Rotary snow plow train

Abstract

Photograph showing a rotary snow plow train clearing the train tracks next to a mine. This photograph was probably taken at the Ibex Mining Company on Breece Hill east of Leadville. During the 1880s, John F. Campion and associates bought the Little Jonny Mine and a number of adjacent claims and started the Ibex Mining Company. James J. Brown (husband of Molly Brown) was hired as the superintendent of the Ibex properties. Vast quantities of high grade gold and copper were discovered. In 1894, the company paid a million dollars in dividends, and rewarded James J. Brown with 12,500 shares of Ibex stock. The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad built a line to Ibex in 1898 to transport supplies and workers to the mines and ore to the Arkansas Valley Smelter. The train could pull 60 ore cars at one time. After World War I, the mining industry in Leadville began to decline due to low world metal prices and other factors, and Ibex's Little Jonny Mine was one of the few mines that continued ...