The picture on the left is of a gentleman by the name of Dale Weaver. He was one of the few independent miners left in 1993. Dale is a quit man, heavy thinker and creator of things not found in stores.

We met Dale at 7am in Cripple Creek for breakfast and as soon as we met we knew that we’d seen each other before(which we hadn’t) and that we had a lot to talk about. We did the 99 cent tour of Cripple Creek, Victor and Anaconda and returned to Cripple Creek for lunch. During lunch we talked about the old days and how gambling coming into town wasn’t going to help the miners much. Well, we put lunch away and went to Dale’s home, which was on the mining claim which was patented.

This is a picture of Dale’s house in 1993. As I understand it today, his mine and properity have been taken over by the Big open pit mining company that is operating in the whole are now. Please do not take me wrong on this. I believe that miner’s, the environmentalist and the BLM can work together, but it will take time and I will probable be dead by then. Dale sold his place because he had reached the of his line. He just got to old and a mine accident, he got his arm caught in the jaw crusher, caused him to retire.

The following pictures are of his mine and the ore. He asked me if I could give him a rough estimate of what it would cost to rebuild the collar and the shoring for the first 50 feet. I never heard back from him the next spring and called our friends in Woodland Park to see if he was ok. That’s when we found out about the accident.

The the mine shaft and cross vent tunnel.