Caribou Mine, sorting floor

Abstract

Stereopair of the sorting floor in the hoist building of the Caribou Mine. The sorting floor was where workers hand-sorted the silver ore and shoveled it into sacks for shipment to the mill. Silver ore was discovered at the Caribou Mine in Boulder County, Colorado by Sam Conger, William Martin and George Lytle in 1869. The Caribou Mine was a steady silver producer during most of the 1870s. Production from the Caribou and other area mines declined during the 1880s and many of the mines and nearby mills closed during this time. The town of Caribou and the Mine never fully recovered from the crash of the silver market in 1893. During the early 1900s, only about forty people remained in town, working small silver mining operations. Only intermittent mining has taken place in the Caribou area since then. Overall it is estimated that the Caribou Mine produced about $8,000,000 in silver.