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Cellophane Tape Day Is May 27
"Honey, what are the kids doing all wrapped up in that tape?"
"Well, dear, their bandages were coming loose and they had to hold it together with something. And we're too Scotch to buy new bandages for them!"
In the early 1920s, Richard Gurley Drew worked at the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, now known as 3M, which at the time made sandpaper. Drew delivered sandpaper samples to auto body shops and saw the frustration that car painters had when painting two-tone color cars. Surgical adhesive tape, library pastes, and homemade glues were used to hold newspapers on cars when painting, and as the papers were removed, sticking residues often remained, that ripped off some of the paint when they were peeled off.
Drew invented masking tape, and created it with crêpe paper, cabinetmaker's glue, and glycerin. It adhered well to cars when painting, and also came off easily afterward without taking paint away. It was marketed as Scotch Masking Tape in 1925. The name "Scotch" stems from an ethnic stereotype that said Scottish people were stingy. Some stories claim that the tape didn't adhere well at first, or didn't have adhesive in the middle of it. The stories purport that Drew was told to go back to his "Scotch" bosses and to tell them to add more adhesive, or that they asked him why he was being so "Scotch" with the adhesive. It is unclear if Drew actually had these conversations, but nonetheless, the name stuck, as did the final version of the tape.
In 1929, Drew came up with the idea of using DuPont's recently invented cellophane to make tape. Cellophane was moisture proof and was used to wrap baked goods and grocery items. He wanted to invent a tape made of cellophane that would seal cellophane packaging while blending in, so as to not be seen. The machinery that had been used for applying adhesive to masking tape didn't work with the cellophane tape, and the glue that was used in masking tape didn't look good on the transparent tape. New machines were made, and a new, clear adhesive made of oil, rubber, and resins helped create a successful clear cellophane tape. It was originally given the name Scotch Cellulose Tape and later became Scotch Transparent Tape. It was revealed and began being marketed on January 31, 1930, and its patent was published on May 27 of the same year. This is why Cellophane Tape Day is celebrated today and this year, it’s 90th birthday!
At first, it did not seem that the new tape would be needed. DuPont had come up with a cellophane that could be sealed with heat, so the new tape was no longer needed to seal packages. The Great Depression also was beginning, which did not seem like the best time to begin marketing a new product. But in an era when being thrifty was a necessity, Scotch tapes' wide range of applicability made it popular. It was perfect for making simple repairs around the house. It could be used to mend books, curtains, sheet music, clothing, fingernails, cracked eggs, cracked ceiling plaster, and for many other things. It eventually was used as an "anti-corrosive shield" in the Goodyear Blimps. As the company prospered and was one of the few that didn't lay off workers during the Great Depression-they continued to innovate. A dispenser with a cutter blade was marketed in 1932, and in 1939 the now popular snail-shaped handheld tape dispenser was created. Richard Gurley Drew is now in the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Today many manufacturers make transparent adhesive tape out of cellophane, but most people still call it "Scotch tape." It is believed that transparent tape is now used in 90 percent of homes.
How to Observe
The day should be celebrated by using cellophane tape. Besides using it on paper, there are many other ways you could use it:
make a tape ball
remove hair, fur, and lint from clothing and upholstery
clean your keyboard
tape broken crayons
repair frayed shoelace ends
temporarily repair things, such as broken glasses
use it to do your nails
use as a bandage if a first aid kit is not available (But do get first aid!)
pick up tiny pieces of broken glass
pick up those punched out ‘dots’ from a hole punch from the floor
put it over labels to keep them from smudging
use it to wrap a gift
20200527 148/366
Come outside,(lay off) come outside (shove it)
There's a lovely moon out there (you are a one)
Come outside,(all right) come outside (not for too long)
While we got time for a bit of slap and tickle (I'll slap and tickle you in a minute)
~Mike Sarne 1962... 2 weeks at #1
6133050029_e212614d8c_b-1
9 Sep 11
Scanned slide from June 1998, on my way out of town to Marquette for call to run to St. Paul for the railroad, I seen the CC&P had a grain train leaving with a match set of red 38's. Unfortunately I didn't make that trip for the IMRL I had to lay off after call (damn flat tires), instead I chased this eastbound grain train east out of Waterloo. Here the 38's pound east of Jesup.
Lukas: “How did I get roped into this?”
Tilda: “It’s Okay, handsome, you’re with Me!”
Lukas: “What am I wearing? What are you wearing for that matter?! What’s with your hat?”
Tilda: “Hey, lay off the hat! I love this hat.”
Lukas: “Woah, You’re not wearing shoes!”
Tilda: “Yeah, no big deal. We’re like snow deamons, or whatever, I don’t know, it doesn’t matter! Let’s make out!!
Lukas: “Oh, um, sorry, I’m kind of “with” someone right now?”
Tilda: “Yeah! You’re -with- ME!”
Lukas: “um, no?”
(These shots are from Monday, and this is as light as it’s gotten in DAYS! Nothing but white overcast sky since the weekend and it is STILL snowing!!!❄️❄️❄️ More snow shots incoming!)
Today, I said goodbye to 120 friends/co-workers as they were officially layed off. I will miss each and every one of them. We all tried so hard to make it work.
Fun videos are posted on their YouTube Page.
Fan them on Facebook.
Someone's coming after me? But who? I mean, I haven't even been the Flash for all that long! So why? Anyways, I keep patrolling. But my patrol around the city leads to a couple minor muggings and robberies being stopped, but nothing major in the grand scheme of things. So I end up going home, as I'm now starving! As I speed in the front door, the newspaper starts flying everywhere, before stopping myself in the kitchen.
"I'M BACK!!" I announce excitedly. Barry looks up from the kitchen table, and notices me standing there.
"Hey Bart, welcome back! How was school?" He says with interest, as he gets up to give me a hug.
"It was just as slow, long, and boring like every other day of school." I reply, as I embrace his awkward hug, trying to get out of the hug as soon as possible.
"I know it may be boring for you, but you made a promise to Max. School goes hand in hand with you having a secret identity."
"Yeah.. Just wish it was at least more fun."
"It's only as fun as you make it. Anyways, I heard about how you stopped White Lightning tonight.. Nicely done!"
"Not to toot my own horn or anything, but it was pretty easy! White Lightning keeps trying the same things, and none of them work. She did mention that someone will be coming for me though.."
"Coming for you? I mean the Flash has a lot of enemies, but most of them are in Iron Heights.. Maybe there's a new player in town..
"Maybe.. Though, it doesn't matter too much until he actually shows up.. So, any new cases you've been working on? Something that yours truly can help with."
"You know I'm not really supposed to talk to you about ongoing cases Bart."
"I'm aware.. But how am I supposed to catch whoever it is, if I don't know what's going on Barry?"
"Fine.. Recently, I've been working on a cases of seemingly unconnected murders. One was burned to death, another frozen solid, than there was one that got electrocuted. Remind you of anyone?"
"Yeah of course.. Heatwave, Captain Cold, and Weather Wizard.. Three of your old sparring partners that makeup the Rogues."
"Right. But the thing is, two of them are in Iron Heights currently and Heatwave is apparently on vacation in Aruba or something.."
"Yep, Heatwave is on vacation.. So it's probably a copy cat right?"
"Could be, though most of the time copy cats are sloppy, leaving fingerprints behind that the original wouldn't leave. But whoever did it was very meticulous in making sure there were as little things to trace it back to them as possible."
"Hmm. Well, I guess I'll check the usual hideouts, and see if anything pops out."
"Wait.. Before you run off, there's some people I want you to meet."
"Ookay? Is there people hidden in a closet or something I don't know about?"
"Not here Bart.. At STAR Labs. People who could help you for when you're the Flash."
"Since when do I need help? I mean you were the Flash for a long time, and you didn't have a team helping you.."
"Well to be fair, you're way younger than I was when I first became the Flash. With age, comes experience. Which is something you don't have much of right now. Also your impulsive nature doesn't really help things. Besides, I already called them, and said we were coming."
"So you don't trust me to do the job on my own.. Good to know. Fine, I'll go. Doesn't mean that this 'Team Flash' will be a thing though."
"I'm just trying to make sure you don't get yourself killed. I'm sure you'll change your mind once we get there. Also, they only know me as a CSI, so you'll have to be my transportation." Me, picking up Barry Allen.. Man, what a joke. I'm sure I'd be laughed at, if anyone else was watching. Thankfully no one is.
"Have you gained weight recently? May have to lay off the Krispy Kreme's for a while." I say, as I finally am able to lift him up. With that, I run towards STAR Labs. It's only a minute or so later, that I arrive with Barry at STAR Labs. Feels like it looks different every time I come here, but maybe that's just cause it has to get rebuilt so often. Anyways, as we enter the building, Barry walks up to the front desk, and starts talking to the woman sitting there. I pace back and forth, as others look at me with such confusion. Others oddly find it amusing, and start giggling. It takes what feels like eternity for me, before she motions for me and Barry to follow her. She gives me a weird look, but given the circumstances, it's understandable. We go through a series of hallways, and doorways, before we reach our destination. I open the door, with Barry following in behind me. In the room, there are sets of computers, and lab equipment. Looks like there are a few other rooms, as I see a door on the left, and right hand side of the room. There's a guy sitting in the computer chair, with spikey black hair, along with an older gentleman standing next to him. He's wearing a lab coat, with brown hair that reminds me of my own. The man in the lab coat turns around and notices us standing there in front of the doorway.
"Ah, they're here!!" He walks up to us, and Barry shakes his hand.
"Darwin! It's good to see you old friend." Old friend? I don't remember any Darwin's being in the history books as Barry's friend.. Guess I must've missed something..
"You too Barry. Been too long!"
"So how do you two know each other exactly?" I ask, still confused on how they know each other.
"My bad.. Flash, this is Darwin Elias. He's a research scientist that used to work at CCPD." Still not ringing any bells.. Weird..
"But when lightning struck so many times during that Speed Force Storm, I decided my efforts would be better spent here at STAR Labs. Helping new speedsters understand what's happened to them on a cellular level, so they can adapt to those changes. Also gives me the opportunity to learn more about the Speed Force, and how it exactly works." Darwin says, almost interrupting Barry.
"Oh, okay. Nice to meet you, Doctor Elias." I vibrate my voice when I speak as the Flash, so that others don't catch on to my secret identity.
"Likewise Flash! I look forward to working with you." He reaches his hand out to shake mine.
"The jury's still out on that. I only agreed to meet after all."
"Fair enough.." Darwin pauses, before speaking up once again. "Albert, come over here."
"Just a sec, and I'll be right there." 'Albert' after a few taps on the keyboard, gets up off of the chair, and walks up the stairs to where we are standing.
"Hi! The name's Albert Lim. I'm the tech specialist around here. Speaking of which, I could upgrade your suit for you, if ya want."
"No thanks.. I'm good. Works great just the way it is right now." Why change something that's not broken?
"Alright, well let me know if you ever change your mind. Marissa's gonna freak when she hears about this.. She's a big fan of you, Flash."
"Really? Where's she at? Always crash meeting fans." Wonder if she's cute. Guess I may have to stick around for a little while.
All of the sudden, there's this beeping that keeps going, until Albert goes to the computer, and taps a few keys.
"We got trouble. Home invasion reported in the Brookfield Heights area. Looks like a meta as well."
"You're up Flash!" Darwin says with enthusiasm.
"Do you at least have a specific address for me?" I ask, before Albert hands me what looks to be a communication device.
"I'll let you know on the way.. So does this mean you're in?"
"We'll see how this goes first." I look at Barry, and he has the goofiest grin on his face, as I try not to accept this whole thing.
"Hey, he didn't say no, so I'd call that a win!" Albert cheers, as I run off to the Brookfield Heights area of the city. This team thing could either blow up in my face, or it could be exactly what I need. Either way, we'll soon find out which of the two it is.
Took the new Duaflex to Niagara Falls today and fell in love. This camera is perfect for all of that kitsch. Many more TTV shots to come from this trip...then I promise I'll lay off of it for a bit. ;)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
United States
NameChateau Thierry
NamesakeChâteau-Thierry, France
BuilderAmerican International Shipbuilding
Cost~$2,000,000
Yard number678
Laid down25 January 1919 as Skanamania
Launched24 December 1919
CompletedJune 1920
Acquired
By the Army: 1921
By the Navy: 15 July 1941
Commissioned
Army: 1921 - 1941
Navy: 6 Aug 1941 - 9 Sep 1943 1940
Army: 5 Mar 1944- 1946?
Honors and
awardsOne battle star for World War II service
FateSold for scrapping, 17 June 1957, to Ziedell Explorations Inc., Portland, OR.
General characteristics
TypeDesign 1024 ship
Displacement9,050 tons (lt)
Length448 ft
Beam58 ft
Draft28 ft
PropulsionSteam turbine
Speed15 knots
Complement253
Armament(WWII) 1 x 5"/38 caliber dual purpose gun, 4 x 3"/50 caliber dp guns, 8 x 0.5 in (12.7 mm) machine guns
Chateau Thierry was a troop transport that served with the US Army and US Navy. Originally built for service during the First World War, the ship arrived too late to see service in that war, but operated as an army transport, USAT Chateau Thierry, between the wars. With America's entry into World War II, the vessel was transferred to the US Navy and redesignated USS Chateau Thierry (AP-31). In 1943 she was transferred back to the Army and converted into a hospital ship, USAHS Chateau Thierry, in which role she was to serve for the remainder of the war.
Chateau Thierry was built in 1921 by the American International Shipbuilding Corporation at Hog Island, Pennsylvania. She was transferred from the Army to the Navy 15 July 1941, and commissioned into the latter 6 August 1941, Commander J. K. Davis in command.
Prewar Army service
Chateau Thierry played a part in the assumption by the United States of responsibilities in the western Atlantic in the period before entrance into World War II as she carried Army and civilian personnel and cargo from Brooklyn, New York, to ports in Greenland, Iceland, and Nova Scotia, between 13 September 1941 and 2 January 1942.
The ship's first captain, Jerry Allen, sailed her maiden voyage as a U.S. Army Transport from Baltimore to Manila in 1921. He captained the Chateau Thierry on a number or trips from the east coast to Pacific ports. One started in 1925 in Manila, stopped in San Francisco, traversed the Panama Canal and docked in New York.[1]
War Department plans to establish bases in Greenland, known by the code name "Bluie" were at risk when Navy notified Army that ships could not be spared ships for a required two month layover.[2] The recently acquired Munargo being transferred to Navy for that purpose and addition of Chateau Thierry was the solution.[2] The Army's Greenland force had been scheduled to depart 19 May 1941 but repairs were required for Munargo delayed departure until 19 June when Chateau Thierry and Munargo with 469 officers and men of the force departed New York bound for Argentia, Newfoundland where they would refuel and await news of ice conditions.[2] The ships departed Argentia 30 June and arrived off Narsarssuak, Greenland to establish Bluie West One as the major Army and Navy base in Greenland.[2]
World War II
On 15 July 1941 Chateau Thierry was transferred from Army to Navy and continued operations between Brooklyn and outposts in Greenland, Iceland, and Nova Scotia during September 1941 and 2 January 1942.[3]
With the entry of the United States into the war, she sailed from Brooklyn 15 January 1942 carrying some of the first American troops to cross to Northern Ireland. Chateau Thierry sailed on to Scotland to embark British troops and sailors for transportation to Halifax and New York City. Two more voyages with soldiers from New York to Argentia, Newfoundland, followed, and on 19 May, she got underway for Charleston, South Carolina, to embark Army and civilian passengers. She sailed on by way of Bermuda for a round of calls at African ports, sailing south around Cape of Good Hope for Eritrea, where she landed the last of her passengers and took a new group on board. On her return passage she picked up Navy gun crews and other survivors of two merchant ship sinkings, at west African ports.
Invasion of Sicily
Chateau Thierry resumed her transport duty to the North Atlantic until 29 April 1943, when she cleared New York for a voyage to North Africa, well escorted in a safe passage. Returning to New York, she embarked soldiers and sailors, and cleared 10 June for Oran, arriving 21 June. Here she prepared for the invasion of Sicily, for which she sailed 5 July. Assigned to the floating reserve, Chateau Thierry lay off the hotly contested Gela beaches 10 July as the assault began, and late in the day began landing her reinforcements, continuing into the night. She remained off Sicily for 2 days, firing to aid in turning back the heavy German air attacks, and taking on board Italian prisoners of war.
Returning to Bizerte 13 July she landed the Italians, then returned to Sicily to embark members of naval units not needed ashore now that the landings had succeeded. Laden with German prisoners of war at Oran, Chateau Thierry sailed 9 August for New York which she reached 22 August.
Conversion to hospital ship
Sailing on to Boston, she was decommissioned there 9 September 1943, and returned to the Army who used her as a hospital ship for the remainder of the war. Chateau Thierry was one of the 12 hospital ships that were involved in the Invasion of southern France. The ship was also in North Africa, Sicily and Italy at Anzio.
Awards
Chateau Thierry received one battle star for World War II service.
... lay off the throttle, nose her down, and flare at the last moment to stick the numbers on Runway 10.
Should there ever be a sequel to the book "An Incredible Journey - The First Story", 2018 will be one of the chapters that will require a good few pages. It will be a defining year for First Aberdeen. Restructured during 2017, Aberdeen is now managed strategically from Glasgow and operationally the team is split between Aberdeen and Larbert. There is very little Aberdeen based staff now have direct control over.
One of the big challenges over the last decade has been the increasing pressure from Glasgow to restructure Aberdeen drivers pay and conditions which are considerably better than other First depots in Scotland and according to one former First Director, better than Lothian Buses too. Of course the Aberdeen employment market is radically different to other parts of Scotland where driver recruitment is much easier, largely down to competition from the oil and gas sector. Now the barrier of a local Aberdeen management team has been removed and the oil and gas sector has been laying off more than it recruits, Glasgow has seized the chance to push through a new contract. Only four drivers voted for the new conditions (one of which now admits he got confused and crossed the wrong box) in a decision that First Scotland MD Andrew Jarvis has described as "disappointing" and one driver described as "turkeys not voting for Christmas", First is pushing ahead with 12 weeks legal notice of change to the drivers conditions which is expected to start a protracted period of industrial action by driving staff. It is likely First Aberdeen drivers will withdraw from driving for up to two hours a day taking buses of the road between school times similar to the last dispute in 2009. That dispute was different as drivers were pushing for increased pay in conditions. This time they are simply refusing to accept a pay cut for longer working hours.
Around 20 First drivers have made it known they will leave the company if the changes are implemented as they stand in a move that will see the company lose many of its Platinum and hydrogen drivers while others have indicated they will take early retirement at the earliest opportunity. Anticipating this First have been actively recruiting new drivers, particularly as the new contracts will restrict the ability of driver to work significant overtime due to the longer driving hours taking shifts to the max of UK legislation.
For First management the change will vastly reduce the single biggest cost at Aberdeen depot enabling it to minimise the impact of service cuts as Aberdeen is forced to meet high targets set by First Bus for number of passengers per bus per hour designed to maximise profit to enable parent FirstGroup meet its challenging debt repayment commitments.
For the drivers they fear less time at home with their family due to longer shifts with more time, upaid, stuck in the City Centre without enough time to make it home. They also fear the financial impacts of reduced pay and less overtime as many drivers struggle to pay mortgage payments higher than drivers elsewhere in the UK.
For the passenger it seems likely bus travel will be disrupted off peak in the near future making students travelling to university and patients travelling to hospital and doctor appointments very difficult. It will also damage further the market for passengers travelling to shops, already in decline as the online market grows, Asda again expanded its online operation in Aberdeen by 20% last week as demand continues to grow. Longer term the passenger fears that a prospective service network change at the end of March will bring significant cuts to services to ARI, the Airport and night time links.
Recruitment analysts in Aberdeen also point to growing recruitment in the old and gas sectors as older workers take early retirement under the pressure of downsizing on their workload which could very well give First Aberdeen a perfect storm in late 2018 as the many ex oil and gas sector workers being employed as drivers quit to go back to the industry. As one worker put it a six week oil and gas contract can pay more than a year driving buses for First.
There are also health and safety fears being pushed by the Unite union over the risk of drivers becoming tired at the wheel.
37639 on the much neglected Platinum concept on Union Street at 10am in the morning with very few First buses to be seen. How many will still be running by the end of the year?
Before and After Video Available @ www.flickr.com/photos/204studios/5863128039/
What can I say… Well how about "damn that took me a long time" I had no real idea what I was doing when I set out late last night to capture what would end up being not only day 173 but yet another photoshop marathon piece! I had taken a short nap after dinner to see if I could "dream" again and of course failed to do so. When I awoke I had the idea to do some sort of burning or disintegrating man shot.
I had walked out of my room and saw a strange guy in my kitchen. My mother introduced him but not why he was in the kitchen. After I questioned her about it she explained that it was a nightclub photographer giving her photos for her website. Another photographer in my house! Oh the nerve! Naw, but really it was cool. I like talking "shop" with other photogs. Too bad he had to leave.
