Mount Champion tramway

Abstract

Photograph showing one of the aerial tramway towers on Mount Champion, which is located northeast of Independence Pass between Leadville and Aspen. In 1881, Tingley S. Wood discovered gold on Mount Champion, and other prospectors soon arrived and staked out claims nearby. A two stamp mill was built to process the gold and silver bearing quartz, and the crushed ore was transported by wagon to a smelter near Leadville for further processing. In the early 1900s, Wood's mine and the other mines in the area were purchased and consolidated by the Mount Champion Gold Mining Company. A mill was built in the upper Half Moon Valley, and a 6,100 foot Broderic and Bascom type aerial tramway was constructed to transport the ore from the mine to the mill. The aerial tram had forty-two buckets that weighed 600 pounds apiece, and each bucket could carry up to nine cubic feet of ore. The aerial tram was operated by gravity, and it was controlled by a brakeman in the upper ...