The last nine miles of road that lead to the Bohemia mining district in the Cascade Mountains of south-Central Oregon slither, like a drunken rattlesnake, up and over Champion Crick. (Anyone who calls it a creek is a flatlander tourist.)

In the late 1940s, the first structure one saw upon ascending to the Bohemia district was the bunkhouse of the Champion polymetallic mine — a 3-story building that had been tied to several thick Douglas firs so as to prevent the winter snows from pushing it into the crick below. Across the crick lay a decrepit 100-Ton flotation mill, which was stepped down the canyon for gravity flow of ore and slurry.

In 1947, I was working as a summer student for Bill Caldwell and Ken Watkins, who had leased the Champion mine, helping rehabilitate various parts of the underground operation.

After working on the track, air pipe and ditch on the 1200 level, our next job was to install an air tugger and a 3-by-4-ft. service skip in the shaft at the 1050 level. We installed the skip in the guides and hoisted it, with some difficulty, to the 1050 level. The task was made harder because of splinters and warps in the guides. The skip, however, wouldn’t go back down more than 20 ft. The solution to the problem was obvious so, with a pail of grease and a paintbrush, I climbed into the skip to grease the guides.

A 3-Cylinder air-Tugger is a complex little machine with a spool for the cable and two handles. One of the handles was the brake, and the other had three positions: up, neutral and down. I was working with Watkins, who wasn’t noted for his mechanical aptitude but who, nonetheless, was at the controls.

When he released the brake, he forgot that the other handle was in the neutral position, and I subsequently disappeared over the side of the skip.

Most men would have slammed on the brake, with disastrous results. Watkins, however, cogitated for a second and eased the brake slowly. Just the same, I had fallen 140 ft. down a 150 ft.-shaft and was bouncing at the end of a 3/8-inch cable like a yo-yo. My carbide lamp had gone out and I couldn’t relight it because the flint and sparking wheel were wet from the water raining down on me.

After hollering up the shaft, I finally convinced Watkins to hoist me back to the 1050 level. Upon arriving at the station, I attempting to step out of the skip nonchalantly, like an old miner who regarded dropping down a shaft as an everyday occurrence. However, my knees spoiled it all by giving out and depositing me in a large puddle of water.

— The author, a semi-retired metallurgical consultant, resides in Grass Valley, Calif.