Well, I set up 1 light then figured i'd get a rim light so I setup a second. Not long after the second went up I decided that I had already set most of the gear up, I might as well put the backdrop up and third light. I was now setup fully and ready to capture what would soon be me, burning!
I decided that I would have my shirt off for this shot. Something I rarely do as I like both cheese and Guinness too much. But since I've been laying off pepsi and beer and cheese for a few weeks I figured why not show the world what will power and photoshop can do. Of course I busted out a few pushups, situps and pullups before taking any shots. Wouldn't want to look deflated! Exercising outside got me sweaty and worked out well for the shot.
After I was done, I setup for some smoke and fire shots. I already have a decent stock of fire and smoke but decided a little more couldn't hurt. The smoke shots were taken at 1/250 sec while the fire shots were taken at 1/1000 in an attempt to freeze the fire in place. I only burned my hand twice this time. I'm getting better I tell you! it was February 4th the last time I played with fire and you can really tell I know what I'm doing. I even got a bowl of water this time so I could but the fire out after I'm done with it.
From that point it was off to photoshop. This would prove to be more time consuming then both the alien and old man mike shots. I took my time as I was not sure what direction I was going to take it. Hell, I didn't even know how far I was willing to go. However, once I started, I couldn't stop! It was just too much fun!
I think my biggest accomplishment tonight was making the burning skin texture used on my arm. I had looked up several reference photos of lava and decided I could do something similar in photoshop. Now, this is where I surprised myself. With a 50% grey layer I preceded to build a skin texture in one fluid motion. There was no deleting, trial an error or starting over. For some reason I just went through the filters like I had done this a million times. I was shocked at how perfect it came out! It took me less then 1 minute and I was ready to use it.
I researced burning flesh and people for "realism" it was pretty distrubing. But then again, today's picture is disturbing in its self!
With over 50 layers I'd say this is top 3 largest files I've made. I originally edited it in portrait mode but after finishing decided to expand it to landscape as I am just a big fan of landscape aspect.
I've now been up through the night and am ready for some sleep. Hopefully I'll be ready to tackle Day 174 shortly after awaking. I hope you all like it. I would appreciate comments and critique as this was tough to call quits on. What do you think?
Lighting:
AB800 Med. Softbox at 10:00 and 2:00 Half power
AB800 Beauty Dish Boomed overhead set at 1/4 power
Cyber Syncs for triggering.
I used to 4x4 foam core boards as Gobos to kill light spill and flare from the edge lights. Sometimes I use the softbox grids but today I was too lazy to go get them.
Seven hundred years after the birth of Christ, the Arab leader Tarik-Ibn-Zeyad conquered the Rock and named it Jebel-Tarik (Tarik’s mountain). An important military and naval base, it changed hands many times during the following eight centuries of Arab occupation in Spain. In the early part of the fourteenth century Spanish forces occupied Gibraltar for twenty-four years; but in 1333 it reverted to Moorish control after a bloody eighteen week siege. The Rock did not finally become Spanish until 1462 when the Duke of Medina Sidonia recaptured it. The eighteenth century saw another change of ownership. In July 1704, as he lay off Tetuan with a large combined fleet of British and Dutch warships, Admiral Sir George Rooke saw an opportunity to capture the Rock. The city fathers initially refused Rooke’s call to surrender but 15,000 rounds of shot and shell and landings by British marines and sailors persuaded them otherwise.
Since that day, the Rock has played a part in some of the most famous episodes of British history. During the American War of Independence, the combined forces of France and Spain besieged Gibraltar for four and a half years. The body of Nelson, preserved in a barrel of rum, was brought to Gibraltar after his magnificent victory at Trafalgar and in the Second World War the Rock was a key factor in British victories in the Mediterranean.
Ravenswood:
Ravenswood was one of several important goldfields in which formed a major component in the development of North Queensland. The need to access and exploit gold finds determined the path of railways, the establishment of related industries and commerce and the location of settlements. Some of these were short lived 'rushes', where tent and shanty townships disappeared almost as quickly as they rose. Other settlements based on goldfields became established towns with government and civic buildings, shops and family homes and survived as such. A few became important centres, only to fade away as gold yields fell. Ravenswood was one of these.
The area was first settled by Europeans following the establishment of Bowen in 1861. Pastoral runs were soon set up in the hinterland, including the area on which the Ravenswood field was to develop. The first gold in North Queensland had been found at Star River in 1865 and triggered further exploration. Gold was found at Merri Merriwa, the run on which the town of Ravenswood stands, in 1867, although it was reported as being on the adjoining property of Ravenswood, the name by which the field was always known.
Much of the gold initially found was in a triangle in and around three dry creeks which soon formed the focus for a tent and shanty settlement. Ravenswood gold was in reefs and a small battery was first set up in 1869, followed by the Lady Marian Mill in 1870. The settlement was also surveyed at this time, but by then the goldfield itself, and the buildings and streets already established, had shaped the town and the survey merely formalised what was already in place. This can still be seen clearly in the irregularity of the major streets. Ravenswood was gazetted as a town in 1871.
It was soon found that the gold at deeper levels was finely distributed in ore containing other minerals and was difficult to separate either by mechanical or chemical means. This required greater capital to fund various technologies for extraction. Many miners left for other fields, such as Charters Towers, discovered in 1871 and which quickly overtook Ravenswood as a gold producer and as the most important inland North Queensland town. Even so, Ravenswood continued to prosper due to a steady, though reduced, production of gold, the discovery of silver at nearby Totley in 1878 and as a commercial centre. By 1874, the town had a courthouse and police station, a post and telegraph office, a hospital, and a school. In 1872, the first small School of Arts was formed, providing a lending library, newspapers and a meeting place for its members and in 1875 a separate library building was constructed beside it.
The Ravenswood School Of Arts:
The School of Arts building is a timber hall, built in 1884 beside a former School of Arts structure then used as a library. It became the principal theatre, cinema, and social venue of Ravenswood and continued a series of facilities provided to the community of Ravenswood since 1872.
The first Mechanic's Institutes or Schools of Arts were established in Britain in the early 1800s and were intended to assist self improvement and to promote moral, social, and intellectual growth, by providing lectures, discussions and lending libraries to a rising middle class. At the time there were no public libraries and books were expensive, so that access to books by borrowing as subscribers provided an important educational and recreational service. The first School of Arts committee in Queensland was established in Brisbane in 1849 with the aim of 'the advancement of the community in literary, philosophic and scientific subjects'. As towns and districts became established, local committees were formed to establish schools of arts and they became one of the principal sources of adult education.
Ravenswood's economy received a boost in the mid-1880s by the arrival of the railway in 1884 and the use of improved means to extract gold from ore. A new generation of public buildings began to replace those from the early days of the field, including a police station and courthouse, post office, and hospital. In 1884, the current hall was built beside the library, presumably replacing the first small hall. In the late nineteenth century Schools of Arts expanded their aims to include the promotion of games of skill and intellectual amusements. The new hall provided the facilities for the staging of plays and concerts and became a focal point of entertainment for townspeople. It was used as a meeting hall, dance hall, and a live theatre. An amateur dramatic society staged annual productions and a School concert and Saint Patrick's Day concert were annual events.
In 1899, the New Ravenswood Company was formed by A.L. Wilson who raised overseas capital, reopened old mines and used modern methods to rework tailings more efficiently. The shareholders recouped their investment in the first two years and this drew world-wide interest. It was the beginning of Ravenswood's most prosperous period, which lasted for several years. However, after 1908, the cost of extraction and continued exploration grew as returns lessened and after the end of World War I, it became apparent that it would not pick up again. In 1916 rail services were cut and in 1917 the New Ravenswood Company closed.
In the 1920s, buildings, as well as people, left Ravenswood, as timber buildings were relocated in other towns. There was a small revival in the 1930s and early 1940s as new technology allowed for economical mining of lower grade ores. However, by the 1960s, the population fell to 70. This was to be its lowest level, as tourists began to take an interest in the town, studies were made of the buildings and work began to conserve them. In the 1980s the whole town was listed by the Australian Heritage Commission and the National Trust of Queensland. In 1987 Carpentaria Gold Ltd opened a new open cut mine using modern heap leaching processes.
In 1989 Cyclone Aivu damaged the facade of the hall and caused the complete collapse of the library. This building was propped by the community but eventually demolished in 1992 as it was thought unsafe. The hall was repaired and the front reconstructed to resemble its original appearance In 1990 the Dalrymple Shire Council and Carpentaria Gold financed extensive renovations to the hall. Its official opening took place on Sunday, the 29th of September 1991, since when it has again become a focus for community activities and celebrations including the "Back To Ravenswood Weekend" held each year.
The Cake Shop:
The Cake Shop is located on the western side of Macrossan Street near the School of Arts. It is thought to have been built in the 1880s and may have been first used by Jun Yeung Wong and Company as a store and an outlet for garden produce. It has had a variety of tenants over the years and is best remembered by people in the district as a cake or pie shop.
Ravenswood was one of several important goldfields which formed a major component in the development of North Queensland. The need to access and exploit gold finds determined the path of railways, the establishment of related industries and commerce and the location of settlements. Some of these were short lived 'rushes', where tent and shanty townships disappeared almost as quickly as they rose. Other settlements based on goldfields became established towns with government and civic buildings, shops and family homes and survived as such. A few became important centres, only to fade away as gold yields fell. Ravenswood was one of these.
In 1882 the land on which the shop stands was subdivided from the block granted to Ebenezer Roberts the previous year and was purchased by Frederick Wise. Wise kept a store and was Vice President of the School of Arts. An early resident of Ravenswood remembered the store as having been used by the Chinese as a general store, produce outlet, and a gold exchange during the 'rush' years, although this may have simply taken the form of accepting payment for goods in gold. The name Jun Yeung Wong and Company was faintly visible on the front of the store until the 1960s, although it is not recorded in post office directories. Ravenswood had a significant minority of Chinese amongst its population in the nineteenth century, although, as with other goldfields, there is now little evidence of their presence.
In 1904 the property was acquired by Daniel Patience, apparently as an investment, but run by a Mrs Watson as a cordial shop and manufactory as an adjunct to James Watson's aerated waters factory until 1918. By this time Ravenswood was in serious decline, after having enjoyed a boom between 1900 and 1908 due to more modern techniques being applied to ore processing. However, the cost of extraction and continued exploration rose as returns fell and after the end of the war it became apparent that it would not pick up again. In 1918 the shop was sold to the Kluver family. Herbert Kluver was a carrier and his wife ran the shop as refreshment rooms.
In 1924 the shop was bought by Ethel Wadsworth who ran refreshment rooms throughout the small revival of the 1930s and early 1940s as new technology allowed for economical mining of lower grade ores, but closed in 1947. It was grandly called a restaurant in its closing years but seems to have been actually a cake and pie shop that provided table service for customers. This is the use best remembered by local people. It may have been empty for a while before being sold to Gertrude Blackman in 1952. Its use during that time is not known but by then there were very few businesses in town and its use as a residence is remembered locally. It was purchased by the owners of Ravenswood Station in 1966 and was used at one time to store fodder. During this period the population of Ravenswood fell to 70.
The present owner purchased the Cake Shop in 1986, but in 1989 it was severely damaged by two cyclones. A grant from the Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage in 1991, together with assistance from the Dalrymple Shire Council, allowed the store to be repaired and the store front to be reconstructed reusing original materials where possible. In 1993 the rear of the shop and an attached residence were demolished.
A gift, craft, and cake shop was opened in the building after renovations.
The Imperial Hotel:
The Imperial Hotel, a striking two storey brick hotel in the main Street of Ravenswood, is one of a handful of buildings which survive from this once important mining town. Constructed in 1901 for James Delaney and run by members of this family for most of the twentieth century, it is evidence of Ravenswood's prosperity during its boom period.
The discovery of several important goldfields in Queensland in the nineteenth century formed a major component in the development of the North.. The need to access and exploit gold finds determined the path of railways, the establishment of related industries and commerce and the location of settlements. Some of these were short lived 'rushes', where tent and shanty townships disappeared almost as quickly as they rose. Other settlements based on goldfields became established towns with government and civic buildings, shops and family homes and survived as such. A few became important centres, only to fade away as gold yields fell. Ravenswood was one of these.
The area was first settled by Europeans following the establishment of Bowen in 1861. Pastoral runs were soon set up in the hinterland, including the area on which the Ravenswood field was to develop. Gold had been found in north Queensland at Star River in 1865 and this triggered further exploration. Gold was found at Merri Merriwa, the run on which the town of Ravenswood stands, in 1867, although it was reported as being on the adjoining property of Ravenswood, the name by which the field was always known. The first claim made was the 'Perseverance', later to be known as the 'Donnybrook' mine. This has a connection with the Imperial since the success of the mine is said to have provided James Delaney with the capital with which to build the hotel.
Much of the gold initially found was in a triangle in and around three dry creeks which soon formed the focus for a tent and shanty settlement. Ravenswood gold was in reefs and a small battery was first set up in 1869, followed by the Lady Marian Mill in 1870. The settlement was also surveyed at this time, but by then the goldfield itself and the buildings and streets already established had shaped the town and the survey merely formalised what was already in place. This can still be seen clearly in the irregularity of the major streets. Ravenswood was gazetted as a town in 1871 and at this time it had 30 hotels and a population of about 1000.
It was also beginning to have problems as gold at deeper levels proved to be finely distributed in ore containing other minerals and was difficult to separate either by mechanical or chemical means. This required greater capital to fund various technologies for extraction. Many miners left for other fields, such as Charters Towers, discovered in 1871 and which quickly overtook Ravenswood as a gold producer and as the most important inland North Queensland town. Despite this, Ravenswood continued to prosper due to a steady, though reduced, production of gold, the discovery of silver at nearby Totley in 1878 and as a commercial centre. Shanties were replaced by sawn timber buildings and as single miners left, more families moved in. The stability of the town was assisted by linking of Ravenswood to the Townsville/Charters Towers railway line in 1884. In this year the Ravenswood Gold Company was formed and experimented with better means to process local ore. In 1899 the New Ravenswood Company was formed by A.L. Wilson who raised overseas capital, reopened old mines and used modern methods to rework tailings more efficiently. The shareholders recouped their investment in the first two years and this drew world-wide interest. It was the beginning of Ravenswood's most prosperous period.
In 1900 James Delaney applied for a licence for a new 18 bedroom hotel. He had been the licensee of the Commercial Hotel since 1896 when he married Anne Browne, possibly a connection of the owner of the town's most prominent hostelry, Browne's Ravenswood Hotel. The site purchased by Delaney was separated from Browne's by only 2 shops and he opened his splendid two storey Imperial Hotel in early 1901. On the night of the 18 April, 1901, the Imperial burned to the ground taking with it the whole block of buildings, with the exception of Browne's hotel, which had been protected by a brick wall. The damage was estimated at £20,000. The wall had possibly been erected as a firewall as both the Ravenswood Hotel and the shops Browne owned alongside it were timber, as were virtually all of the buildings in Ravenswood. Closely built timber structures and the lack of an adequate water supply for fire fighting made it possible for fires to race along a block until reaching a gap which acted as a fire break, a fact underlined by a similar fire on the opposite side of the street only three months later. The owners agreed to use the same architect, Eaton, Bates and Polin, to redesign the whole block and tenders were called in early May 1901. The shops between the Ravenswood and the Imperial were replaced by 'Browne's Buildings', Trehearn built a new shop for his former tenant, James Tait & Co. and the bakery and Commercial Hotel, both owned by the Estate of Michael Franzman, were replaced by 3 shops.
Ravenswood had produced bricks since its early years and a team of bricklayers is thought to have already been on the field, brought in by A.L. Wilson to rebuild mining structures such as chimneys. It is said that bricks were brought in from Townsville, but these may have been the cream face bricks applied in bands as a feature of the new buildings and seen to striking effect on the Imperial, which became the centrepiece of two rows of handsome shops.
Delaney died in July 1902 but had already made the hotel over the his wife in 1901. The Delaney's had four daughters, Mary Ellen (1896), Kathleen (1898), Teresa (1899) and Johanna (1901) who at the time of his death were aged between six years and eleven months. In the early years Mrs Delaney appears to have employed a manager, but in 1906 took over the management herself, pending a proposed transfer of the license. In the event, she continued to run the hotel, assisted by her daughters as they grew up.
The population of Ravenswood peaked in 1903 at 4700 but after 1908 the town began to decline. As time went by the cost of extraction grew as returns lessened and Wilson lost money searching for 'mother' lodes at deep levels and began to lay off miners. A strike in 1912 dragged out for eight months causing hardship and although judgement eventually favoured the miners, Wilson could no longer afford to employ many of them. The decline of the Ravenswood mines continued with the outbreak of war in 1914 increasing costs and disruptions to the labour supply. Buildings began to be sold for removal and in 1916 rail services were cut. In 1917 the New Ravenswood Company closed.
In the 1920s most of the buildings in Ravenswood were moved away, but the Imperial, being a brick building, could not be moved and continued to trade. Ravenswood Shire ceased to exist in 1929 and was absorbed into Dalrymple Shire. In 1930 Ravenswood became the first Queensland town to lose its railway connection. A small revival occurred during the 1930s and a shaft was sunk next to the hotel, but most gold was gained by applying more modern extraction processes to known sites. This did not make much difference to the life of the town and by the 1960s it had reached its lowest ebb with a population of about 70. At this point, tourists began to take an interest in the town, studies were made of the buildings and work began to conserve them. In the 1980s the whole town was listed by the Australian Heritage Commission and the National Trust of Queensland. In 1987 Carpentaria Gold Ltd opened a new open cut mine using modern heap leaching processes.
Throughout the difficult times in Ravenswood, the hotel continued to trade. Anne Delaney died in 1968 and the hotel was then run by Teresa (Tessa) who died in 1980 and Jo who died in 1989. The hotel then passed to Mary (Maisie), the only married daughter, and her three daughters, Kathleen having died early. In 1994 it was sold to local owners and still operates as a hotel. Ravenswood's two hotels have helped to maintain an economic life in the town and continue to offer accommodation and recreational facilities.
The buildings which flanked the hotel have been demolished, the last bay of Browne's Buildings within recent years, so the hotel now stands alone. The new owners have redecorated some of the bedrooms on the first floor and have removed some of the dining room furniture into storage to create a pool room at the front of the hotel.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.
Run awaaaaaay!
A quick tablescrap I built yesterday in about two hours. Just a quick thing to make use of my Pirates of the Caribbean parts some more. (Love them) and because I'm growing a little tired of building my castle display for BrickFair.
Despite all the new heads LEGO has come out with =0 remains my favorite.
It also ended up looking a lot like a Chibi version of this. So that would make it my third attempt at using this painting for inspiration. I think its about time I lay off the cliff to the left with sand on the right vignettes.
More on BrickShelf (When Moderated)
In the early 1920s, Richard Gurley Drew worked at the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, now known as 3M, which at the time made sandpaper. Drew delivered sandpaper samples to auto body shops, and saw the frustration that car painters had when painting two-tone color cars. Surgical adhesive tape, library pastes, and homemade glues were used to hold newspapers on cars when painting, and as the papers were removed, sticking residues often remained, that ripped off some of the paint when they were peeled off.
Drew invented masking tape, and created it with crêpe paper, cabinetmaker's glue, and glycerin. It adhered well to cars when painting, and also came off easily afterwards without taking paint away. It was marketed as Scotch Masking Tape in 1925. The name "Scotch" stems from an ethnic stereotype that said Scottish people were stingy. Some stories claim that the tape didn't adhere well at first, or didn't have adhesive in the middle of it. The stories purport that Drew was told to go back to his "Scotch" bosses and to tell them to add more adhesive, or that they asked him why he was being so "Scotch" with the adhesive. It is unclear if Drew actually had these conversations, but nonetheless, the name stuck, as did the final version of the tape.
In 1929, Drew came up with the idea of using DuPont's recently invented cellophane to make tape. Cellophane was moisture proof and was used to wrap baked goods and grocery items. He wanted to invent a tape made of cellophane that would seal cellophane packaging while blending in, so as to not be seen. The machinery that had been used for applying adhesive to masking tape didn't work with the cellophane tape, and the glue that was used in masking tape didn't look good on the transparent tape. New machines were made, and a new, clear adhesive made of oil, rubber, and resins helped create a successful clear cellophane tape. It was originally given the name Scotch Cellulose Tape, and later became Scotch Transparent Tape. It was revealed and began being marketed on January 31, 1930, and its patent was published on May 27 of the same year.
At first it did not seem that the new tape would be needed. Dupont had come up with a cellophane that could be sealed with heat, so the new tape was no longer needed to seal packages. The Great Depression also was beginning, which did not seem like the best time to begin marketing a new product. But in an era when being thrifty was a necessity, Scotch tapes' wide range of applicability made it popular. It was perfect for making simple repairs around the house. It could be used to mend books, curtains, sheet music, clothing, fingernails, cracked eggs, cracked ceiling plaster, and for many other things. It eventually was used as an "anti-corrosive shield" in the Goodyear Blimps. As the company prospered and was one of the few that didn't lay off workers during the Great Depression, they continued to innovate. A dispenser with a cutter blade was marketed in 1932, and in 1939 the now popular snail-shaped handheld tape dispenser was created.
