Mile Post 35.15

Iron City / Penn Mills in Lower Black Hawk

Dan Abbott, Gilpin Railroad Quarterly, November 2003

The first Mill erected at this location was known as the Cashier Stamp Mill, although one source also called it the Rose Quartz, and sometimes referred to it as the Frontenac Mill.

The Cashier Stamp Mill consisted of 35 stamps; powered by a water wheel, with the source of water being piped in through a boxed flume; and was constructed prior to December of 1890 according to the Sanborn Map of the date.

By August of 1895 the name of this mill had been changed to the Penn Stamp Mill with 45 stamps and was still powered by a water wheel fed through a boxed flume, By this time the Union Pacific Denver & Gulf Railway had run two spurs to this mill.

At this same time another stamp mill appears on the Sanborn map of August 1895 with 25 stamps capacity, and the U.P.D. & G. spur also served this mill which was known as the Iron City Stamp Mill.

In November of 1900, the Sanborn Map indicated that the Gilpin Tramway Company had run a side track to the Iron City Mill which might also have had the Penn Stamp Mill. This spur left the Colorado & Southern Rail Line at M.P. 35.43 and eventually extended for more than 2,200 feet along the base of the mountain south of the Iron City Mill.

One U.P,D, & G./C.&S. Map of the Black Hawk trackage shows a 600 foot passing track west of Iron City Mill.  While another passing track of 200 foot in length was directly south and behind the Iron City Mill.  A 250 foot spur went rhrough an ore trestle at this mill which could also have fed the Penn Mill.

An extension and track change occurred at the Iron City Mill in November and December of 1910 (C. & S. AFB #865) amounted to $435.14.

The Penn Mill consisted of one Jaw Crusher, three sets of rolls, three trommels, three jigs, three cone thickeners, nine flood classifiers, twenty card tables, four Deister tables, and had a capacity of 250 tons in a twenty-four hour period.

The Iron City Mill consisted of 25 rapid drop stamps, one jaw crusher, flood classifiers, five card tables, two Deister tables, a regrinding pan and two callow cones with a capac­ity of 75 tons in a twenty-four hour period.

After abandonment of the Gilpin Railroad in 1917, some twenty steel ore cars were sold to the Iron City Mill. They were used on a horse­ drawn section of the Gilpin Tramway trackage between a loading point just below the New York Mill and the Iron City Mill. The cars were loaded and hauled up to the concentrator by horse power - later a gasoline powered 24 inch gauge locomo­tive was used. After unloading they were dropped back down by gravity.  This operation was contin­ued until sometime in 1930 when the Mill burned. As late as 1970 some parts of these ore cars went still to be seen in lower Black Hawk.

The Iron City mill and Penn Stamp mill were east of Black Hawk on Clear Creek, and was the furthest east the 2' Gilpin ran.