It's All Trew: Old mining days were hazardous

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The early mining towns usually shared the same progression of building. First came the strike and mine development while living in tents and dugouts. Once the strike was proven and ore was being removed to market, a sawmill arrived sawing lumber for crude clapboard dwellings and places of business. All buildings were heated by wood stoves and this led to most being burned to the ground at least one time. If the mines were profitable over a period of time structures were rebuilt of brick or stone and the fire departments improved to where fire was not an eminent danger. Almost every mountain ghost town chronicle tells of the long, bitterly cold winters with intermittent blizzards and the ever-present danger of avalanche. Some of these snow slides carried entire towns and ore mills over cliffs to the valleys below. One snow slide covered a mine entrapping the owner inside. With tools at hand it required three days to tunnel outside where he arrived in town in time to attend and interrupt his own funeral....