In the 1950s, the new company mascot "Scotty McTape" appeared. He was declared a member of the Clan Wallace—the clan that William Wallace, who was also known as Braveheart was from. Scotty began wearing red tartan, as well as Wallace Hunting green plaid. Scotty McTape was jettisoned in early 1970s, but today the green plaid can still be seen on Scotch labels. Richard Gurley Drew is now in the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Today many manufacturers make transparent adhesive tape, but most people call it "Scotch tape." It is believed that transparent tape is now used in 90 percent of homes.
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I couldn't resist turning this Santa design into a cookie! And while the Naughty & Nice didn't turn out quite like I had hoped, I think the two designs pair well together.
I just got Laid Off.... (05/12/2009)
reposted this shot for the ongoing conversations and because it is my main focus at this moment. More new photos will come soon I promise.
I had to go back to winter shots for this feeling... My daughter and I were talking about how this can be an opportunity to make a significant change in life... she pointed out that right now I have no real ties holding me down, and if I had a choice where would I want to be. Tough choice... I love my valley here... I miss Port Townsend area (although really what I miss there is the feeling I had when David was alive and we had music potlucks weekly and a wonderful community..) and I even wondered if there were any openings in the Breitenbush Hotsprings community! So I am wiping my tears of shock at how it all happened, going out to start unemployment claims, sending for my photo business licence, and looking around at all the stuff I have accumulated and thinking about yard sales and garbage runs. I have told my sis that this might send me on a spin that takes me back away and although sad about that she understands.
Life is uncertain... time to pray and get in touch with my inner self.
2 rules we had on our kitchen cabinet when David was very ill
Rule # 1 Don't sweat the small stuff
Rule # 2 It's all small stuff.
I am just glad my boss is laying me off instead of firing me, so that I can draw unemployment
This image, taken at the Brazeau Collieries at Nordegg, AB shows abandoned coal cart wheels in one of the mine site buildings. As a ten year old boy, I remember the adults in the community talking about buildings which had been abandoned in Nordegg with all the household furnishings left behind. As a farm kid, I could not imagine anyone just walking away from their home.
"It was once a town of 3500 people with 450 homes and 1100 miners on the payroll. The mine operated from 1914 until 1955. It was founded by German born Martin Nordegg with European capital. Nordegg, like so many mining towns, was not without its disasters. On October 31, 1941 a huge explosion ripped though a mineshaft snuffing the lives of 29 miners. In June of 1950, disaster struck again. This time a fire destroyed the plant. But if fire and explosions could not kill Nordegg, modern technology did. During the early 1950s the railways began switching to diesel power and, with the steam locomotives gone, there was no longer a market for Nordegg’s coal. On January 14, 1955, the mine closed for good and longtime residents sadly moved away". H.B. Chenoweth
The Black Death
Fire, fire in the hole!
Thirty more bite the dust
Their last breath of carbon and coal.
How many times must the women come?
Crying eyes searching for husbands and sons.
How many men have to die?
While the foreman stands shaking his head,
screaming Union! When he's a company spy.
Now there are bonuses, benefits, impressive high pay
But with pay-rolled safety inspectors, all we do is pray.
Fancy memorials and commemorative plaques
Won't bring those children's fathers back.
But to feed your family, you'll sign the contract.
Now there's no work and you've found a new job!
But it's too close to the mines,
So it's lay-off pay and more hard times.
After only a year you're working again
The food on the table is back!
The last sound you hear is the roof starting to crack.
Leaving your children to stare at pictures asking, "Momma was that him?"
by Raine Coughlin
Jefferson has been on a buying spree, including other hospitals and a liberal arts college.
Recently it announced lay-offs of staff.
Lake Mead is a reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in the Southwestern United States. It is located in the states of Nevada and Arizona, 24 mi (39 km) east of Las Vegas. It is the largest reservoir in the US in terms of water capacity. Lake Mead provides water to the states of Arizona, California, and Nevada as well as some of Mexico, providing sustenance to nearly 20 million people and large areas of farmland.
At maximum capacity, Lake Mead is 112 miles (180 km) long, 532 feet (162 m) at its greatest depth, has a surface elevation of 1,229 feet (375 m) above sea level, has a surface area of 247 square miles (640 km2), and contains 28.23 million acre-feet (34.82 km3) of water.
The lake has remained below full capacity since 1983 owing to drought and increased water demand. As of May 31, 2022, Lake Mead held 26.63% of full capacity at 7.517 million acre-feet (9,272,000 megaliters), having dropped below the reservoir's previous all-time low of 9.328 million acre-feet (11,506,000 megaliters) recorded in July 2016 by June 2021 and never returning to that level. In a draft 2022 Colorado River annual operating plan, released by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, a "Shortage Condition" is expected to be declared for 2022, due to the lake level falling below 1,075 feet (327.7 m), which will result in a projected 4.44% curtailment in downstream water delivery.
The lake was named after Elwood Mead, who was the commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation from 1924 to 1936, during the planning and construction of the Boulder Canyon Project that created the dam and lake. Lloyd Joseph Hudlow, an engineer with the Bureau of Reclamation, came to Boulder City in March 1933 to assist in the survey, and ended up as the project manager.
Lake Mead was established as the Boulder Dam Recreation Area in 1936, administered by the National Park Service. The name was changed to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area in 1947, and Lake Mohave and the Shivwits Plateau were later added to its jurisdiction. Both lakes and the surrounding area offer year-round recreation options.
The accumulated water from Hoover Dam forced the evacuation of several communities, most notably St. Thomas, Nevada, the last resident of which left the town in 1938. The ruins of St. Thomas are currently visible (as of May 23, 2022) via dirt road and hiking trail, due to Lake Mead's low water level.[11] Lake Mead also covered the sites of the Colorado River landings of Callville and Rioville, Nevada, and the river crossing of Bonelli's Ferry, between Arizona and Nevada.
At lower water levels, a high-water mark, or "bathtub ring", is visible in photos that show the shoreline of Lake Mead. The bathtub ring is white because of the deposition of minerals on previously submerged surfaces.
Nine main access points to the lake are available. On the west are three roads from the Las Vegas metropolitan area. Access from the north-west from Interstate 15 is through the Valley of Fire State Park and the Moapa River Indian Reservation to the Overton Arm of the lake.
The lake is divided into several bodies. The large body closest to the Hoover Dam is Boulder Basin. The narrow channel, which was once known as Boulder Canyon and is now known as The Narrows, connects Boulder Basin to Virgin Basin to the east. The Virgin River and Muddy River empty into the Overton Arm, which is connected to the northern part of the Virgin Basin. The next basin to the east is Temple Basin, and following that is Gregg Basin, which is connected to the Temple Basin by the Virgin Canyon.
When the lake levels are high enough, a section of the lake farther upstream from the Gregg Basin is flooded, which includes Grand Wash Bay, the Pearce Ferry Bay and launch ramp, and about 55 miles (89 km) of the Colorado River within the lower Grand Canyon, extending to the foot of 240 Mile Rapids (north of Peach Springs, Arizona). In addition, two small basins, the Muddy River Inlet and the Virgin River Basin, are flooded when the lake is high enough where these two rivers flow into the lake. As of February 2015, these basins remain dry.
Jagged mountain ranges surround the lake, offering a scenic backdrop, especially at sunset. Two mountain ranges are within view of the Boulder Basin, the River Mountains, oriented northwest to southeast and the Muddy Mountains, oriented west to northeast. Bonelli Peak lies to the east of the Virgin Basin.
Las Vegas Bay is the terminus for the Las Vegas Wash which is the sole outflow from the Las Vegas Valley.
Lake Mead receives the majority of its water from snow melt in the Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah Rocky Mountains. Inflows to the lake are largely moderated by the upstream Glen Canyon Dam, which is required to release 8.23 million acre-feet (10,150,000 megaliters) of water each year to Lake Mead. Hoover Dam is required to release 9 million acre-feet (11,000,000 megaliters) of water each year, with the difference made up by tributaries that join the Colorado below Glen Canyon or flow into Lake Mead.
Outflow, which includes evaporation and delivery to Arizona, California, Nevada, and Mexico from Lake Mead is generally in the range of 9.5 to 9.7 million acre-feet (11,700,000 to 12,000,000 megaliters), resulting in a net annual deficit of about 1.2 million acre-feet (1,500,000 megaliters).
Before the filling of Lake Powell (a reservoir of similar size to Lake Mead) behind Glen Canyon Dam, the Colorado River flowed largely unregulated into Lake Mead, making Mead more vulnerable to drought. From 1953 to 1956, the water level fell from 1,200 to 1,085 feet (366 to 331 m). During the filling of Lake Powell from 1963 to 1965, the water level fell from 1,205 to 1,090 feet (367 to 332 m). Many wet years from the 1970s to the 1990s filled both lakes to capacity, reaching a record high of 1,225 feet (373 m) in the summer of 1983.
In these decades prior to 2000, Glen Canyon Dam frequently released more than the required 8.23 million acre-feet (10,150,000 megaliters) to Lake Mead each year. That allowed Lake Mead to maintain a high water level despite releasing significantly more water than it is contracted for. Since 2000, the Colorado River has experienced the southwestern North American megadrought, with average or above-average conditions occurring in only five years (2005, 2008–2009, 2011 and 2014) in the first 16 years of the 21st century. Of any 16-year period in the last 60 years, 2000-2015 had the lowest water availability.
Although Glen Canyon was able to meet its required minimum release until 2014, the water level in Lake Mead has steadily declined. The decreasing water level is due to the loss of the surplus water that once made up for the annual overdraft.
In June 2010, the lake was at 39% of its capacity, and on November 30, 2010, it reached 1,081.94 ft (329.78 m), setting a new record monthly low. From mid-May 2011 to January 22, 2012, Lake Mead's water elevation increased from 1,095.5 to 1,134.52 feet (333.91 to 345.80 m) after a heavy snowmelt in the Rocky Mountains prompted the release of an extra 3.3 million acre-feet (4,100,000 ML) from Glen Canyon into Lake Mead.
In 2012 and 2013, the Colorado River basin experienced its worst consecutive water years on record, prompting a low Glen Canyon release in 2014 – the lowest since 1963, during the initial filling of Lake Powell – in the interest of recovering the level of the upstream reservoir, which had fallen to less than 40% capacity as a result of the drought. Consequently, Lake Mead's level fell significantly, reaching a new record low in 2014, 2015 and 2016. In 2014, its record low was 1,081.82 feet (329.74 m) on July 10, 2014.
On June 26, 2015, Lake Mead reached another new record low when it fell to 1,074.71 feet (327.57 m), the first official "drought trigger" elevation, for the first time since the lake was filled. If the lake is below this elevation at the beginning of the water year, an official shortage declaration by the Bureau of Reclamation will enforce water rationing in Arizona and Nevada. The water year begins October 1 to coincide with seasonal Rocky Mountain snowfall, which produces most of the Colorado River's flow.
Lake Mead's water level rebounded a few feet by October 2015 and avoided triggering the drought restrictions. The water level started falling in Spring 2016 and fell below the drought trigger level of 1,075 feet again in May 2016. It fell to a new record low of 1,071.60 feet (326.62 m) on July 1, 2016, before beginning to rebound slowly. Drought restrictions were narrowly avoided again when the lake level rose above 1,075 feet on September 28, 2016, three days before the deadline, and the Bureau of Land Reclamation did not issue a shortage declaration.
A reprieve from the steady annual decline occurred in 2017, when lake levels rose throughout the year due to heavier than normal snowfall in the Rocky Mountains. As a result of the large snowmelt, the lake regained the water levels it had in 2015 with a seasonal high of 1,089.77 feet (332.16 m). The seasonal low of 1,078.96 feet (328.87 m) in 2017 was close to that experienced in 2014, safely above the drought trigger. That level was still 36 feet (11 m) below the seasonal low experienced in 2012, and the lake was projected to begin falling again in 2018.
Despite those and other predictions of an impending shortage determination by 2020, snowpack of 140% of average in the Upper Colorado River basin as of April 2019 resulted in 128% above average inflow into Lake Powell, resulting in 1,090.20-foot (332.29 m) water level on Lake Mead. In December 2019, Lake Mead water level reached 1,090.47 feet (332.38 m), about ten feet (three meters) above projections. As of April, 2020, the water level stood at 1,096.39 feet (334.18 m), again benefiting from above average mountain snowpack (107% of average).
Since 2018, Lake Mead water levels have remained well above the 1,075-foot (328 m) level that would trigger a shortage determination. In May 2020, the Bureau of Reclamation expected that the continued Colorado River basin drought would yield a Lake Mead level of 1,084.39 feet (330.52 m) by 2022[needs update]. On July 28, 2022, the level was 1,040.58 feet (317.17 m), the lowest level since 1937 when the reservoir was initially filled.
As a result of the decreasing water level, marinas and boat launch ramps have either had to be relocated to another area of the lake or have closed down permanently. The Las Vegas Bay Marina was relocated in 2002 and the Lake Mead Marina was relocated in 2008 to Hemenway Harbor. Overton Marina and Echo Bay Marina have been closed due to low levels in the northern part of the Overton Arm. Government Wash, Las Vegas Bay, and Pearce Ferry boat launch ramps have been closed. Las Vegas Boat Harbor and Lake Mead Marina in Hemenway Harbor/Horsepower Cove remain open, along with Callville Bay Marina, Temple Bar Marina, Boulder Launch Area (former location of the Lake Mead Marina) and the South Cove launch ramp.
Changing rainfall patterns, climate variability, high levels of evaporation, reduced snow melt runoff, and current water use patterns are putting pressure on water management resources at Lake Mead as the population relying on it for water, and the Hoover Dam for electricity, continues to increase. To lower the minimum lake level necessary to generate electricity from 1,050 feet (320 m) to 950 feet (290 m), Hoover Dam was retrofitted with wide-head turbines, designed to work efficiently with less flow in 2015 and 2016.
If water levels continue to drop, Hoover Dam would cease generating electricity when the water level falls below 950 feet (290 m) and the lake would stabilize at a level of 895 feet (273 m) when the water reaches the lowest water outlet of the dam. In order to ensure that the city of Las Vegas will continue to be able to draw its drinking water from Lake Mead, nearly $1.5 billion was spent on building a new water intake tunnel in the middle of the lake at the elevation of 860 feet (260 m). The 3-mile (4.8 km) tunnel took seven years to build under the lake and was put into operation in late 2015.
According to a 2016 estimate, about 6% of Lake Mead's water evaporates annually. Covering 6 percent of Lake Mead with floating photovoltaics has a potential generating capacity of 3,400 megawatts, which is comparable to the capacity of Hoover Dam, and would reduce water lost to evaporation in the covered area by as much as 90%.
A 2021 estimate stated that covering 10% of the lake's surface with foam-backed floating photovoltaics could result in "enough water conserved and electricity generated to service Las Vegas and Reno combined."
In December 2021, Arizona, California, Nevada, and the U.S. Department of the Interior signed an agreement to spend $200 million for 2022 and 2023 to subsidize water users who voluntarily reduce their usage or undertake capital projects to improve efficiency. Along with a variety of state and local regulations, this aims to retain the "500+ Plan" aims to retain 500,000 acre-feet (620,000,000 m3) in the reservoir, which equates to 35% of capacity. At the same time an agreement was reached with the Gila River Indian Community and the Colorado River Indian Tribes which is expected to save an estimated 11 vertical feet of reservoir water.
Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over one hundred lives. It was referred to as Hoover Dam after President Herbert Hoover in bills passed by Congress during its construction, but was named Boulder Dam by the Roosevelt administration. The Hoover Dam name was restored by Congress in 1947.
Since about 1900, the Black Canyon and nearby Boulder Canyon had been investigated for their potential to support a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water and produce hydroelectric power. In 1928, Congress authorized the project. The winning bid to build the dam was submitted by a consortium named Six Companies, Inc., which began construction of the dam in early 1931. Such a large concrete structure had never been built before, and some of the techniques were unproven. The torrid summer weather and lack of facilities near the site also presented difficulties. Nevertheless, Six Companies turned the dam over to the federal government on March 1, 1936, more than two years ahead of schedule.
Hoover Dam impounds Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States by volume when full. The dam is located near Boulder City, Nevada, a municipality originally constructed for workers on the construction project, about 30 mi (48 km) southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. The dam's generators provide power for public and private utilities in Nevada, Arizona, and California. Hoover Dam is a major tourist attraction; nearly a million people tour the dam each year. The heavily traveled U.S. Route 93 (US 93) ran along the dam's crest until October 2010, when the Hoover Dam Bypass opened.
As the United States developed the Southwest, the Colorado River was seen as a potential source of irrigation water. An initial attempt at diverting the river for irrigation purposes occurred in the late 1890s, when land speculator William Beatty built the Alamo Canal just north of the Mexican border; the canal dipped into Mexico before running to a desolate area Beatty named the Imperial Valley. Though water from the Imperial Canal allowed for the widespread settlement of the valley, the canal proved expensive to operate. After a catastrophic breach that caused the Colorado River to fill the Salton Sea, the Southern Pacific Railroad spent $3 million in 1906–07 to stabilize the waterway, an amount it hoped in vain would be reimbursed by the federal government. Even after the waterway was stabilized, it proved unsatisfactory because of constant disputes with landowners on the Mexican side of the border.
As the technology of electric power transmission improved, the Lower Colorado was considered for its hydroelectric-power potential. In 1902, the Edison Electric Company of Los Angeles surveyed the river in the hope of building a 40-foot (12 m) rock dam which could generate 10,000 horsepower (7,500 kW). However, at the time, the limit of transmission of electric power was 80 miles (130 km), and there were few customers (mostly mines) within that limit. Edison allowed land options it held on the river to lapse—including an option for what became the site of Hoover Dam.
In the following years, the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), known as the Reclamation Service at the time, also considered the Lower Colorado as the site for a dam. Service chief Arthur Powell Davis proposed using dynamite to collapse the walls of Boulder Canyon, 20 miles (32 km) north of the eventual dam site, into the river. The river would carry off the smaller pieces of debris, and a dam would be built incorporating the remaining rubble. In 1922, after considering it for several years, the Reclamation Service finally rejected the proposal, citing doubts about the unproven technique and questions as to whether it would, in fact, save money.
Soon after the dam was authorized, increasing numbers of unemployed people converged on southern Nevada. Las Vegas, then a small city of some 5,000, saw between 10,000 and 20,000 unemployed descend on it. A government camp was established for surveyors and other personnel near the dam site; this soon became surrounded by a squatters' camp. Known as McKeeversville, the camp was home to men hoping for work on the project, together with their families. Another camp, on the flats along the Colorado River, was officially called Williamsville, but was known to its inhabitants as "Ragtown". When construction began, Six Companies hired large numbers of workers, with more than 3,000 on the payroll by 1932 and with employment peaking at 5,251 in July 1934. "Mongolian" (Chinese) labor was prevented by the construction contract, while the number of black people employed by Six Companies never exceeded thirty, mostly lowest-pay-scale laborers in a segregated crew, who were issued separate water buckets.
As part of the contract, Six Companies, Inc. was to build Boulder City to house the workers. The original timetable called for Boulder City to be built before the dam project began, but President Hoover ordered work on the dam to begin in March 1931 rather than in October. The company built bunkhouses, attached to the canyon wall, to house 480 single men at what became known as River Camp. Workers with families were left to provide their own accommodations until Boulder City could be completed, and many lived in Ragtown. The site of Hoover Dam endures extremely hot weather, and the summer of 1931 was especially torrid, with the daytime high averaging 119.9 °F (48.8 °C). Sixteen workers and other riverbank residents died of heat prostration between June 25 and July 26, 1931.
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or "Wobblies"), though much-reduced from their heyday as militant labor organizers in the early years of the century, hoped to unionize the Six Companies workers by capitalizing on their discontent. They sent eleven organizers, several of whom were arrested by Las Vegas police. On August 7, 1931, the company cut wages for all tunnel workers. Although the workers sent the organizers away, not wanting to be associated with the "Wobblies", they formed a committee to represent them with the company. The committee drew up a list of demands that evening and presented them to Crowe the following morning. He was noncommittal. The workers hoped that Crowe, the general superintendent of the job, would be sympathetic; instead, he gave a scathing interview to a newspaper, describing the workers as "malcontents".
On the morning of the 9th, Crowe met with the committee and told them that management refused their demands, was stopping all work, and was laying off the entire work force, except for a few office workers and carpenters. The workers were given until 5 p.m. to vacate the premises. Concerned that a violent confrontation was imminent, most workers took their paychecks and left for Las Vegas to await developments. Two days later, the remainder were talked into leaving by law enforcement. On August 13, the company began hiring workers again, and two days later, the strike was called off. While the workers received none of their demands, the company guaranteed there would be no further reductions in wages. Living conditions began to improve as the first residents moved into Boulder City in late 1931.
