Dropping the field glasses to my chest and squinting, I tried to take in one of the most dramatic structures in the silvery San Juans, and one of the most difficult to preserve. I vowed someday to find the century-old burro trail and hike into the stabilized boardinghouse and tram tower.<\/p>\n
I just wasn\u2019t sure what I\u2019d do when the trail ended and I had to cross the loose, sliding scree field of sharp, jutting rocks with the 2,000-foot drop into Cunningham Gulch. No wonder the Old One Hundred was named after a religious hymn and ancient biblical psalm. It took a while to find the secret to cross the scree.<\/p>\n
Beginning in the 1890s in the remote recesses of the San Juan Mountains, perched precariously on narrow ledges or tight glacial valleys, log and wood frame boardinghouses housed miners, dormitory style, close to the portals of hardrock mines where they drilled for gold and silver ore. When the mines were in full operation and miners worked multiple shifts, boardinghouse beds never grew cold. As soon as one miner got up to work, another one, exhausted, would lie down in the same bunk. Now, because of avalanches, fires and shifting slopes, few boardinghouses remain.<\/p>\n
Those high-altitude buildings are a unique remnant of the 19th- and early 20th-century gold and silver mining booms that made the San Juans an exciting place to live. Eastern capital flowed west to develop mines. Immigrant laborers scrabbled up mountain passes to seek their fortunes underground.<\/p>\n
Though other miners had filed claims on Galena Mountain, it was the Niegold brothers \u2013 Reinhardt, Gustave, Otto and their half-brother, Oscar \u2013 who developed the Old One Hundred Mine. The brothers loved fine wines, liquor, expensive Turkish tobacco and music. In the remote San Juans, they even had a piano.<\/p>\n
San Juan County Commissioner and Fort Lewis College graduate Scott Fetchenhier in his definitive book, Ghosts and Gold: The History of the Old Hundred Mine, writes, \u201cImagine the surprise of exhausted travelers, after days or weeks of struggling over poorly built roads to hear faint wisps of piano music and opera excerpts reaching their ears as they came over rugged Stony Pass and saw the glowing lights of the Niegold cabins.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were even more astonished in their search for a hot meal and a stiff drink, to be greeted at the door by the somewhat celebratory Niegold brothers, dressed in their finest opera costumes and wearing powdered white wigs!\u201d Fetchenhier adds.<\/p>\n
Because the brothers loved to sing, the Old One Hundred probably derived its name from the Bible\u2019s 100th psalm, which was set to music and used in 19th-century hymnals.<\/p>\n
Alas, like most gold and silver mines, the Old Hundred never turned a profit. The Niegold brothers sold their claims to eastern investors who organized the Old Hundred Mining Co. and began to develop the \u201cprospects\u201d in 1904.<\/p>\n
Carpenters constructed the Seven Level boardinghouse, featuring a complete kitchen with cabinets, woodstove, cutting blocks, counters and dining room tables. On the first floor, a dining room, lit by electricity, was served by a cook, a baker and busy waiters. On the second floor, carpenters built 24 bunks, with a separate bedroom for the shift boss.<\/p>\n
Despite frigid winters and no insulation, only two pot-bellied stoves heated the building. Off the dining area, the boardinghouse has a west-facing porch with a magnificent view, but watch your step. \u201cAt an elevation of over 12,000 feet, a fall from the porch would have meant a 2,000-foot roll into the bottom of Cunningham Gulch,\u201d Fetchenhier says. Though much of the kitchen remains intact, packrats chewed their way through cabinetry and gnawed on the wooden pillars that support the building.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s access to the boardinghouse is on the steep, winding 1904 trail built for $32,000 because of the substantial drilling and blasting it took to carve it out of the west side of Galena Mountain, wide enough for mule and burro travel. The trail comes in above the boardinghouse, and intrepid hikers, staring down at the structure\u2019s roof, have to gingerly work their way down 250 feet of loose scree.<\/p>\n
The possibility of slipping and tumbling down the mountain is real. Added to the excitement of loose footing, avalanches close the trail in winter. In summer, afternoon thunderstorms of driving rain and lightning make the trail hazardous.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the historic problem of finding drinking water. There wasn\u2019t any fresh water for the crew of 13 miners who sampled the Old Hundred\u2019s Seven Level workings in late summer 1937. They developed a powerful thirst.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat high on the mountain, there was no drainage and hence no water, and what we had, had to be melted from ice. All day long, every available pot was chock-full of ice and on the stove. And we didn\u2019t care about cleanliness. The ice at the mouth of the tunnel like all the rest had been sitting there for at least 10 years \u2026 It was full of every sort of dirt, and the packrats had run wild over it for heaven knows how long and left plenty of remnants,\u201d said miner Walter Kimball.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll we could do was strain it and be thankful that we had it and didn\u2019t have to pack it from the trail. It was a little brown, but mighty cool. Old Art (one of the miners) said, \u2018I never drank rat sh\u2013 before and found it so good.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
After years of neglect and decay, the Old One Hundred boardinghouse seemed destined to be blown off the mountain. But folks in Silverton are nothing if not resourceful. Because the glint of the galvanized siding could be seen miles away in town, locals decided to stabilize the building.<\/p>\n