Galería de Minerales FMF

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OLD MINE VERSUS MODERN MINE 4

A photograph from the late 1800s, looking south towards the Ojuela bridge, reveals the staggering scale of the mining operations at their peak. On the east side of the canyon, a prominent head frame stands sentinel while plumes of steam billow from a powerhouse, speaking to the immense energy being consumed. The western slopes are a hive of industrial activity, densely packed with an array of essential buildings — from administrative offices, and assay facilities, where the ore’s value was determined, to the ever-busy workshops. Further in the background, another head frame marks the entrance to the subterranean labyrinth of stopes and adits, the source of the mine’s vast wealth.

In a contemporary view taken over a century later, the landscape is one of haunting emptiness. The immense industrial infrastructure —the head frames, the powerhouses, and the intricate network of tramways that once ferried ore across the canyon — has almost entirely vanished, dismantled by time and salvage. Only a few stone structures stubbornly survive, yet they are mere shells of their former selves. Roofless, gutted, and exposed to the elements, these dilapidated ruins, devoid of the machinery and life that once filled them, stand as a quiet, somber epilogue, offering only faint echoes of the great mine that once dominated this canyon. (Author: silvia)