A second labor action took place in July 1935, as construction on the dam wound down. When a Six Companies manager altered working times to force workers to take lunch on their own time, workers responded with a strike. Emboldened by Crowe's reversal of the lunch decree, workers raised their demands to include a $1-per-day raise. The company agreed to ask the Federal government to supplement the pay, but no money was forthcoming from Washington. The strike ended.
Before the dam could be built, the Colorado River needed to be diverted away from the construction site. To accomplish this, four diversion tunnels were driven through the canyon walls, two on the Nevada side and two on the Arizona side. These tunnels were 56 ft (17 m) in diameter. Their combined length was nearly 16,000 ft, or more than 3 miles (5 km). The contract required these tunnels to be completed by October 1, 1933, with a $3,000-per-day fine to be assessed for any delay. To meet the deadline, Six Companies had to complete work by early 1933, since only in late fall and winter was the water level in the river low enough to safely divert.
Tunneling began at the lower portals of the Nevada tunnels in May 1931. Shortly afterward, work began on two similar tunnels in the Arizona canyon wall. In March 1932, work began on lining the tunnels with concrete. First the base, or invert, was poured. Gantry cranes, running on rails through the entire length of each tunnel were used to place the concrete. The sidewalls were poured next. Movable sections of steel forms were used for the sidewalls. Finally, using pneumatic guns, the overheads were filled in. The concrete lining is 3 feet (1 m) thick, reducing the finished tunnel diameter to 50 ft (15 m). The river was diverted into the two Arizona tunnels on November 13, 1932; the Nevada tunnels were kept in reserve for high water. This was done by exploding a temporary cofferdam protecting the Arizona tunnels while at the same time dumping rubble into the river until its natural course was blocked.
Following the completion of the dam, the entrances to the two outer diversion tunnels were sealed at the opening and halfway through the tunnels with large concrete plugs. The downstream halves of the tunnels following the inner plugs are now the main bodies of the spillway tunnels. The inner diversion tunnels were plugged at approximately one-third of their length, beyond which they now carry steel pipes connecting the intake towers to the power plant and outlet works. The inner tunnels' outlets are equipped with gates that can be closed to drain the tunnels for maintenance.
To protect the construction site from the Colorado River and to facilitate the river's diversion, two cofferdams were constructed. Work on the upper cofferdam began in September 1932, even though the river had not yet been diverted. The cofferdams were designed to protect against the possibility of the river's flooding a site at which two thousand men might be at work, and their specifications were covered in the bid documents in nearly as much detail as the dam itself. The upper cofferdam was 96 ft (29 m) high, and 750 feet (230 m) thick at its base, thicker than the dam itself. It contained 650,000 cubic yards (500,000 m3) of material.
When the cofferdams were in place and the construction site was drained of water, excavation for the dam foundation began. For the dam to rest on solid rock, it was necessary to remove accumulated erosion soils and other loose materials in the riverbed until sound bedrock was reached. Work on the foundation excavations was completed in June 1933. During this excavation, approximately 1,500,000 cu yd (1,100,000 m3) of material was removed. Since the dam was an arch-gravity type, the side-walls of the canyon would bear the force of the impounded lake. Therefore, the side-walls were also excavated to reach virgin rock, as weathered rock might provide pathways for water seepage. Shovels for the excavation came from the Marion Power Shovel Company.
The men who removed this rock were called "high scalers". While suspended from the top of the canyon with ropes, the high-scalers climbed down the canyon walls and removed the loose rock with jackhammers and dynamite. Falling objects were the most common cause of death on the dam site; the high scalers' work thus helped ensure worker safety. One high scaler was able to save a life in a more direct manner: when a government inspector lost his grip on a safety line and began tumbling down a slope towards almost certain death, a high scaler was able to intercept him and pull him into the air. The construction site had become a magnet for tourists. The high scalers were prime attractions and showed off for the watchers. The high scalers received considerable media attention, with one worker dubbed the "Human Pendulum" for swinging co-workers (and, at other times, cases of dynamite) across the canyon. To protect themselves against falling objects, some high scalers dipped cloth hats in tar and allowed them to harden. When workers wearing such headgear were struck hard enough to inflict broken jaws, they sustained no skull damage. Six Companies ordered thousands of what initially were called "hard boiled hats" (later "hard hats") and strongly encouraged their use.
The cleared, underlying rock foundation of the dam site was reinforced with grout, forming a grout curtain. Holes were driven into the walls and base of the canyon, as deep as 150 feet (46 m) into the rock, and any cavities encountered were to be filled with grout. This was done to stabilize the rock, to prevent water from seeping past the dam through the canyon rock, and to limit "uplift"—upward pressure from water seeping under the dam. The workers were under severe time constraints due to the beginning of the concrete pour. When they encountered hot springs or cavities too large to readily fill, they moved on without resolving the problem. A total of 58 of the 393 holes were incompletely filled. After the dam was completed and the lake began to fill, large numbers of significant leaks caused the Bureau of Reclamation to examine the situation. It found that the work had been incompletely done, and was based on less than a full understanding of the canyon's geology. New holes were drilled from inspection galleries inside the dam into the surrounding bedrock. It took nine years (1938–47) under relative secrecy to complete the supplemental grout curtain.
The first concrete was poured into the dam on June 6, 1933, 18 months ahead of schedule. Since concrete heats and contracts as it cures, the potential for uneven cooling and contraction of the concrete posed a serious problem. Bureau of Reclamation engineers calculated that if the dam were to be built in a single continuous pour, the concrete would take 125 years to cool, and the resulting stresses would cause the dam to crack and crumble. Instead, the ground where the dam would rise was marked with rectangles, and concrete blocks in columns were poured, some as large as 50 ft square (15 m) and 5 feet (1.5 m) high. Each five-foot form contained a set of 1-inch (25 mm) steel pipes; cool river water would be poured through the pipes, followed by ice-cold water from a refrigeration plant. When an individual block had cured and had stopped contracting, the pipes were filled with grout. Grout was also used to fill the hairline spaces between columns, which were grooved to increase the strength of the joints.
The concrete was delivered in huge steel buckets 7 feet high (2.1 m) and almost 7 feet in diameter; Crowe was awarded two patents for their design. These buckets, which weighed 20 short tons (18.1 t; 17.9 long tons) when full, were filled at two massive concrete plants on the Nevada side, and were delivered to the site in special railcars. The buckets were then suspended from aerial cableways which were used to deliver the bucket to a specific column. As the required grade of aggregate in the concrete differed depending on placement in the dam (from pea-sized gravel to 9 inches [230 mm] stones), it was vital that the bucket be maneuvered to the proper column. When the bottom of the bucket opened up, disgorging 8 cu yd (6.1 m3) of concrete, a team of men worked it throughout the form. Although there are myths that men were caught in the pour and are entombed in the dam to this day, each bucket deepened the concrete in a form by only 1 inch (25 mm), and Six Companies engineers would not have permitted a flaw caused by the presence of a human body.
A total of 3,250,000 cubic yards (2,480,000 cubic meters) of concrete was used in the dam before concrete pouring ceased on May 29, 1935. In addition, 1,110,000 cu yd (850,000 m3) were used in the power plant and other works. More than 582 miles (937 km) of cooling pipes were placed within the concrete. Overall, there is enough concrete in the dam to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York. Concrete cores were removed from the dam for testing in 1995; they showed that "Hoover Dam's concrete has continued to slowly gain strength" and the dam is composed of a "durable concrete having a compressive strength exceeding the range typically found in normal mass concrete". Hoover Dam concrete is not subject to alkali–silica reaction (ASR), as the Hoover Dam builders happened to use nonreactive aggregate, unlike that at downstream Parker Dam, where ASR has caused measurable deterioration.
With most work finished on the dam itself (the powerhouse remained uncompleted), a formal dedication ceremony was arranged for September 30, 1935, to coincide with a western tour being made by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The morning of the dedication, it was moved forward three hours from 2 p.m. Pacific time to 11 a.m.; this was done because Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes had reserved a radio slot for the President for 2 p.m. but officials did not realize until the day of the ceremony that the slot was for 2 p.m. Eastern Time. Despite the change in the ceremony time, and temperatures of 102 °F (39 °C), 10,000 people were present for the President's speech, in which he avoided mentioning the name of former President Hoover, who was not invited to the ceremony. To mark the occasion, a three-cent stamp was issued by the United States Post Office Department—bearing the name "Boulder Dam", the official name of the dam between 1933 and 1947. After the ceremony, Roosevelt made the first visit by any American president to Las Vegas.
Most work had been completed by the dedication, and Six Companies negotiated with the government through late 1935 and early 1936 to settle all claims and arrange for the formal transfer of the dam to the Federal Government. The parties came to an agreement and on March 1, 1936, Secretary Ickes formally accepted the dam on behalf of the government. Six Companies was not required to complete work on one item, a concrete plug for one of the bypass tunnels, as the tunnel had to be used to take in irrigation water until the powerhouse went into operation.
There were 112 deaths reported as associated with the construction of the dam. The first was Bureau of Reclamation employee Harold Connelly who died on May 15, 1921, after falling from a barge while surveying the Colorado River for an ideal spot for the dam. Surveyor John Gregory ("J.G.") Tierney, who drowned on December 20, 1922, in a flash flood while looking for an ideal spot for the dam was the second person. The official list's final death occurred on December 20, 1935, when Patrick Tierney, electrician's helper and the son of J.G. Tierney, fell from one of the two Arizona-side intake towers. Included in the fatality list are three workers who took their own lives on site, one in 1932 and two in 1933. Of the 112 fatalities, 91 were Six Companies employees, three were Bureau of Reclamation employees, and one was a visitor to the site; the remainder were employees of various contractors not part of Six Companies.
Ninety-six of the deaths occurred during construction at the site. Not included in the official number of fatalities were deaths that were recorded as pneumonia. Workers alleged that this diagnosis was a cover for death from carbon monoxide poisoning (brought on by the use of gasoline-fueled vehicles in the diversion tunnels), and a classification used by Six Companies to avoid paying compensation claims. The site's diversion tunnels frequently reached 140 °F (60 °C), enveloped in thick plumes of vehicle exhaust gases. A total of 42 workers were recorded as having died from pneumonia and were not included in the above total; none were listed as having died from carbon monoxide poisoning. No deaths of non-workers from pneumonia were recorded in Boulder City during the construction period.
The initial plans for the facade of the dam, the power plant, the outlet tunnels and ornaments clashed with the modern look of an arch dam. The Bureau of Reclamation, more concerned with the dam's functionality, adorned it with a Gothic-inspired balustrade and eagle statues. This initial design was criticized by many as being too plain and unremarkable for a project of such immense scale, so Los Angeles-based architect Gordon B. Kaufmann, then the supervising architect to the Bureau of Reclamation, was brought in to redesign the exteriors. Kaufmann greatly streamlined the design and applied an elegant Art Deco style to the entire project. He designed sculpted turrets rising seamlessly from the dam face and clock faces on the intake towers set for the time in Nevada and Arizona—both states are in different time zones, but since Arizona does not observe daylight saving time, the clocks display the same time for more than half the year.
At Kaufmann's request, Denver artist Allen Tupper True was hired to handle the design and decoration of the walls and floors of the new dam. True's design scheme incorporated motifs of the Navajo and Pueblo tribes of the region. Although some were initially opposed to these designs, True was given the go-ahead and was officially appointed consulting artist. With the assistance of the National Laboratory of Anthropology, True researched authentic decorative motifs from Indian sand paintings, textiles, baskets and ceramics. The images and colors are based on Native American visions of rain, lightning, water, clouds, and local animals—lizards, serpents, birds—and on the Southwestern landscape of stepped mesas. In these works, which are integrated into the walkways and interior halls of the dam, True also reflected on the machinery of the operation, making the symbolic patterns appear both ancient and modern.
With the agreement of Kaufmann and the engineers, True also devised for the pipes and machinery an innovative color-coding which was implemented throughout all BOR projects. True's consulting artist job lasted through 1942; it was extended so he could complete design work for the Parker, Shasta and Grand Coulee dams and power plants. True's work on the Hoover Dam was humorously referred to in a poem published in The New Yorker, part of which read, "lose the spark, and justify the dream; but also worthy of remark will be the color scheme".
Complementing Kaufmann and True's work, sculptor Oskar J. W. Hansen designed many of the sculptures on and around the dam. His works include the monument of dedication plaza, a plaque to memorialize the workers killed and the bas-reliefs on the elevator towers. In his words, Hansen wanted his work to express "the immutable calm of intellectual resolution, and the enormous power of trained physical strength, equally enthroned in placid triumph of scientific accomplishment", because "the building of Hoover Dam belongs to the sagas of the daring." Hansen's dedication plaza, on the Nevada abutment, contains a sculpture of two winged figures flanking a flagpole.
Surrounding the base of the monument is a terrazzo floor embedded with a "star map". The map depicts the Northern Hemisphere sky at the moment of President Roosevelt's dedication of the dam. This is intended to help future astronomers, if necessary, calculate the exact date of dedication. The 30-foot-high (9.1 m) bronze figures, dubbed "Winged Figures of the Republic", were both formed in a continuous pour. To put such large bronzes into place without marring the highly polished bronze surface, they were placed on ice and guided into position as the ice melted. Hansen's bas-relief on the Nevada elevator tower depicts the benefits of the dam: flood control, navigation, irrigation, water storage, and power. The bas-relief on the Arizona elevator depicts, in his words, "the visages of those Indian tribes who have inhabited mountains and plains from ages distant."
Excavation for the powerhouse was carried out simultaneously with the excavation for the dam foundation and abutments. The excavation of this U-shaped structure located at the downstream toe of the dam was completed in late 1933 with the first concrete placed in November 1933. Filling of Lake Mead began February 1, 1935, even before the last of the concrete was poured that May. The powerhouse was one of the projects uncompleted at the time of the formal dedication on September 30, 1935; a crew of 500 men remained to finish it and other structures. To make the powerhouse roof bombproof, it was constructed of layers of concrete, rock, and steel with a total thickness of about 3.5 feet (1.1 m), topped with layers of sand and tar.
In the latter half of 1936, water levels in Lake Mead were high enough to permit power generation, and the first three Allis Chalmers built Francis turbine-generators, all on the Nevada side, began operating. In March 1937, one more Nevada generator went online and the first Arizona generator by August. By September 1939, four more generators were operating, and the dam's power plant became the largest hydroelectricity facility in the world. The final generator was not placed in service until 1961, bringing the maximum generating capacity to 1,345 megawatts at the time. Original plans called for 16 large generators, eight on each side of the river, but two smaller generators were installed instead of one large one on the Arizona side for a total of 17. The smaller generators were used to serve smaller communities at a time when the output of each generator was dedicated to a single municipality, before the dam's total power output was placed on the grid and made arbitrarily distributable.
Before water from Lake Mead reaches the turbines, it enters the intake towers and then four gradually narrowing penstocks which funnel the water down towards the powerhouse. The intakes provide a maximum hydraulic head (water pressure) of 590 ft (180 m) as the water reaches a speed of about 85 mph (140 km/h). The entire flow of the Colorado River usually passes through the turbines. The spillways and outlet works (jet-flow gates) are rarely used. The jet-flow gates, located in concrete structures 180 feet (55 m) above the river and also at the outlets of the inner diversion tunnels at river level, may be used to divert water around the dam in emergency or flood conditions, but have never done so, and in practice are used only to drain water from the penstocks for maintenance. Following an uprating project from 1986 to 1993, the total gross power rating for the plant, including two 2.4 megawatt Pelton turbine-generators that power Hoover Dam's own operations is a maximum capacity of 2080 megawatts. The annual generation of Hoover Dam varies. The maximum net generation was 10.348 TWh in 1984, and the minimum since 1940 was 2.648 TWh in 1956. The average power generated was 4.2 TWh/year for 1947–2008. In 2015, the dam generated 3.6 TWh.
The amount of electricity generated by Hoover Dam has been decreasing along with the falling water level in Lake Mead due to the prolonged drought since year 2000 and high demand for the Colorado River's water. By 2014 its generating capacity was downrated by 23% to 1592 MW and was providing power only during periods of peak demand. Lake Mead fell to a new record low elevation of 1,071.61 feet (326.63 m) on July 1, 2016, before beginning to rebound slowly. Under its original design, the dam would no longer be able to generate power once the water level fell below 1,050 feet (320 m), which might have occurred in 2017 had water restrictions not been enforced. To lower the minimum power pool elevation from 1,050 to 950 feet (320 to 290 m), five wide-head turbines, designed to work efficiently with less flow, were installed.[102] Water levels were maintained at over 1,075 feet (328 m) in 2018 and 2019, but fell to a new record low of 1,071.55 feet (326.61 m) on June 10, 2021[104] and were projected to fall below 1,066 feet (325 m) by the end of 2021.
Control of water was the primary concern in the building of the dam. Power generation has allowed the dam project to be self-sustaining: proceeds from the sale of power repaid the 50-year construction loan, and those revenues also finance the multimillion-dollar yearly maintenance budget. Power is generated in step with and only with the release of water in response to downstream water demands.
Lake Mead and downstream releases from the dam also provide water for both municipal and irrigation uses. Water released from the Hoover Dam eventually reaches several canals. The Colorado River Aqueduct and Central Arizona Project branch off Lake Havasu while the All-American Canal is supplied by the Imperial Dam. In total, water from Lake Mead serves 18 million people in Arizona, Nevada, and California and supplies the irrigation of over 1,000,000 acres (400,000 ha) of land.
In 2018, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) proposed a $3 billion pumped-storage hydroelectricity project—a "battery" of sorts—that would use wind and solar power to recirculate water back up to Lake Mead from a pumping station 20 miles (32 km) downriver.
Electricity from the dam's powerhouse was originally sold pursuant to a fifty-year contract, authorized by Congress in 1934, which ran from 1937 to 1987. In 1984, Congress passed a new statute which set power allocations to southern California, Arizona, and Nevada from the dam from 1987 to 2017. The powerhouse was run under the original authorization by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Southern California Edison; in 1987, the Bureau of Reclamation assumed control. In 2011, Congress enacted legislation extending the current contracts until 2067, after setting aside 5% of Hoover Dam's power for sale to Native American tribes, electric cooperatives, and other entities. The new arrangement began on October 1, 2017.
The dam is protected against over-topping by two spillways. The spillway entrances are located behind each dam abutment, running roughly parallel to the canyon walls. The spillway entrance arrangement forms a classic side-flow weir with each spillway containing four 100-foot-long (30 m) and 16-foot-wide (4.9 m) steel-drum gates. Each gate weighs 5,000,000 pounds (2,300 metric tons) and can be operated manually or automatically. Gates are raised and lowered depending on water levels in the reservoir and flood conditions. The gates cannot entirely prevent water from entering the spillways but can maintain an extra 16 ft (4.9 m) of lake level.
Water flowing over the spillways falls dramatically into 600-foot-long (180 m), 50-foot-wide (15 m) spillway tunnels before connecting to the outer diversion tunnels and reentering the main river channel below the dam. This complex spillway entrance arrangement combined with the approximate 700-foot (210 m) elevation drop from the top of the reservoir to the river below was a difficult engineering problem and posed numerous design challenges. Each spillway's capacity of 200,000 cu ft/s (5,700 m3/s) was empirically verified in post-construction tests in 1941.
The large spillway tunnels have only been used twice, for testing in 1941 and because of flooding in 1983. Both times, when inspecting the tunnels after the spillways were used, engineers found major damage to the concrete linings and underlying rock. The 1941 damage was attributed to a slight misalignment of the tunnel invert (or base), which caused cavitation, a phenomenon in fast-flowing liquids in which vapor bubbles collapse with explosive force. In response to this finding, the tunnels were patched with special heavy-duty concrete and the surface of the concrete was polished mirror-smooth. The spillways were modified in 1947 by adding flip buckets, which both slow the water and decrease the spillway's effective capacity, in an attempt to eliminate conditions thought to have contributed to the 1941 damage. The 1983 damage, also due to cavitation, led to the installation of aerators in the spillways. Tests at Grand Coulee Dam showed that the technique worked, in principle.
There are two lanes for automobile traffic across the top of the dam, which formerly served as the Colorado River crossing for U.S. Route 93. In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, authorities expressed security concerns and the Hoover Dam Bypass project was expedited. Pending the completion of the bypass, restricted traffic was permitted over Hoover Dam. Some types of vehicles were inspected prior to crossing the dam while semi-trailer trucks, buses carrying luggage, and enclosed-box trucks over 40 ft (12 m) long were not allowed on the dam at all, and were diverted to U.S. Route 95 or Nevada State Routes 163/68. The four-lane Hoover Dam Bypass opened on October 19, 2010. It includes a composite steel and concrete arch bridge, the Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, 1,500 ft (460 m) downstream from the dam. With the opening of the bypass, through traffic is no longer allowed across Hoover Dam; dam visitors are allowed to use the existing roadway to approach from the Nevada side and cross to parking lots and other facilities on the Arizona side.
