The Argo Mine and Tunnel

Ben Dugan
GCN Historical Writer

Shipped $100 million in gold ore

  Water drainage in mines is a common problem among the industry. California gold mines were able to utilize massive Pelton Wheels and Cornish Pumps to keep the mines free of sizable water deposits. The Cornish Pump at the Empire Mine in Grass Valley in California had a pump rod that was one-half mile long. 18,000 gallons of water per hour were delivered to drainage tunnels. The pump at the North Star Mine was similar in length and operated for 24 hours a day for 40 years. In the 1860's, after considerable effort in raising capital, Adolf Sutro constructed a drainage tunnel near Virginia City to drain the area mines under the Comstock Lode. The tunnel was in use for fifty years and was a success as a means of draining hot water from the mines. By the 1880's water drainage was a focus of the mines of Gilpin County. It was calculated that the district would fail without a solution.

  The Colorado Legislature passed a tunneling law in 1892 and paved the pathway for drainage tunnels throughout the state.  Bert Carlton built the Roosevelt tunnel to drain The Cripple Creek district mines in 1910. In the Clear Creek Valley the Bellevue-Hudson drainage tunnel was designed to drain the mines in the Montana Mining District near Empire Junction. The Empire Mining and Milling Company was set up by men headquartered in Georgetown to extend a tunnel to the mines of the Upper Union Mining District in North Empire. This venture proved to be too expensive and the tunnel was never utilized for that purpose and operated as a gold mine only. The Lucania Tunnel up Fall River Road near Idaho Springs ran a tunnel in 1907 and 1908 and had progressed 4,209 feet from the portal toward the Russell Gulch district. 

  Idaho Springs is approximately 1,000 feet below Nevadaville in elevation and it was thought that a tunnel could be constructed to drain the mines in the Nevada District.  Samuel Newhouse of Idaho Springs was able to obtain English backing and began construction on the Newhouse Tunnel from Idaho Springs to Nevadaville. Work progressed steadily. There was no need for timbering as the foundation rock was solid. The Newhouse tunnel in 1907 had attained a distance of 17,000 feet from the portal to the Great Mammoth mine. Work stopped here until the owners and operators of the mines to be cut by the tunnel could agree upon some basis of royalty to be paid the company for extending the tunnel. After a full discussion the matter was adjusted. A royalty was fixed at 25 cents per ton on all milling ore and $1 per ton on all smelting ore produced, as a drainage fee. It was also agreed that the miners had the privilege of either shipping their ores through the tunnel to Idaho Springs or hoisting them to the surface and sending them to the mills and sampling works at Black Hawk.  In December 1908, work was resumed on the tunnel. The direction was westward for 1,200 feet at an angle of 45 degrees from the previous line. Progress advanced steadily in 1909, turning in a northerly direction to reach the objective point; the Eureka Mine, which was a distance of 5,000 feet from where work had stopped in December 1908. The tunnel was proposed to drain the Quartz Hill and Gunnell Hill properties which were long idle on account of being filled with water at depths of 1,500 to 1,700 feet. The area drained is credited with a production of $55 million since the discovery of gold in the region. The tunnel was completed in 1911 under different ownership and renamed the Argo Tunnel. 

  The tunnel cut many mines including the Saratoga, Burroughs, Kansas, Prize, and Gunnell Mines and passed under the Glory Hole above Central City. The tunnel reached a distance of a little over four miles and most gold veins were not rich at the tunnel level. It is estimated that the Argo Tunnel shipped $100 million worth of ore through the tunnel. The cost of construction was $10 million and was a colossal effort of engineering and design.  Many tons of Giant (dynamite) was used in completion of the project.

  In 1913 a mill was built at the mouth of the tunnel on Clear Creek to process the ore that was coming through the tunnel from 23 connecting mines. In addition to the Nevadaville Mines the Argo Mill also served various mines of Clear Creek including Empire, Dumont, Silver Creek, Lawson, and Idaho Springs districts. The Colorado and Southern Railway served the Argo Tunnel and Mill having tracks that passed right next to the site for easy transport to the Golden Cycle Mill or other smelters in Denver or Leadville. In 1943 miners tapped an old abandoned shaft of the Kansas Mine and the tunnel flooded killing four men. This event permanently closed the tunnel.