Hoover Dam opened for tours in 1937 after its completion but following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, it was closed to the public when the United States entered World War II, during which only authorized traffic, in convoys, was permitted. After the war, it reopened September 2, 1945, and by 1953, annual attendance had risen to 448,081. The dam closed on November 25, 1963, and March 31, 1969, days of mourning in remembrance of Presidents Kennedy and Eisenhower. In 1995, a new visitors' center was built, and the following year, visits exceeded one million for the first time. The dam closed again to the public on September 11, 2001; modified tours were resumed in December and a new "Discovery Tour" was added the following year. Today, nearly a million people per year take the tours of the dam offered by the Bureau of Reclamation. Increased security concerns by the government have led to most of the interior structure's being inaccessible to tourists. As a result, few of True's decorations can now be seen by visitors. Visitors can only purchase tickets on-site and have the options of a guided tour of the whole facility or only the power plant area. The only self-guided tour option is for the visitor center itself, where visitors can view various exhibits and enjoy a 360-degree view of the dam.
The changes in water flow and use caused by Hoover Dam's construction and operation have had a large impact on the Colorado River Delta. The construction of the dam has been implicated in causing the decline of this estuarine ecosystem. For six years after the construction of the dam, while Lake Mead filled, virtually no water reached the mouth of the river. The delta's estuary, which once had a freshwater-saltwater mixing zone stretching 40 miles (64 km) south of the river's mouth, was turned into an inverse estuary where the level of salinity was higher close to the river's mouth.
The Colorado River had experienced natural flooding before the construction of the Hoover Dam. The dam eliminated the natural flooding, threatening many species adapted to the flooding, including both plants and animals. The construction of the dam devastated the populations of native fish in the river downstream from the dam. Four species of fish native to the Colorado River, the Bonytail chub, Colorado pikeminnow, Humpback chub, and Razorback sucker, are listed as endangered.
During the years of lobbying leading up to the passage of legislation authorizing the dam in 1928, the press generally referred to the dam as "Boulder Dam" or as "Boulder Canyon Dam", even though the proposed site had shifted to Black Canyon. The Boulder Canyon Project Act of 1928 (BCPA) never mentioned a proposed name or title for the dam. The BCPA merely allows the government to "construct, operate, and maintain a dam and incidental works in the main stream of the Colorado River at Black Canyon or Boulder Canyon".
When Secretary of the Interior Ray Wilbur spoke at the ceremony starting the building of the railway between Las Vegas and the dam site on September 17, 1930, he named the dam "Hoover Dam", citing a tradition of naming dams after Presidents, though none had been so honored during their terms of office. Wilbur justified his choice on the ground that Hoover was "the great engineer whose vision and persistence ... has done so much to make [the dam] possible". One writer complained in response that "the Great Engineer had quickly drained, ditched, and dammed the country."
After Hoover's election defeat in 1932 and the accession of the Roosevelt administration, Secretary Ickes ordered on May 13, 1933, that the dam be referred to as Boulder Dam. Ickes stated that Wilbur had been imprudent in naming the dam after a sitting president, that Congress had never ratified his choice, and that it had long been referred to as Boulder Dam. Unknown to the general public, Attorney General Homer Cummings informed Ickes that Congress had indeed used the name "Hoover Dam" in five different bills appropriating money for construction of the dam. The official status this conferred to the name "Hoover Dam" had been noted on the floor of the House of Representatives by Congressman Edward T. Taylor of Colorado on December 12, 1930, but was likewise ignored by Ickes.
When Ickes spoke at the dedication ceremony on September 30, 1935, he was determined, as he recorded in his diary, "to try to nail down for good and all the name Boulder Dam." At one point in the speech, he spoke the words "Boulder Dam" five times within thirty seconds. Further, he suggested that if the dam were to be named after any one person, it should be for California Senator Hiram Johnson, a lead sponsor of the authorizing legislation. Roosevelt also referred to the dam as Boulder Dam, and the Republican-leaning Los Angeles Times, which at the time of Ickes' name change had run an editorial cartoon showing Ickes ineffectively chipping away at an enormous sign "HOOVER DAM", reran it showing Roosevelt reinforcing Ickes, but having no greater success.
In the following years, the name "Boulder Dam" failed to fully take hold, with many Americans using both names interchangeably and mapmakers divided as to which name should be printed. Memories of the Great Depression faded, and Hoover to some extent rehabilitated himself through good works during and after World War II. In 1947, a bill passed both Houses of Congress unanimously restoring the name "Hoover Dam." Ickes, who was by then a private citizen, opposed the change, stating, "I didn't know Hoover was that small a man to take credit for something he had nothing to do with."
Hoover Dam was recognized as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1984. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985, cited for its engineering innovations.
The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates as it strives to deliver on its dual mandate of price stability and maximum sustainable employment. So far, the U.S. labor market has been impressively resilient; unemployment is at 3.7%, the lowest it has been in decades. But in several ways the impact of the pandemic on the labor market persists. Labor force participation is not yet fully back to pre-pandemic levels. While some employers are laying off workers, many others say they are finding it hard to hire. And work-from-home appears to be here to stay for many workers.
On November 30 at 1:30 p.m., Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell spoke at the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy on the outlook for the economy, inflation, and the changing labor market. Following his remarks, Powell was interviewed by David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center, and took questions from the audience.
Photo Credits: Paul Morigi
Dog Mountain is the home of Folk Artist, Stephen Huneck. He was a painter, sculpter, wood carver and furniture maker, and he created Dog Mountain and the Dog Chapel to celebrate his love for dogs. Sadly, Mr. Huneck became so depressed after having to lay off his employees due to financial issues he committed suicide in 2010. His wife, who they say never stopped missing him, also killed herself 3 years later. His employees and the community around St. Johnsbury Vermont have kept Dog Mountain going through donations. All of the walls inside the chapel are covered with photos, letters and notes written by visitors in memory of pets they have lost. It's a bittersweet place to visit.
Mickey Katz sings "Don`t Let the Schmaltz get in your Eyes" about too many bagels, laying off the ham, kreplach, kigel, stomach bombs ...
Part of: "res noscenda" / Krapfen # 73 Appendix
DMC-G2 - P1550758 - 2013-03-02
The Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area is situated south of Elphinstone Creek and to the west of School Street and Kerr Street, in the town of Ravenswood, about 85km south of Townsville and 65km east of Charters Towers. The Ravenswood goldfield was the fifth largest producer of gold in Queensland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its main mining periods, prior to modern open cut operations (1987 onwards), were: alluvial gold and shallow reef mining (1868 - 1872); attempts to extract gold from sulphide ores below the water table (1872 - 1898); the New Ravenswood Company era (1899 - 1917); and small scale mining and re-treatment of old mullock heaps and tailings dumps (1919 - 1960s). In 2016 the Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area contains surface structures from eight mines: the Grand Junction, Little Grand Junction, Sunset No. 1 and Sunset No. 2, Deep, General Grant, Duke of Edinburgh, and Grant and Sunset Extended mines, as well as the mill associated with the Deep mine, and the Mabel Mill tailings treatment plant (most structures dating from the New Ravenswood Company era). It also includes remnants of two treatment plants (Partridge and Ralston’s Mill, and Judge’s Mill) from the 1930s; and the Chinese settlement area (1870s to the early 20th century, covering the first three mining periods at Ravenswood).
The place contains important surviving evidence of: ore extraction (from underground shafts) and metallurgical extraction (separation of gold from the ore) conducted on and near the Ravenswood goldfield’s most productive reefs during the boom period of the town’s prosperity (1900 - 1908); later attempts to re-treat the mullock heaps and tailings dumps from these mines; and Ravenswood’s early Chinese community, which made an important contribution to the viability of the isolated settlement and was located along Deighton Street and Elphinstone Creek. The Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area also has the potential to reveal evidence of early alluvial and shallow reef mining, as well as domestic living arrangements on the Ravenswood goldfield. It is an evocative reminder of the precarious and short-lived nature of North Queensland’s mining booms, and has a special association with Archibald Lawrence Wilson, who established the New Ravenswood Company and improved both ore and metallurgical extraction processes on the goldfield.
Settlement and mining in North Queensland:
European settlement of the Kennedy Land District in North Queensland commenced with the founding of Bowen in 1861, and the spread of pastoralists through the hinterland. Pastoral stations were established up the valley of the Burdekin River, including ‘Ravenswood’ and ‘Merri Merriwa’. Townsville and Cardwell were both established north of Bowen in 1864.
However, mining, not pastoralism, proved to be the main catalyst for European settlement of North Queensland. In 1865 the founders of Townsville offered a reward for the discovery of a payable goldfield, and gold rushes occurred in the region from 1866. Mining employed 19.8% of the North Queensland population in 1868, and 50% by 1876, before dropping to 15% in 1911. Although gold mining attracted people to North Queensland, alluvial finds of gold usually led to temporary townships, whereas underground reef mining held the promise of more stable and permanent settlements.
Alluvial gold and shallow reef mining (1868 - 1872):
Alluvial gold was discovered south of the later site of Ravenswood, in tributaries of Connolly Creek on Merri Merriwa Station, north of the Burdekin River, in late 1868. Prospectors soon established ‘Middle Camp’ (later Donnybrook) on Tucker’s Creek, and ‘Lower Camp’ on Trieste Creek, with about 700 miners on the field by early 1869. Further north, in April 1869, the goldfield’s richest alluvial discoveries were made in three dry creek beds close to the site of Ravenswood: Nolan’s, Jessop’s, and Buchanan’s gullies. Despite these finds, many miners soon left for the rush to the Gilbert River (over 300km west of Townsville).
The parent reefs of the alluvial gold found in April were located about the same time as the exodus to the Gilbert – the General Grant being discovered first, followed by the Sunset. Both were visible above ground level, and both reefs would play an important part in the future prosperity of Ravenswood. In the next 40 years, nearly £3 million of gold would come from the reefs ‘in the little triangle between Buchanan’s Gully, just east of Macrossan Street, Jessop’s Gully, southwest of the town, and Elphinstone Creek’.
Other reefs were soon found north of Elphinstone Creek, and in Nolan’s Gully; and meanwhile, reefs had been discovered at Middle Camp. However, a lack of water meant that miners did not establish ‘Upper Camp’ (later Ravenswood) near the General Grant and Sunset reefs until October 1869, after a storm temporarily resolved the water issue. By this time, most miners had returned from the Gilbert. The three camps on the goldfield had a population of 600 by January 1870, most in Upper Camp. Work was slowed by a lack of water, until rains in February 1870 enabled panning and sluicing, the results of which confirmed that Ravenswood was the first significant reef mining goldfield in the northern half of Australia.
However, the miners needed to crush the quartz ore to extract gold. The first machinery for this purpose, WO Hodkinson’s five stamp crushing battery, the Lady Marion (or Lady Marian) Mill, was operational at Burnt Point (south of Upper Camp) from the 18th of April 1870. The first month’s crushing results caused ‘an even greater “rush” than that … caused by the discovery of the alluvial gold’. A second battery was operational in Upper Camp in August 1870, when the goldfield’s population was about 1200.
Official recognition of the goldfield and settlement soon followed. Government Geologist Richard Daintree visited Upper Camp in August 1870, and the Ravenswood goldfield (about 300 square miles) was proclaimed on the 3rd of November 1870. By this time, the goldfield had a population of about 2000, and Upper Camp had 10 ‘public houses’, with six public houses in Middle Camp.
The Government Surveyor, John von Stieglitz, arrived in November 1870, but was too late to impose a regular grid pattern on the settlement. Instead he formalised the existing plan, which was centred on the crossing of Elphinstone Creek by the main road (Macrossan Street), with tracks radiating out to the various diggings. Most commercial buildings were located along Macrossan Street. The resulting juxtaposition of mining, habitation and commerce gave the town its distinctive character.
The town was proclaimed on the 19th of May 1871, with an area of one square mile (259ha). This was later expanded to four square miles (1036ha) on the 13th of July 1883. Although gold had been discovered on Merri Merriwa Station, the name Ravenswood, after the run located further southeast, downstream on the Burdekin River, was preferred.
In 1871 the population of the goldfield was 900, with over half being in Upper Camp/Ravenswood, and by the end of 1871 there were five machines in Ravenswood. Hodgkinson’s mill had been moved into town, to a site just north of Elphinstone Creek, and was renamed the Mabel Mill. In 1871 the town had 30 licensed hotels, although these were referred to as ‘shanties’ and did not offer accommodation.
By this time Ravenswood also had a Chinese population, due to an influx of Chinese miners who had been forcefully evicted from the Western Creek diggings near Gilberton in mid-1871. At least three of the hotels of 1871 had Chinese licensees. The first Chinese had arrived in North Queensland in 1867, during the rush to the Cape River, and there were 200 Chinese looking for alluvial gold at Ravenswood in 1871. In January 1872 it was estimated that there were about 1500 Chinese present on the Ravenswood goldfield, and a matching number of Europeans. As the Chinese focussed on alluvial gold, and also provided other services, they were tolerated at Ravenswood, because the Europeans were now focusing on reef mining. The quartz reefs were originally worked at shallow depths by means of a windlass (hand-wound rope and bucket), or a horse-powered whip or whim (using poles, ropes and pulleys) raising the ore from shallow shafts.
Extracting gold from sulphide ores (1872 - 1898):
Despite its promising start, in 1872 the Ravenswood goldfield entered a ‘period of depression’, as its most important mines reached the water table at about 70ft (21m) deep – starting with the Sunset in 1871, followed by the General Grant, Black Jack, and Melaneur in 1872. Although the oxidised quartz (‘red stone’ or ‘brown stone’ quartz) close to the surface yielded its gold to traditional methods of mechanical crushing, below the water table the gold was in fine particles, which was not easily recovered by mechanical means. It was also mixed with sulphide ores; mainly iron sulphide (pyrite, or ‘mundic’ ore) but also sulphides containing lead, copper, zinc, arsenic, and antimony, which interfered with chemical treatments such as amalgamation (amalgamating the gold with mercury; then heating the resulting amalgam in a retort to vaporise the mercury) and chlorination (exposing roasted, concentrated ore to chlorine gas, and then precipitating gold out of the chloride solution). A process that worked on the ore from one reef might not work for an adjacent reef, due to a varying distribution of different types of sulphides. In addition, even if a process worked on a small scale, it could be uneconomical on a larger scale, given the price of transporting fuel to Ravenswood for smelting, or transporting concentrates for smelting elsewhere.
Once the mundic had been struck, ‘mining was "worse than dull" as the field grappled with the realisation that to break below the waterline, the days of the individual miner were over and the time of companies was looming’. The 1870s was a decade of major gold discoveries in Queensland, and miners keen on quick profits had plenty of new goldfields from which to choose. Many miners joined the rushes to Charters Towers (1872) and the Palmer River (1873). Charters Towers soon overtook Ravenswood as the most important inland town in north Queensland; and the Hodgkinson rush (southwest of Port Douglas) in 1876 also drew away miners.
However, Ravenswood grew during the 1870s and 1880s, despite the goldfield’s ‘refractory’ ores, and ‘mundic problem’. The goldfield had a population of 950 in 1877 (with 50 Chinese), rising to 1100 in 1880 (including 250 Chinese), and 2000 in 1883 (including 300 Chinese; with 190 working the alluvial, and 10 quartz miners).
The 1877 Pugh’s Almanac listed one Chinese hotelkeeper (out of seven hotelkeepers) in Ravenswood, and one Chinese storekeeper. The Chinese, as well as working alluvial claims and operating hotels and stores, were employed as wage labour in some mines; worked as roasters and chlorinators at the Mabel Mill; and operated 24 licensed gardens on the Ravenswood goldfield in 1883. Chinese gardens were vital in providing fresh vegetables to North Queensland’s goldfield populations.
For 19th Century diasporic Chinese communities such as Ravenswood’s, the establishment of specific cultural settlement areas, or ‘Chinatowns’, that ‘provided a range of sacred and secular services, including temples, stores, and accommodation’, was an important aspect of community building. Deighton Street, west of Macrossan Street, was the centre of Chinese life in Ravenswood. There were two eating houses close to Macrossan Street’s bridge across Elphinstone Creek, in the 1870s; and market gardens were located between Deighton Street and Elphinstone Creek, as well as north of Elphinstone Creek, interspersed amongst several crushing machine operations. There was also a temple south of Deighton Street. Temples were not just places of religious worship; rather, they were an integral part of a Chinese village. ‘They were places to meet, to check one's horoscope before embarking on a new venture and places where ancestors were venerated’. As well as being a place where the community could worship at any time, major gatherings were held at temples on festival days, with feasts and processions. The Ravenswood temple appears on an 1874 survey plan, making it the earliest known Chinese temple in Queensland. The nearby pig roasting oven is also a rare example of its type, and demonstrates the usual spatial arrangement of temple and oven, for community feasts.
Ravenswood continued to develop during the 1880s. By 1885, the Ravenswood goldfield had an estimated population of 2294 Europeans and 227 Chinese, with 1490 Europeans and 148 Chinese located in Ravenswood itself. Ravenswood at this time had four Chinese storekeepers, and two Chinese produce merchants, but all six hotel licensees were European. The Ravenswood National School, which began in late 1873, had an average attendance of 110 students in 1878, and reached its peak enrolment of 390 by 1889.
The 1880s were also a period of experimentation in metallurgical (gold extraction) technology. In 1883, the only method for dealing with sulphide ores was stamper mills and rotary buddles (which used water and gravity to separate and concentrate the crushed ores), but later Ravenswood ‘was the first place where the chlorination process and Wilfley tables, developed in 1896, to shake the ore and separate out different sized particles, and were used in Queensland, and probably the first place where the cyanide process (dissolving fine gold in a cyanide solution, and later precipitating the gold out of the solution) for extracting gold was used in Australia’. Other techniques attempted included fine grinding (using ball mills), roasting (burning off the sulphides), and smelting (prohibitively expensive, as it required high temperatures and thus a lot of fuel). By 1888 a new company at One Mile Creek, formed by Duncan and Peter Macintyre, had adapted an abandoned Cassell’s patent plant (a version of the chlorination process which was applied and failed in Ravenswood in 1886), to work on a ‘secret process’ (cyaniding).
Ravenswood mining continued to be viable, although only a (fluctuating) percentage of the gold was being recovered from the ore. In the mid-1880s there was even a temporary increase in the goldfield’s production, due to good returns from the Sandy Creek mines on the John Bull reef. For the next eight years, the principal producers of the district were the General Grant, Sunset, New England, Wild Irish Girl, Melaneur, and John Bull reefs, plus the silver lodes of the One Mile (at Totley).
Ravenswood’s economy survived the 1880s due to the development of silver mines at Totley, a township established about 2km north of Ravenswood. The silver mines opened circa 1879 - 1880, and Richard King floated the Ravenswood Silver Mining Company Ltd in 1882 – the year of Ravenswood’s lowest gold production between 1878 and 1898. Silver prices were high during the 1880s, and the Totley mines encouraged the Queensland Government to approve a branch railway line (off the Northern Railway between Townsville and Charters Towers) to Ravenswood in 1882, completed in 1884. The railway meant that some gold ores could be crushed, concentrated and sent for treatment at the Aldershot works just north of Maryborough or overseas to Swansea, in Wales. However, all silver mining had stopped by 1891, due to falling silver prices and over-expenditure on treatment plants.
Gold mining at Ravenswood continued during the 1880s and 1890s. Hugh Hawthorne Barton, who had operated Brothers Mill on Elphinstone Creek from the late 1870s, took over the General Grant, Sunset, and Black Jack mines, and the Mabel Mill (and later the Melaneur and Duke of Edinburgh mines), and floated the Ravenswood Gold Mining Company in 1887, with £100,000 in capital. From 1884 to 1896 Barton’s group was the largest and most successful operation in Ravenswood, its profitability assisted by the railway, economies of scale, and flexibility in ore-treatment methods. Barton utilised roasting, chlorination (by 1889), and smelting, and employed Chinese workers at the Mabel Mill. Along with their market gardens along Elphinstone Creek, Chinese employment at the Mabel Mill also influenced the location of the Chinese settlement area in Ravenswood. Meanwhile, the landscape was being altered by mining. The need for timber for boilers and for timbering-up mine shafts led to the loss of native trees in the locality, and goats also helped shape the landscape by eating regrowth.
By the mid-1890s, Barton was in debt to the Queensland National Bank, and his properties were seized in 1896, with the General Grant, Black Jack, and Mabel Mill being let on tribute (where a party of miners worked a mine, while giving the mine owner a percentage of any results) in 1897. The tributers refused to employ Barton’s experienced Chinese workers at the Mabel Mill, leading to disastrous attempts at chlorination. However, the goldfield’s production was boosted in the late 1890s when work resumed on the Donnybrook reefs for the first time in 20 years, and the Hillsborough (Eight Mile) reefs were taken up.
The New Ravenswood Company era (1899 - 1917):
Ravenswood’s boom period of gold production (1900 - 1908, with 1905 the year of highest production) is reflected in the town’s surviving mining infrastructure and commercial and public buildings. This boom occurred due to the efforts of Archibald Laurence Wilson (1852 - 1935). After gaining a diploma in mining engineering in Edinburgh, and working in New Zealand and on the Palmer River, Wilson arrived in Ravenswood in 1878. He was publican of the Silver King Hotel in Totley in the 1880s. As manager of the John Bull mine at Sandy Creek in the mid-1890s, he raised capital in London and installed a cyanide plant.
Wilson later travelled to London in 1898, where he floated both the Donnybrook Blocks Mining Syndicate and the New Ravenswood Company in 1899. Wilson was the General Manager of both companies, under their London directorates. Until 1917, the New Ravenswood Company was the largest mining operation on the Ravenswood goldfield. Registered with a capital of £50,000, the company purchased the General Grant, Sunset, Black Jack, Melaneur, and Shelmalier mines, and the Mabel Mill, from the Queensland National Bank (and later obtained the Saratoga, Duke of Edinburgh and London North mines), and initiated a new era in ore and metallurgical extraction. Using British capital, Wilson introduced modern machinery to work the mines, and effectively reshaped Ravenswood’s landscape. Wilson was known as ‘the uncrowned king of Ravenswood’. He was also Chairman of the Ravenswood Shire Council for some years, and was later on the Dalrymple Shire Council, until he resigned from poor health in 1934.
From 1900, both the Sunset and General Grant (also known as the Grant) mines were redeveloped by Wilson. These became the key earners for the New Ravenswood Company; by 1903 the two mines employed about 205 men, and were ‘the “backbone” of the town’.
The Sunset reef, which runs roughly northwest-southeast through the Ravenswood Mining Landscape, was the largest producer on the goldfield (almost a quarter of the total). It produced 14,722oz of gold from 1870 - 1894, and by 1900 it was worked from an underlie (an inclined shaft, following the dip of a reef) branching off from a vertical shaft 130ft (40m) deep. It was stated at this time that the reef had ‘much the same history as the General Grant, the two being generally worked together’. By 1903 the New Ravenswood Company had extended the underlie shaft right up to the surface, where a headframe was constructed to haul ore directly up the slope. The Sunset’s yield of ‘free gold’ (pure gold not combined with other minerals), which could be extracted at the Mabel Mill, peaked in 1904, then fell slowly. In 1905 an average of 170 men were employed at the mine. In 1908 the reef was being worked by the main underlie shaft, 900ft (274m) deep (Sunset No. 1); and a vertical shaft, 556ft (169m) deep (Sunset No. 2). As the Sunset reef was worked in conjunction with the General Grant and the Duke of Edinburgh reefs in the New Ravenswood Company era, its exact total production of gold is hard to calculate; but from 1876 to 1912 the reef probably produced about 177,000oz of gold; and probably most of the 22, 000oz that the company extracted from 1912 - 1917.
The General Grant, one of the most productive reefs on the goldfield, running roughly north-south just east of the Sunset reef, was worked almost continuously to the late 1880s, and periodically thereafter. By 1895 returns had diminished, due to the small size of the reef and its highly refractory ore. In 1900, the General Grant had a vertical shaft to 110ft (34m), and then an underlie of 610ft (186m), the bottom of the latter being 450ft (137m) below the level of the shaft mouth; but operations were ‘almost completely suspended’ as the New Ravenswood Company concentrated on the Sunset reef. To 1900 the General Grant had produced 23, 651oz of gold; and after crushing of ore from the mine resumed at the beginning of 1903, it was treated with ore from the Sunset. On average, 40 men were employed on the mine in 1905. In 1908 the powerhouse for both the Sunset and the General Grant mines was situated on the General Grant lease, with three Cornish boilers. By 1912 the General Grant had produced about 36,000oz of gold.
To the east of the General Grant was the Duke of Edinburgh reef, running roughly northwest-southeast. This was one of the early reefs discovered on the goldfield; and in 1872 it was identified by Warden TR Hackett as one of the 28 principal reefs. It was worked in several episodes prior to the 1890s, and was re-opened in 1891, producing 1286oz of gold during 1891 - 1895. In 1908 the mine was taken over by the New Ravenswood Company, and was reorganised as an underlie shaft with haulage machinery from the Golden Hill mine, being worked in conjunction with the General Grant until 1917.
Along with his modernisation of the goldfield’s best mines, Wilson also abandoned chlorination at the Mabel Mill, increased the mill’s crushing capacity to 30 stamps (by 1904), and introduced the first Wilfley tables to Queensland. Crushing resumed in January 1900. Wilson improved metallurgical extraction by ‘postponing amalgamation of the free gold till the great bulk of the sulphides had been removed by concentration’. The ore was crushed in stampers without using mercury. Then, using the Wilfley tables, the heavier Galena (lead sulphide ore) and free gold was separated from the lighter sulphides. The free gold and galena was then ground in Berdan pans with mercury, while the remaining sulphides (containing iron, zinc and copper) were dispatched to the Aldershot works (near Maryborough) for smelting. In 1902 - 1903, a raff wheel, 14.5m in diameter, was built at the Mabel Mill to lift tailings (post-treatment residue) up to a flume, which carried them over to the south side of Elphinstone Creek, where they could be treated with cyanide. The cyanide works (of which remnants still remain south of Elphinstone Creek) was erected circa 1904. A 21m long girder bridge was constructed across the creek to carry steam water pipes and electric cable from the Mabel Mill to the new works, which eventually comprised two Krupp ball mills and 12 Wilfley’s tables.
Due to the New Ravenswood Company’s efforts, the goldfield’s production increased between 1899 and 1905. Gold recovery increased from 18, 016oz in 1899 to 24, 832oz in 1900 and to 42, 465oz in 1905. The New Ravenswood Company paid impressive 50% dividends to its shareholders in 1901, 1902, and 1904; and 75% in 1903.
The productivity of Ravenswood’s mines during the New Ravenswood Company era was also reflected in the goldfield’s population, which rose from 3420 in 1901 to its peak of 4707 in 1903. The 1903 population included 215 Chinese, 89 of these being alluvial miners. In 1905 two Chinese were listed as ‘storekeepers and grocers’.
The population increase led to a building boom in the first decade of the 20th Century. Hundreds of new houses, the town’s first two brick hotels – the Imperial hotel (1901) and the Railway Hotel (1902) – as well as brick shops such as Thorp’s Building (1903), and the brick Ravenswood Ambulance Station (1904) were constructed in this period; the use of brick being spurred by the threat of fire. The New Ravenswood Company also rebuilt the mining landscape in and around the town, with expansion of the Mabel Mill, and new headframes and winders, magazines, boilers, and brick smokestacks erected beside all the principal shafts.
However, not all Wilson’s ventures in this period were successful. In 1902 he floated Deep Mines Ltd, with a capital of £100, 000, to sink a shaft east of the New Ravenswood Company’s leases. This mine (also within the Ravenswood Mining Landscape) was an ambitious attempt to reach a presumed intersection of the General Grant and Sunset reefs at depth. Using the capital raised, Wilson built a model mine and mill. The shaft was started in late 1902-early 1903, and construction work on the buildings and machinery was completed later in 1903. The mine reached 512m, the deepest on the goldfield, with extensive crosscutting and driving, but only about 240oz of gold was recovered. No ore was crushed at all in 1908. By 1910 a new shaft was being sunk ‘near the western boundary’; but the mine was abandoned in 1911, and never worked again. Wilson’s London investors lost at least £65,000.
The Deep’s mill, built nearby and operational by 1906, was a smaller version of the Mabel Mill, with gravity stamps, Wilfley tables, and a cyanide plant. Its site, adjacent to the mine, ran counter to the normal practice of siting mills near water courses. With the failure of the Deep mine, it milled ore from other mines until about 1917.
Another mine, the Grand Junction, was located north of the New Ravenswood Company’s most productive mines, in the Ravenswood Mining Landscape. The Grand Junction Consolidated Gold Mining Company was formed in 1900, and a shaft was sunk in 1901 (probably the No. 1 shaft on the Grand Junction Lease No. 520). In 1902 another exploration ‘deep shaft’ (No. 2) was sunk at the southwest boundary of the Grand Junction Lease No.503. The Grand Junction mine was another failed attempt to locate a presumed junction of the General Grant and Sunset reefs at depth; by 1908 it was owned by the New Ravenswood Company. Total production was about 425oz of gold.
Slightly more successful was the Grant and Sunset Extended mine, at the southern end of the Ravenswood Mining landscape. This was a deep shaft sunk by the Grant and Sunset Extended Gold Mining Company, a Charters Towers-owned company with Wilson as its local director. During the 19th Century, small mines had been operated in the Rob Roy reef, to the southeast. The Grant and Sunset Extended was floated in 1902, the intent being to locate the General Grant and Sunset reefs south of Buck Reef. The plant and buildings of the Yellow Jack mine, southeast of Ravenswood, were re-erected on the site. The shaft was down 70ft (21m) in 1902 and 930ft (283m) by 1908, with 50 men employed at the mine by the later date. The mine closed by 1910, but was worked on tribute until 1917, with about 15,000oz of gold obtained over 1904 - 1918.
The boom period at Ravenswood did not last. As well as losing money on the Deep and Grand Junction mines, the New Ravenswood Company faced the closure of the Aldershot works in 1906, and declining yields from 1908 to 1912. Although Wilson experimented with flotation (agitating crushed ore in oil and water, and extracting fine gold particles on the surface of air bubbles) and cyanide processes at the Mabel Mill, it was too late to save his company. The Shelmalier had closed by 1904, the Black Jack in 1909, and the Melaneur in 1910. By that year, the General Grant, Sunset, Duke of Edinburgh, and London North (obtained 1910) were the New Ravenswood Company’s only producing mines.
Few new buildings were constructed in Ravenswood after 1905. The hospital closed in 1908. That year the goldfield’s population consisted of 4141 Europeans (including 2625 women and children) and 181 Chinese (including 94 alluvial miners). This dropped to 2581, including 92 Chinese, by 1914.
Increased costs and industrial disputes in the 1910s hastened the end of the New Ravenswood Company era. During a miner’s strike between December 1912 and July 1913, over lay-offs, the fresh vegetables and business loans provided by Ravenswood’s Chinese community helped keep the town going. Although the miners won, it was a hollow victory, as the company could only afford to re-employ a few of the men. World War I (1914 - 1918) then increased labour and material costs for the New Ravenswood Company. The London North mine closed in 1915, and on the 24th of March 1917 the New Ravenswood Company ceased operations; ending large-scale mining in Ravenswood for the next 70 years.
By 1917, the Ravenswood goldfield had produced over 850, 000oz of gold (nearly a quarter coming from the Sunset mine), and 1, 000, 000oz of silver; making it the fifth largest gold producer in Queensland, after Charters Towers, Mount Morgan, Gympie, and the Palmer Goldfield. Ravenswood was also the second largest producer of reef gold in north Queensland, after Charters Towers.
Small scale mining and re-treatment (1919 - 1960s):
After 1917 the Ravenswood goldfield entered a period of hibernation, with intermittent small-scale attempts at mining. In 1919, Ravenswood Gold Mines Ltd took over some of Wilson’s leases and renovated the Deep mine’s mill, but obtained poor returns. Ravenswood Gold Mines also worked the Duke of Edinburgh from 1919 to 1930, with good returns reported in 1924. The General Grant and Sunset were also worked on a small scale from 1919 - 1921, while the Mabel Mill continued to provide crushing services for the limited local mining.
Consequently, Ravenswood’s population declined and the town shrank physically. In 1921 the town’s population fell below 1000, and by 1923 there were 530 people left, including 8 Chinese. During the 1920s, prior to the closure of the railway branch line to Ravenswood in 1930, hundreds of the town’s timber buildings were dismantled and railed away. By 1927, only the two brick hotels remained operating as hotels. The Ravenswood Shire was abolished in 1929, and by 1934 only 357 people remained in the town.
Despite this decline, some gold was still being extracted. There was a small increase in gold production between 1923 and 1927, and due to the gold price rise of the 1930s, some mines were re-worked and efforts were also made to treat the old mullock heaps (waste rock from mining) and tailings dumps with improved cyanide processes. Between 1931 and 1942, 12, 253oz of gold was obtained from the goldfield, the peak year being 1940.
A number of companies were active in Ravenswood in the 1930s-early 1940s. In 1933, the North Queensland Gold Mining Development Company took up leases along Buck Reef and reopened the Golden Hill mine, and the following year their operations were taken over by Gold Mines of Australia Ltd. The 1870s Eureka mine (near the Imperial Hotel) was revived by James Judge in 1934. In 1935 the Ravenswood Concentrates Syndicate began re-treating the Grant mullock heaps in the remaining stampers at the Mabel Mill, and dewatering the Sunset No. 2 shaft; while the Sunset Extended Gold Mining Company, with James Judge as manager, dewatered the Grant and Sunset Extended shafts (which connected to the Sunset, General Grant and Duke of Edinburgh shafts), and re-timbered the Grant and Sunset Extended, General Grant, and Sunset underlie (No. 1) shafts. The London North mine was reopened by R J Hedlefs in 1937, and Basque miners were working the Sunset No. 2 shaft at this time.
The Little Grand Junction mine, located at the intersection of Siggers Street and School Street, on the old Grand Junction Lease No. 520, was operated from 1937 - 1942 by local miners Henry John Bowrey and John Thomas Blackmore. Five men were employed at the mine in 1940. The shaft had apparently been sunk previously by the Grand Junction Consolidated Gold Mining Company; and Bowrey and Party reconditioned it and extended the existing workings.
In 1938, Archibald and Heuir set up a mill on the bank of One Mile Creek to treat mullock dumps, and the Ravenswood Gold Mining Syndicate (formed 1937, with James Judge as manager) began treating the mullock dumps of the Sunset mine in late 1938. The same syndicate also dewatered and reopened part of the Grant and Sunset Extended; and the Grand Junction mine was reopened by Judge circa 1939 - 1942.
The Ravenswood Gold Mining Syndicate’s (Judge’s) mill initially consisted of 10 head of stamps obtained from the Mother Lode Mill at Mount Wright (northwest of Ravenswood), powered by a diesel engine. The ore was crushed by the stamper battery, concentrated with Wilfley tables, and then either treated with cyanide or sent to the Chillagoe smelters. Initial success with some rich ore led to enlargement of the mill to 30 stamps in 1939 - 40. A Stirling boiler and a 250hp engine were also obtained from the Burdekin meatworks (Sellheim), and a rock breaker, elevator, and conveyor were installed. However, the upgraded mill proved to be overpowered and required a lot of timber fuel; the brick foundations used for the machinery were not strong enough; and the best ore from the Sunset had already been treated, so the mill closed early in 1942 and the plant was moved to Cloncurry.
Also in 1938, Maxwell Partridge and William Ralston installed a new plant south of Elphinstone Creek, to the immediate west of the Mabel Mill’s old cyanide works, to re-treat the old tailings with cyanide. A ball mill, filter, and other plant were purchased from the Golden Mile, Cracow in 1939, while later that year a suction gas engine and flotation machine were also installed. This operation closed circa 1942, and the coloured sands on the site today are residues from the flotation process: the yellow sand is from the floatation of iron pyrites; the grey sands are copper tailings; and the black material is zinc tailings.
There was limited activity on the goldfield in the late 1940s to early 1960s. The Empire Gold Mining Syndicate treated mullock dumps from The Irish Girl, London, and Sunset mines from 1946 to 1949, as well as some of the dumps from the Grand Junction (1947). The Duke of Edinburgh mine was briefly reopened by Cuevas and Wilson in 1947, and the Cornish boilers on the site (one with the maker’s mark ‘John Danks & Son Pty Ltd makers Melbourne) may relate to this (unsuccessful) operation. Percy Kean reopened the Great Extended mine at Totley in 1947, and later purchased Partridge’s mill in 1951 to use it as a flotation plant to treat the silver-lead ore from Totley, adding a diesel engine, stonebreaker, Wilfley tables, and classifier. The Totley mines closed in 1954, although the Great Extended mine was briefly sub-leased by Silver Horizons No Liability, in 1964. Partridge’s mill was closed circa 1965.
Other attempts were made in the early 1950s to rework old sites. A Townsville syndicate led by Leslie Cook and George Blackmore reopened the Grand Junction mine in 1951, but it soon closed. James Judge also recommenced gold mining at Donnybrook, but closed in 1954; while 900 tons of tailings from the Deep mine’s mill site were taken for re-treatment at Heuir’s cyanide plant in the early 1950s.
A new industry:
In the 1960 and 1970s, Ravenswood’s population shrank to its nadir of about 70 people. At the same time, there was a growing nostalgic interest in old towns in Australia. In 1968 the landscape of Ravenswood was described in romantic terms: ‘Mute testimonials are the numerous mullock heaps which dot the countryside; the rusty remains of steam engines; stampers which were used to crush stone; and collapsed cyanide vats… Derelict poppet-heads…stand above deep, abandoned shafts. Colossal columns of chimney stacks rise majestically from the entanglement of rubber vines and Chinese apple trees.’ Some locals realised that preserving the town’s surviving historic buildings and structures was necessary to attract tourists and create a new local industry.
From this time onwards the town’s mining heritage was seen as an asset. The National Trust of Queensland met with locals in 1974, and a conservation plan for the town was published in 1975. Later, the town sites of Totley and Ravenswood were both entered into the National Trust of Queensland Register. Comments from an International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) trip to northern Australia in 1978 included ‘Ravenswood…is one of the most evocative (gold towns of Australia) and this must be preserved. A policy of “all that is necessary but as little as possible” must be strongly pursued’. The increased population of North Queensland, longer paid holidays, improved roads, and the rise of car ownership after World War II, all increased visitation to Ravenswood, as did the completion of a road past Ravenswood to the Burdekin Dam, in the 1980s. As a result, the town and its mining landscape have been represented in brochures, art, and photography. In particular, the landmark qualities of the tall brick chimneys are a distinctive feature in representations of Ravenswood.
Modern operations:
However, gold mining recommenced at Ravenswood in the 1980s, due to a rise in the gold price and the efficiencies gained from open cut mining and modern cyanide metallurgical extraction processes. From 1983 - 1986 the Northern Queensland Gold Company Ltd conducted agglomeration heap-leaching (spraying a sodium cyanide solution on previously mined material heaped on a plastic membrane), in the process removing a landmark tailings dump at King’s mine in Totley, and mullock heaps from the Grant and Sunset mines. In 1987 Carpentaria Gold commenced open cut mining of the Buck reef (the Buck Reef West pit) near the old Grant and Sunset mines on the south side of the town. Later, pits were dug further east along the reef. Some underground mining was also undertaken from the Buck Reef West pit until 1993, which broke into the old workings of the General Grant, Sunset, and Duke of Edinburgh mines. The old headframe at the Grant and Sunset Extended was demolished in 1988, and replaced with a new steel headframe, which was used until 1993 and then removed. The Melaneur-Shelmalier-Black Jack-Overlander reef complex, on the north side of the town, was mined as an open cut 1990 - 1991, before being backfilled as a golf course. The Nolan’s Gully open cut commenced in 1993.
Although modern mining revived the economy of the town, it did not replicate the building boom of the early 20th century.
The heritage significance of Ravenswood’s surviving mining infrastructure was recognised in a 1996 Queensland Mining Heritage Places Study by Jane Lennon & Associates and Howard Pearce; and a 2000 Conservation Management Plan by Peter Bell. In 2006, the population of Ravenswood, the oldest surviving inland town in north Queensland, was 191.
By the mid-2010s the population of Ravenswood stood at 255 people.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register & Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Report at Fleming 9:00AM, depart 9:20AM on train 83 (deadhead to Lyman Junction), depart Lyman Junction 11:20AM train 217, arrive 2:45PM Belle Plaine. Lay off at 3:30 PM.
Just another Day on the NAPM call board.
Visit the HO scale NAPM club on-line at www.napmltd.com.
Lukas: “How did I get roped into this?”
Tilda: “It’s Okay, handsome, you’re with Me!”
Lukas: “What am I wearing? What are you wearing for that matter?! What’s with your hat?”
Tilda: “Hey, lay off the hat! I love this hat.”
Lukas: “Woah, You’re not wearing shoes!”
Tilda: “Yeah, no big deal. We’re like snow deamons, or whatever, I don’t know, it doesn’t matter! Let’s make out!!
Lukas: “Oh, um, sorry, I’m kind of “with” someone right now?”
Tilda: “Yeah! You’re -with- ME!”
Lukas: “um, no?”
(These shots are from Monday, and this is as light as it’s gotten in DAYS! Nothing but white overcast sky since the weekend and it is STILL snowing!!!❄️❄️❄️ More snow shots incoming!)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
United States
Name:Atlanta
Namesake:City of Atlanta, Georgia
Builder:Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, Kearny, New Jersey
Laid down:22 April 1940
Launched:6 September 1941
Sponsored by:Margaret Mitchell
Commissioned:24 December 1941
Struck:13 January 1943
Identification:Hull symbol:CL-51
Honors and
awards:
Silver-service-star-3d.png 5 × battle stars
Presidential Unit Citation
Fate:Scuttled after severe damage in Naval Battle of Guadalcanal by friendly fire from USS San Francisco, 13 November 1942
Notes:Approximate location of sinking: 9°23′S 159°58′E
General characteristics (as built)[1][2]
Class and type:Atlanta-class light cruiser
Displacement:
6,718 long tons (6,826 t) (standard)
8,340 long tons (8,470 t) (max)
Length:541 ft 6 in (165.05 m) oa
Beam:53 ft (16 m)
Draft:
20 ft 6 in (6.25 m) (mean)
26 ft 6 in (8.08 m) (max)
Installed power:
4 × Steam boilers
75,000 shp (56,000 kW)
Propulsion:
2 × geared turbines
2 × screws
Speed:32.5 kn (37.4 mph; 60.2 km/h)
Complement:673 officers and enlisted
Armament:
16 × 5 in (127 mm)/38 caliber Mark 12 guns (8×2)
12 × 1.1 in (28 mm)/75 anti-aircraft guns (3×4)
8 × single 20 mm (0.79 in) Oerlikon anti-aircraft cannons
8 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
Armor:
Belt: 1.1–3 3⁄4 in (28–95 mm)
Deck: 1 1⁄4 in (32 mm)
Turrets: 1 1⁄4 in (32 mm)
Conning tower: 2 1⁄2 in (64 mm)
USS Atlanta (CL-51) of the United States Navy was the lead ship of the Atlanta class of eight light cruisers. She was the third Navy ship named after the city of Atlanta, Georgia. Designed to provide anti-aircraft protection for US naval task groups, Atlanta served in this capacity in the naval battles Midway and the Eastern Solomons. Atlanta was heavily damaged by Japanese and friendly gunfire in a night surface action on 13 November 1942 during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. The cruiser was sunk on her captain's orders in the afternoon of the same day.
Atlanta, in some works, is designated CLAA-51 because of her primary armament as an anti-aircraft cruiser. Hence, all of the Atlanta-class ships are sometimes designated as CLAA. However, her entire battery of 5-inch (127 mm) guns were dual-purpose (DP) guns, and were capable of being used against both air and surface targets, able to fire anti-aircraft, high-explosive and armor-piercing shells.
The Atlanta-class ships were lightly armored, making them poor surface combatants compared to a typical light cruiser. In terms of armament, the Atlanta class was closer to a destroyer, being armed with 5-inch guns, than a light cruiser, which were generally equipped with 6-inch guns; but at well over 500 feet (152 m) in length, and combined with their large battery of sixteen 5-inch (127 mm) guns (reduced to twelve in number for later ships of the class), they were designated as light cruisers. Typical destroyers of the time only carried five or six 5-inch guns.[citation needed] Despite being under-armored for light cruisers, they had thicker armor than destroyers, which were notoriously underprotected.
Construction and commissioning
The first of the new class of ships was laid down on 22 April 1940 at Kearny, New Jersey, by the Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Co., launched on 6 September 1941, sponsored by Margaret Mitchell (author of Gone with the Wind), and commissioned at the New York Navy Yard on 24 December 1941, Captain Samuel P. Jenkins in command.[3]
Armament
Atlanta was fitted with eight twin 5-inch gun turrets, placed in a unique configuration. She had three forward turrets and three aft turrets, mounted inline and increasing in height toward the midships, giving her a symmetrical appearance, with a "gap" in the middle superstructure. In addition, the aft battery also had one "wing-mounted" turret on each side, for a total of 16 five-inch guns. The firing arcs of the forward and aft batteries intersected at a very limited angle, giving her an arc of 60° in which she could fire all of her guns broadside (excluding the wing turrets). Because Atlanta was able to bring all her guns to bear only within that narrow arc, her ability to engage surface targets was limited. Her firing arcs were ideally suited to bringing her guns to bear on an aircraft, however, with a minimum of six guns available from any angle.
Service history
After fitting out, Atlanta conducted shakedown training until 13 March 1942, first in Chesapeake Bay and then in Maine's Casco Bay, after which she returned to the New York Navy Yard for post-shakedown repairs and alterations. Adjudged to be "ready for distant service" on 31 March, the new cruiser departed New York for the Panama Canal Zone on 5 April. She reached Cristobal on 8 April. After transiting the isthmian waterway, Atlanta then cleared Balboa on 12 April with orders to reconnoiter Clipperton Island, a tiny barren, uninhabited atoll about 670 mi (1,080 km) southwest of Acapulco, Mexico, in the course of her voyage to the Hawaiian Islands, for any signs of enemy activity. Finding none, she ultimately reached Pearl Harbor on 23 April.[3]
Battle of Midway
Punctuating her brief stay in Hawaiian waters with an antiaircraft practice off Oahu on 3 May, Atlanta, in company with McCall, sailed on 10 May as escort for Rainier and Kaskaskia, bound for Nouméa, New Caledonia. On 16 May, she joined Vice Admiral William F. Halsey's Task Force 16 (TF 16), formed around the aircraft carriers Enterprise and Hornet, as it steamed back to Pearl Harbor, having been summoned back to Hawaiian waters in response to an imminent Japanese thrust in the direction of Midway Atoll. TF 16 arrived at Pearl on 26 May.[3]
Atlanta again sailed with TF 16 on the morning of 28 May. Over the days that followed, she screened the carriers as they operated northeast of Midway in anticipation of the enemy's arrival. At the report of Japanese ships to the southwest, on the morning of 4 June, Atlanta cleared for action as she screened Hornet. Squadrons from the American carriers sought out the Japanese, and during that day, planes from Yorktown and Enterprise inflicted mortal damage on four irreplaceable enemy aircraft carriers. Japanese planes twice hit TF 17, and it took the brunt of the enemy attacks. Over the days that followed the Battle of Midway, Atlanta remained in the screen of TF 16 until 11 June, when the task force received orders to return to Pearl Harbor.[3]
Reaching her destination on 13 June, Atlanta, outside brief periods of antiaircraft practice on 21 and 25–26 June, remained in port, taking on stores and provisions and standing on 24-hour and then 48-hour alert into July 1942. Drydocked on 1–2 July so that her bottom could be scraped, cleaned and painted, the cruiser completed her availability on 6 July and then resumed a busy schedule of gunnery practice with drone targets, high-speed sleds, and in shore bombardment in the Hawaiian operating area.[3]
On 15 July 1942, Atlanta, again in TF 16, sailed for Tongatapu. Anchoring at Nukuʻalofa, Tonga on 24 July, where she fueled Maury and then took on fuel from Mobilube, the light cruiser pushed on later the same day and overtook TF 16. On 29 July, as all preparations proceeded for the invasion of Guadalcanal, Atlanta was assigned to TF 61.[3]
Screening the carriers as they launched air strikes to support the initial landings on 7–8 August, Atlanta remained there until the withdrawal of the carrier task forces on 9 August. For the next several days, she remained at sea, replenishing when necessary while the task force operated near the Solomons.[3]
Battle of the Eastern Solomons
Further information: Battle of the Eastern Solomons
As the Americans consolidated their gains on Guadalcanal, the critical need for reinforcements prompted Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto to send the Combined Fleet south to cover a large troop convoy. American scout planes spotted the Japanese forces on the morning of 23 August. With the enemy reported to the northwest, Enterprise and Saratoga launched search and attack planes, but they failed to make contact because of deteriorating weather and the fact that the Japanese, knowing that they had been spotted, reversed course.[3]
Throughout the day on 24 August, Atlanta received enemy contact reports and screened Enterprise as she launched a strike group to attack the Japanese carriers. The sighting of an enemy "snooper" at 1328 sent Atlanta's sailors to general quarters, where they remained for the next 5½ hours. At 1530, the cruiser worked up to 20 knots (23 mph; 37 km/h) as TF 16 stood roughly north-northwestward "to close [the] reported enemy carrier group." At 1637, with unidentified planes approaching, Atlanta went to 25 knots (29 mph; 46 km/h). Enterprise then launched a strike group shortly thereafter, completing the evolution at 1706.[3]
In the meantime, the incoming enemy bombers and fighter aircraft from Shōkaku and Zuikaku prompted the task force to increase speed to 27 knots (31 mph; 50 km/h), shortly after Enterprise completed launching her own aircraft, the Japanese raid, estimated by Captain Jenkins to consist of at least 18 Aichi D3A1 "Val" dive bombers, came in from the north northwest at 1710. Over the next 11 minutes, Atlanta's 5 in (127 mm), 1.1 in (27.9 mm) and 20 mm batteries contributed to the barrage over Enterprise, as the light cruiser conformed to Enterprise's every move as she maneuvered violently to avoid the dive bombers.[3]
Despite the heavy antiaircraft fire, Enterprise took one hit and suffered some shrapnel damage from an estimated five near hits. Captain Jenkins later reported that his ship may have shot down five of the attackers.[3] Atlanta was not damaged in the engagement.[3]
Reporting to TF 11 for duty the following day, Atlanta operated with that force, redesignated TF 61 on 30 August, over the next few days. When I-26 torpedoed Saratoga on 31 August, the light cruiser screened the stricken flagship as Minneapolis rigged a towline and began taking her out of danger. The force ultimately put into Tongatapu on 6 September, where Atlanta provisioned ship, fueled from New Orleans, and enjoyed a period of upkeep.[3]
Underway on 13 September, the light cruiser escorted Lassen and Hammondsport on 15 September. After seeing her charges safely to their destination at Dumbea Bay, Nouméa, on 19 September, Atlanta fueled, took on stores and ammunition, and sailed on 21 September as part of Task Group 66.4 (TG 66.4). Becoming part of TF 17 on 23 September, the light cruiser was detached the following day to proceed in company with Washington, Walke and Benham to Tongatapu, which she reached on 26 September.[3]
Underway with those same ships on 7 October, Atlanta briefly escorted Guadalcanal-bound transports from 11–14 October, before putting into Espiritu Santo for fuel on the afternoon of the 15th. Assigned then to Rear Admiral Willis A. Lee's TF 64, the ship sailed after dark that same day to resume operations covering the ongoing efforts to secure Guadalcanal. Returning briefly to Espiritu Santo for fuel, stores and provisions, the warship stood out from Segond Channel on the afternoon of 23 October.[3]
Two days later, with a Japanese Army offensive having failed to eject the Americans from Guadalcanal, Admiral Yamamoto sent the Combined Fleet south in an attempt to annihilate the American naval forces doggedly supporting the marines. Atlanta operated in TF 64, along with Washington, San Francisco, Helena and two destroyers, as the opposing forces engaged in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands on 26 October. That day, Atlanta patrolled astern of the fueling group supporting the two American carrier task forces. On 27 October, when I-15 attacked TF 64, the force maneuvered at high speed to clear the area.[3]
On the morning of 28 October, Atlanta brought on board Rear Admiral Norman Scott from San Francisco, and became the flagship of the newly designated TG 64.2. After fueling from Washington, Atlanta, screened by four destroyers, headed northwest to shell Japanese positions on Guadalcanal. Reaching the waters off Lunga Point on the morning of 30 October, Atlanta embarked Marine liaison officers at 0550, and then steamed west, commencing her bombardment of Point Cruz at 0629 while the destroyers formed a column astern. Provoking no return fire, TG 64.2 accomplished its mission and returned to Lunga Point, where Atlanta disembarked the liaison officers. She then proceeded, in company with her screen, to Espiritu Santo, where she arrived on the afternoon of 31 October.[3]
Naval Battle of Guadalcanal
Main article: Naval Battle of Guadalcanal
Convoy escort
Atlanta on 25 October 1942.
Atlanta served as Admiral Scott's flagship as the light cruiser, accompanied by four destroyers, escorted Zeilin, Libra and Betelgeuse to Guadalcanal. The cruiser and her consorts continued to screen those ships, designated TG 62.4, as they lay off Lunga Point on 12 November unloading supplies and disembarking troops.[3]
At 0905, the task group received a report that nine bombers and 12 fighters were approaching from the northwest, and would reach their vicinity at about 0930. At about 0920, Atlanta led the three auxiliaries to the north in column, with the destroyers spaced in a circle around them. 15 minutes later, nine "Vals" from Hiyō emerged from the clouds over Henderson Field, the American airstrip on Guadalcanal. The American ships opened fire soon after, putting up a barrage that downed "several" planes. Fortunately, none of the primary targets of the attack, Zeilin, Libra and Betelgeuse, suffered more than minor damage from several close calls, though Zeilin sustained some flooding. The three auxiliaries returned to the waters off Lunga Point as soon as the attack ended and resumed working cargo and disembarking troops.
A little over an hour later, at 1050, Atlanta received word of another incoming Japanese air raid. 15 minutes later, Atlanta led the three auxiliaries north with the destroyers in a circle around the disposition. The "bogeys", 27 Mitsubishi G4M "Bettys" from Rabaul, closed, sighted bearing west by north, approaching from over Cape Esperance in a very loose "V" formation. Although the destroyers opened fire, the planes proved to be out of range and the ships checked fire. The "Bettys", for their part, ignored the ships and continued on to bomb Henderson Field. Upon the disappearance of the planes, TG 62.4 resumed unloading off Lunga Point.[3]
On 12 November, Atlanta was still off Lunga Point, screening the unloading, as part of TF 67 under Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan in San Francisco. At about 1310, Atlanta received a warning that 25 enemy planes were headed for Guadalcanal, slated to arrive within 50 minutes. The light cruiser went to general quarters at 1318 and received the signal "prepare to repel air attack...."[3]
Within six minutes, Atlanta and the other combatants of the support group formed a screen around the transport group (TG 67.1), and the two groups steamed north together at 15 knots (17 mph; 28 km/h). At about 1410, the Americans sighted the incoming raid, consisting of what appeared to be 25 twin-engined bombers ("Bettys") which broke up into two groups after clearing Florida Island, and came in at altitudes that ranged from 25 to 50 ft (8 to 15 m). Juneau opened fire at 1412. Atlanta did so a minute later, training her guns at planes headed for the gap in the screen between San Francisco and Buchanan. Atlanta claimed to have shot down two "Bettys", just after they dropped their torpedoes, at about 1415, only three minutes before the attack ended. Once the last Japanese plane had been splashed, the work of unloading the transports and cargo ships resumed. One "Betty", crippled by antiaircraft fire, crashed into the after superstructure of San Francisco, inflicting the only damage on the force.[3]
Night attack
The abrupt end of the air attack gave Atlanta and her colleagues only a brief respite, however, for trouble approached from yet another quarter. A Japanese surface force, made up of two battleships, one cruiser and six destroyers, was detected steaming south toward Guadalcanal to shell Henderson Field. Admiral Callaghan's support group was to "cover [the retiring transports and cargo vessels] against enemy attack." TG 67.4 departed Lunga Point about 1800 and steamed eastward through Sealark Channel, covering the withdrawal of TG 67.1. An hour before midnight, Callaghan's ships reversed course and headed westward.[3]
Helena's radar picked up the first contact at a range of 26,000 yd (13 nmi). As the range closed, Atlanta's surface search radar, followed by her gunnery radars, picked up a contact on the enemy ships.[3]
Admiral Callaghan's order for a course change caused problems almost at once, as Atlanta had to turn to port (left) immediately to avoid a collision with one of the four destroyers in the van, the latter having apparently executed a "ships left" rather than "column left" movement.[3] As Atlanta began moving to resume her station ahead of San Francisco, the Japanese destroyer Akatsuki illuminated the light cruiser; and immediately suffered the consequences. Atlanta shifted her main battery to fire at the enemy destroyer, opening fire at a range of about 1,600 yd (1,463 m) and, along with other US ships that concentrated on Akatsuki's searchlights, simply overwhelmed the hapless destroyer.[4]
As two other Japanese destroyers crossed her line, Atlanta engaged both with her forward 5-inch (127 mm) mounts, while her after mounts continued to blast away at the illuminated ship. An additional, unidentified assailant also opened up on the light cruiser from the northeast.[3] At about that time, at least one torpedo plowed into Atlanta's forward engine room from the port side, fired almost certainly by either Inazuma or Ikazuchi[5] (Akatsuki's destroyer consorts). Atlanta lost all but auxiliary diesel power, suffered the interruption of her gunfire, and had to shift steering control to the steering engine room aft. Meanwhile, Akatsuki drifted out of the action and soon sank with heavy loss of life. Michiharu Shinya, Akatsuki's Chief Torpedo Officer, one of her few survivors, was rescued the next day by US forces and spent the rest of the war in a New Zealand prisoner of war camp.[6] He later stated unequivocally that Akatsuki had not been able to fire any torpedoes that night before being overwhelmed by gunfire.[7]
Soon after being torpedoed, Atlanta was then hit by an estimated nineteen 8-inch (203 mm) shells when San Francisco, "in the urgency of battle, darkness, and confused intermingling of friend or foe", fired into her. Though almost all of the shells passed through the thin skin of the ship without detonating, scattering green dye, fragments from their impact killed many men, including Admiral Scott and members of his staff. Atlanta prepared to return fire on her new assailant, but San Francisco's own gun flashes disclosed a distinctly "non-Japanese hull profile" that resulted in a suspension of those efforts.[3] San Francisco's shells, which passed high through Atlanta's superstructure, may have been intended for a Japanese target further beyond her from San Francisco's perspective.[8]
After the 8-inch (203 mm) fire ceased, Atlanta's Captain Jenkins took stock of the situation, and, having only a minor foot wound, made his way aft to Battle II. His ship was badly battered, largely powerless, down by the head and listing slightly to port, and a third of his crew was dead or missing. As the battle continued, the light cruiser's men began clearing debris, jettisoning topside weight to correct the list, reducing the volume of sea water in the ship, and succoring the many wounded.[3]
Sinking
Daylight revealed the presence nearby of three burning American destroyers, the disabled Portland, and the abandoned hulk of Yūdachi, which Portland summarily dispatched with three salvoes. Atlanta, drifting toward the enemy-held shore east of Cape Esperance, dropped her starboard anchor, and her captain sent a message to Portland explaining the light cruiser's condition. Boats from Guadalcanal came out to take her most critically wounded. By mid-morning, all of those had been taken off the ship.[3]
Bobolink arrived at 09:30 on 13 November, took Atlanta under tow, made harder by the cruiser's still lowered anchor, and headed toward Lunga Point. During the voyage, a "Betty" bomber neared the disposition, and one of the two surviving 5 in (127 mm) mounts—which was powered by a diesel generator—fired and drove it off. The other manually-rotated mount could not be trained on the target in time.[3]
Atlanta reached Kukum about 14:00, at which point Captain Jenkins conferred with his remaining officers. As Jenkins, who was later awarded a Navy Cross for his heroism during the battle, later wrote, "It was by now apparent that efforts to save the ship were useless, and that the water was gaining steadily." Even had sufficient salvage facilities been available, he allowed, the severe damage she had taken would have made it difficult to save the ship. Authorized by Commander, South Pacific Forces, to act at his own discretion regarding the destruction of the ship, Jenkins ordered that Atlanta be abandoned and sunk with a demolition charge.[3]
Accordingly, all remaining men except the captain and a demolition party boarded Higgins boats sent out from Guadalcanal for the purpose. After the charge had been set and exploded, the last men left the battered ship. Ultimately, at 20:15 on 13 November 1942, Atlanta sank 3 mi (5 km) west of Lunga Point in about 400 ft (120 m) of water. Her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 13 January 1943.[3]
Exploration of the wreck
The wreck of USS Atlanta was discovered in 1992 by an expedition led by Dr. Robert Ballard using a remotely operated underwater vehicle, (ROV). Dr. Ballard was famous for leading the expeditions that discovered RMS Titanic and the German battleship Bismarck. Unfortunately, strong ocean currents and poor visibility prevented the expedition from thoroughly exploring Atlanta. In 1994, two Australian technical divers Rob Cason and Kevin Denlay travelled to Solomon Islands with the intention of being the first scuba divers to dive Atlanta but this was unsuccessful because of the lack of a suitable surface support vessel and strong surface currents; this was also the first mixed gas scuba diving expedition to Guadalcanal. However, they did manage to dive one of the two other, deepest diveable wrecks; the Japanese transport Azumasan Maru, which is almost 90 m (295 ft) deep at the stern and Sasako Maru, which Denlay dived in 1995 at over 90 m (295 ft) in the collapsed debris field of the bridge. Many other World War II wrecks discovered by Dr. Ballard in Iron Bottom Sound are beyond the current technical limit for scuba and are only accessible by ROVs or submersibles. Dr Ballard gives an account of this in his book The Lost Ships of Guadalcanal. In the same year, Denlay returned with American Terrance Tysall and made the first successful scuba dive on USS Atlanta, which was at the time the deepest wreck dive by free swimming divers in the southern hemisphere.[citation needed]
In the following years, Denlay and Tysall mounted several larger expeditions to survey Atlanta, exploring and videoing the wreck in detail to a depth of 130 m (427 ft) at the bow.[9] The civil unrest in Solomon Islands from late 1998 prevented further diving around Guadalcanal for several years. However, on the final expedition that year, the then deepest wreck dive by a woman was made by Kevin's wife, Mirja, on Atlanta. Denlay's last visit to the wreck was in 2002 using a closed circuit rebreather or CCR, the first CCR dive on Atlanta.[10] Since then, very few dives have been conducted on Atlanta, although in May 2011 a very experienced deep diving team from Global Underwater Explorers successfully videoed the wreck for documentary purposes, the first survey of the wreck since Denlay's expeditions up to 1998.[11]
Awards
Atlanta was awarded five battle stars for her World War II service and a Presidential Unit Citation for her "heroic example of invincible fighting spirit" in the battle off Guadalcanal on 13 November 1942.[3]
Highland Park High School / Junior College / Career Academy
In many ways, the histories of Detroit and Highland Park – a separate city located within the borders of Detroit –are very similar. Both cities experienced tremendous growth as a result of the automobile industry, and built up their city services to meet demand. Both cities lost population after the auto industry left. And today, both cities are struggling with how to provide the same city services to fewer people with less tax revenue. Budget cuts have led to the closure of most of Highland Park’s fire stations, libraries, and schools.
A three-block stretch of Highland Street running west from Woodward Avenue was one the civic center of the city. Along Highland and nearby streets were five schools, three churches, two hospitals, and the main library, mixed in with ornate high-rise apartment buildings. In this densely populated neighborhood one could be born, baptized, attend nursery school, elementary school, high school, and college, all without going more than three blocks in any direction. Right at the center of the neighborhood is the old Highland Park High School and Junior College, a block-long slab of quarry-faced limestone that played an important role in the development of Highland Park from an obscure village into an industrial boomtown.
Early days in Highland Park
In 1900, Highland Park was just a small village north of Detroit, population 427. Through the early 1900’s, the city grew as Detroit developed north along Woodward Avenue, spurring residential development. In 1907, Henry Ford began to move his automobile production from the Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit to a new, much larger factory located in Highland Park. The factory opened in 1909; a year later the population of Highland Park had risen to 4,120 as workers quickly built up neighborhoods around the Ford plant.
Like other early school districts, Highland Park Schools taught from Kindergarten to the 8th grade level, at which point young adults were expected to join the workforce. Starting in 1911, high school courses were introduced, with 42 students enrolled in 9th and 10th grade levels at Stevens Elementary, then moved to the new Ferris School when it opened in November. The next year 11th and 12th grades were introduced. Demand for higher education was enough that by 1912, plans were underway to build a dedicated high school building.
Building a new high school
Initially the board of education wanted to build the new high school east of Woodward Avenue, at Farrand and John R Streets, but instead settled a large rectangular parcel of land along Glendale Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. Though the high school would take up only a small part of the land, school officials wanted additional space to expand the school if needed. Excavation at the site began as the first high school class of 14 students graduated from Ferris School in 1913. In 1914, a contract for construction of the new building designed by Wells D. Butterfield was awarded for $460,000. It could comfortably seat 1,000 students, though it was believed that it would be quite a few years before the school reached capacity.
The first unit of Highland Park High School was of English type architecture, laid out with a central mass three stories tall, with two end wings linked by classrooms. The east wing had a 1,100-seat auditorium, and the west wing featured a three-story gymnasium and basement swimming pool. In the center were school offices, a library, and recitation rooms. The exterior was done up in quarry-faced gray limestone, with mouldings and detail work of dressed Bedford stone. Inside the school were long hallways of Caen stone and ornamental carved oak. Dedicated classrooms included sewing, carpentry, machine tooling, botany, chemistry, and drawing.
The cornerstone was laid down in October of 1914. Construction on the high school had progressed far enough that by June of 1915, the auditorium was used for graduation as work on the rest of the building continued. The new building was scheduled to formally open in September, but even before then school administrators were facing an unanticipated problem: overcrowding.
Expansion
Between 1910 and 1916, the population of Highland Park grew from 4,100 to 28,000. By 1920 there would be 46,500 residents, a staggering 1,000% increase in population over just 10 years. Workers from across the globe were drawn to Detroit and Highland Park in particular, by the Ford factory and its promise of a $5 a day wage. The assembly line had revolutionized the way that cars were made, and in doing so, made Highland Park the center of the automotive revolution. The school board found itself with hundreds of new students every year, requiring hasty additions to existing school buildings, and the construction of new schools in neighborhoods that were springing up around town.
By the time Highland Park High School opened in September of 1915, enrollment far exceeded expectations, with 850 students signing up. In 1916, just a year after it opened, that number grew to over 1,000 high school students, filling the school to capacity. Plans for a second unit of the high school for 1,500 additional students to be built next to the first were immediately drawn up, with construction beginning in 1917.
Though the second unit of the high school used identical building materials and same English styling as the first, it was laid out differently. Initially the second unit was intended to be a high school for girls and a junior college, and was built with its own separate gymnasium and swimming pool. Instead of a second auditorium, a larger library and additional classrooms were set aside for a junior college program that would share the building with the girl’s high school. The new high school for girls opened in September of 1918, with a total enrollment of 1,525 students. Highland Park Junior College opened in 1918 as well, with 35 students. Course offerings included French, rhetoric, history, chemistry, zoology, and analytic geometry.
Within a few years the two high school programs merged and became co-ed. In 1927, a vocational education building including an automobile repair lab was built to south of the school, connected by an overhead walkway. A further addition to the vocational wing was added in 1938, and the auditorium was renovated in 1939. The high school thrived, with as many as 3,000 students and a host of extracurricular activities, including athletics, homemaking, and a school radio station.
Great Depression, Second World War
Enrollment at Highland Park Junior College steadily increased to around 300 students by the 1920’s, but slowed in the aftermath of the Great Depression. Lack of adequate space and a drop in the number of students to 159 in 1929 nearly led to the closure of college, but the residents of Highland Park voted to keep it open. This paid off in the long run, as after the Second World War ended enrollment skyrocketed from 117 in 1943 to 1,800 in 1947 as veterans returning to Highland Park used the GI bill to pay for college education.
By the 1940’s, population in Highland Park had peaked. Ford had moved auto production out of Highland Park to a new factory in the suburbs in 1927, and moved its headquarters to Dearborn in 1930. The construction of freeways made it easier for people to live outside the city, hastening an outward flight or residents to the suburbs. The racial composition of Highland Park changed as well. By 1968, over half of the 4,488 students were black, while teachers and administrators were mostly white. Sit-ins protesting the lack of diversity in the school administration were frequent in 1969.
The high school moves out
As part of a district-wide modernization program, several older schools in Highland Park were demolished and replaced with newer buildings in the 1950’s and 60’s. A nursery school was built on the south side of the campus in 1950, and an elementary school was built a block south in 1961. Plans for a new, modern high school to be built north on Woodward Avenue were drawn up in the early 1970’s, which would replace the existing school. The junior college (now a community college) would take over the entire building and expand its vocational offerings.
Construction on the new building was already underway when on the evening of March 18th 1975, a large fire broke out in the gymnasium of the old high school. Stacks of rolled-up wrestling mats were set alight as a practical joke, but the blaze quickly spread out of control, causing the roof and floor to cave into the basement swimming pool. The fire burned for over five hours as firefighters from Highland Park, Detroit, and Hamtramck struggled to contain it to just the gymnasium. While smoke and water damage throughout the high school were repaired fairly quickly, repairing the gymnasium was estimated to cost over $600,000. Since the high school was moving out in the near future, athletics were moved over to the community college building, which had its own pool and gymnasium. In 1977, the new Highland Park Community High School on Woodward Avenue opened, and the community college took over the Glendale campus. A temporary roof was built over the shell of the burned-out gymnasium, as administrators struggled with what to do next.
Not wishing to demolish the handsome limestone façade of the gym, the wing sat empty until 1983, when the community college approached Bloomfield Hills landscape architect James Scott about reusing the space. Scott envisioned turning the empty hall into a “multi-purpose concourse” and performing arts space, linking the two units together. Within a few days his ideas went from sketches to planning, and work began a short time later. The swimming pool, into which burning debris from above had been dumped, was covered by a new floor and sealed off. The open area above was a mix of the old and new, retaining the limestone wall of the adjacent gym, but incorporating modern styling throughout. Hexagons were the dominant theme, with planters turning the concourse into a green space. Work on the renovation concluded in 1985. In the years after the space was used for concerts, special events, and art galleries.
Community college struggles
Though enrollment at Highland Park Community College was 2,000 to 3,000 through most of the 1980’s, the college operated at a deficit that had grown to $1.4 million dollars by 1989. In an effort to save money, school administrators cut the LPN and respiratory therapy programs, sparking a four-day sit in strike by students. Though the administration reverses its decision, the financial situation continued to deteriorate, with accusations of rampant misuse of funds. After missing two consecutive annual audits, Michigan Governer John Engler began to withhold state funding for the college, as investigators report that Highland Park Community College “had the worst facilities of any community college in the state.”
In February of 1995, Governor Engler announced that all funding for the college would be stripped from the budget due to chronic financial and academic problems, stating, “Though the college has a long and distinguished tradition, it has become apparent that it is no longer an economically viable institution." Local representatives fought hard to keep the school open, arguing that it was making progress in fixing its financial situation and that the loss of the school would be devastating to Highland Park’s troubled economy. By December of 1995 the college had run out of money, and closed down.
Highland Park Career Academy, Final Years
The immediate impact of the closing of Highland Park Community College was that students were stranded in mid-study, some just a semester away from graduation. Though other nearby colleges tried to accommodate students, many never finished their studies, and walked away from secondary education. While elected officials fought to get funding restored, the school reopened as the Highland Park Career Academy, offering an alternative high school program and vocational training for students and young adults in the fields of nursing, dental hygiene, and auto repair. In 2001, the Ford Motor Company opened an automotive training center in the vocational education building, complete with demonstration cars.
Highland Park City Schools steadily lost students through the 2000’s, with K-12 enrollment falling to 2,700 by 2008 as students were lured away to other nearby school districts. As schools were funded by the state on a per pupil basis, this led to a major revenue shortfall for Highland Park. On January 23rd, 2009 the school board shut down the career academy with no official notification to parents, laying off 36 teachers to close the budget gap. Students were again left in the lurch with the cancellation of their programs, with few options for continuing their studies elsewhere. and leaving students stranded in mid-study. Only seniors were allowed to stay at the school until the end of the school year, with the remaining students to attend night school at Highland Park Community High School. However, the first scheduled night of classes was canceled without explanation. Most students dropped out, and the building closed for good in the summer of 2009.
For over 90 years, the old high school and college had been the center of Highland Park’s education system. By the time the school closed, the neighborhood and city around it had changed considerably. Ferris School and the hospitals closed in the 1990’s, along with the main library in 2002. The nursery school closed permanently in 2005. Most of the apartment buildings along Glendale and Highland had been vacated years ago, leaving large gaps in the fabric of the neighborhood. In the end, the closing of the career academy wound up costing the school district a large amount of funding, as students dropped out or left for other school districts. With just 969 students enrolled in 2012, the state of Michigan declared a financial emergency, and the Highland Park City Schools were taken over by a state emergency financial manager, who converted the district into a privately operated charter school system.
The new charter school operator found that the three remaining school buildings – Highland Park Community High, Ford, and Barber – were in terrible disrepair, and required proximately expensive work to be brought up to standards. In early 2012, school officials started looking at consolidating all of the schools into one K-12 as a way to save money. One alternative discussed was the reopening of the old high school and college building, which was large enough to support all of the students left in the district. The emergency manager visited the closed building in February to see if it would viable to reopen.
Since its closing in 2009, the old high school and college had been frozen in time, with little more than security and routine maintenance being carried out in its empty halls and classrooms. Though fairly secure for a few years, when the state took over the Highland Park City Schools, patrols at the closed building had been discontinued, leaving the school briefly open to scrappers and metal thieves. In the short time between the state takeover and the resumption of security at the school, scrappers had done enough damage to make reopening the school cost prohibitive. The plan was abandoned in favor of letting the three remaining schools stay open.
In the years since, scrappers and vandals have dismantled the old Highland Park High School. When the local Police department set up two non-working squad cars in the back of the building to deter people from entering, the cars were vandalized and removed less than a month later. In October of 2012 the windows of the school were boarded up, but by that time the damage had been done. The property was put up for sale with an asking price of $3 million dollars.
Well, was hoping for the sun after a nearly 2 month lay-off due to being in hospital for 3 weeks and recovery time.
90020 races north at Eaton Lane with 1D22 16.33 Kings Cross-Leeds on Saturday 15th September 2018.
Star Wars: Dysfunction
An Alphas Story
ARC Squad Alpha-B Roster
Captain Alpha-10 “Ramser” (CO/Auxiliary Marksman)
First Lieutenant Alpha-09 “Capyr” (XO/Auxiliary Demolitions)
Second Lieutenant Alpha-51 “Adenn” (Demolitions/CQB)
Second Lieutenant ARC-53/886 “Gray” (Technician)
Sergeant Major ARC-21/547 “Swoop” (Aerial Assault)
Sergeant Major ARC-401/39 “Deadshot” (Marksman)
Sergeant CS-1801 “Ticker” (Infantry Team Leader)
Corporal CT-89/123 “Stitch” (Medic)
Private CT-7713 “Rail” (Infantry)
Private CT-9054 “Ram” (Infantry)
Private CT-4509 “Knuckles” (Infantry)
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter I
RAS Bastila Shan
Outskirts of the Hypori Sector
21 BBY
“Unbelievable! Un-karking-believable! This is a horrible injustice towards the fighting men of the Grand Army of the Republic! This is oppression! Tyranny! A crime unparalleled throughout all of galactic history!”
Private Rail sighed, and looked over at his squadmate, Knuckles. “Oh, command only took away your unauthorized porn collection. Stop being a crybaby about it.”
“That was high-quality Holovid material, man! Some of the best in the industry! I’m not being a crybaby, I’m protesting against the stomping on of my right to get turned on!”
“I don’t think that’s a right, Knuckles.”
“Well it should be!”
Before the discussion about the hypothetical right to porn could progress, a third clone bursted into the impromptu meeting room of the debate club that had been founded just seconds earlier, otherwise known as the RecRoom of the Bastila. Clone Sergeant Ticker, the team’s senior NCO that wasn’t an ARC, crossed his arms, and glared at Rail and Knuckles, highly annoyed. Ticker pointed at Knuckles, and said “Private, I swear to the Force, is it impossible for me to leave ya alone fer three damn minutes without ya gettin’ yerself into kriffing trouble!? Ya know that garbage is against the regs! You’re making the entire team look bad! Blast it, you’re making the entire GAR look bad!”
Knuckles simply shrugged, and replied “Hey, if they don’t want these things to happen, they shouldn’t ban my porn.”
Rail rolled his eyes, and said “You know, Knuckles, that they ban all of that kind of stuff. They aren’t just targeting you specifically.”
“Oi, that’s enough, ya two. We can sort out the contraband issue later. The Cap’n wants us all in the hangar, and we’d hate to disappoint, eh?”
Rail stood up from his seat, and replied “On it, Sarge. We’ll head to the armory ASAP.”
Rail and Knuckles quickly walked out of the RecRoom, leaving Ticker behind.
“So, how do you think this is gonna work out, Rail?”
Rail punched in the code to open the Armory door, and replied “Eh, chances all, we get captured, we get interrogated, and we get executed. Standard Covert Ops stuff, from what the XO told me.”
As they stepped into the armory, Knuckles said “Oh, come on. Lieutenant Capyr doesn’t know what he’s-”
Knuckles heard the sound of a clone clearing his throat, and turned his head to see Capyr adjusting a bayonet on his DC-15A. “I know a lot of things, Private. Including that you should always make sure the fellow you’re badmouthing isn’t within earshot.”
The two turned their heads as they heard a chuckle and saw 2nd Lieutenant Adenn sitting on top of a container whilst chucking a grenade around in his hands. “Knowing that you’re able to hear us is what makes it more funnier.”
Capyr made a gesture of questionable politeness towards Adenn, and looked back at Knuckles and Rail. “Look, you two. I know that being sent on borderline suicide missions behind enemy lines is bad for morale, but can you at least save it until after we’re on the ground?” The two Privates muttered in acknowledgments, and went about getting their equipment.
Adenn continued tossing the grenade around in his hands. “‘Ey, Capy, you think that bayonet of yours could pierce through this?”
Capyr scowled under his helmet, gestured at Adenn again, and pressed a button on his gauntlet.
Adenn looked around the armory in confusion, then turned to Capyr, and said “The kark did you do now? And what the kark is that noi-” Adenn looked down to his hands, and a look of horror came across his face as he realized how the grenade played into this. Throwing the now armed grenade across the room, he dove behind a crate of blasters and hoped for the best.
Capyr, for his part, simply stood up, walked over to the grenade, and chuckled. Picking it up, he placed it on his belt, and called out “Hey, di’kut! You can come out now!” Capyr looked over at the two Privates, staring at him in shock. “Eh, don’t worry about it. This here is a little invention of mine, call it a Gagnade. About as explosive as durasteel.”
Adenn slowly crept back up, shock all over his face as he shakingly asked “What the kark? How-”
“Oh, y’know. Designed to look like a grenade, and when I press this button right here,” said Capyr, pointing at his gauntlet, “It starts beeping. Figured it’d be useful on a mission some day, but it’s also real good for putting di’kute who like to pretend they’re Demolitions Experts in their place. By which I mean you, so don’t try to pull the ‘No, you’ trick on me.”
The shock on Adenn’s face became a hateful scowl as he walked over to Capyr with his knife in hand. Capyr, in response, picked up his DC and pointed the bayonet at Adenn. “Now, now, I’m enough of a civilized adult for both of us, so why don’t we sit down and act like it?”
Adenn was not impressed as he looked down at the bayonet. “And if I said no?”
“Then I’m telling the angry Captain standing in the doorway.”
Adenn turned his head, and saw that the squad’s CO, Captain Ramser, was indeed standing in the doorway, his arms crossed. Adenn gave a nervous smile and slowly waved at the Captain, the bayonet still pointed at him. Ramser sighed, and said “Weapons down, both of you.”
Adenn raised both hands and asked. “What weapon?”
Capyr slowly lowered his DC, and said “The knife, you moron.”
Adenn looked at Capyr, mouthed suggestive things at him, and placed the knife back into its holster. When Ramser was sure that the Armory would not be the site of a stabbing, he continued speaking. “Look, Capyr. I know that when Adenn joined the team, there was some… conflict over him taking your job. But he’s still part of the team, and you are to treat him as such. And Adenn, I don’t know what you’re doing to provoke these fights, but whatever it is, stop.”
“Maybe if he wasn’t such a whiny piece of-”
“I said, stop it, Adenn.
Adenn clenched his fist and looked at Capyr in disgust. “Yes, sir.” Capyr and Adenn watched as Ramser stepped outside the Armory, and began to finish collecting their equipment in silence.
Corporal Stitch looked up from his partially assembled Medkit and over at his squadmate, Ram, who was frantically punching buttons on a datapad. “Y’know, Ram, that trick is only going to work so long. The CO will find out eventually.” Stitch shrugged as his warnings fell upon deaf ears and Ram refused to respond, still pushing random buttons to make himself appear busy. “Seriously, it’s only a matter of time.”
Ram remained focused on his datapad until an ARC in grey armor noticed him, walked over, and in one swift motion, took the datapad from Ram and hit him over the head with it. “CT-9054, for the last time, stop messing around the with the datapads. These aren’t toys.”
A second ARC walked up next to Gray. “You really didn’t have to hit him over the head with it, Gray.”
Gray looked at the datapad in his hand, then at the other ARC. “Maybe not, Swoop. But it was satisfying. Y’know how rare it is for me to be the highest-ranking officer around?”
A clone with a black streak going down the visor of his helmet walked into the hangar, sporting a DC-15X, and a short cloak. “‘Oi, mir’sheb, lay off ‘em.”
Gray sighed, and said “Fine, Deadshot. But you can make sure he doesn’t slack off instead. I can’t deal with that level of slacking.”
“I’m not a babysitter. Get someone who will actually listen to you to do that job.”
Gray looked at Deadshot, slowly placed the datapad on a nearby crate, and stepped forward. “ARC-401/39, I don’t know what your major malfunction is, but just because I’m not the Captain or Lieutenant Capyr doesn’t mean I don’t outrank you.”
“Cut the osik, smartass. I know you do. Doesn’t mean I’ll do your chores.”
Stitch stepped between his two superiors, holding out his arms to separate them. “Okay, okay, brothers. I think we can both agree this has escalated too far. Sir, how about I watch our resident lump of uselessness?”
Gray thought for a few seconds, then replied “Okay, Corporal. Make sure he actually does something. As for you, Deadshot, we’ll settle this later. I’m going to check in with the Captain, see if something’s wrong. The rest of the team should be-”
“Apologies, Gray. Had to diffuse me a conflict. Capyr and Adenn, as usual.” Gray and company turned to see Captain Ramser walking towards them, two ARCs and two Privates in tow. “Everything has been going well on your end, I hope.”
An anxious Gray bit his tongue under his helmet, and responded “Eh, not at all sir. All is fine.”
Ramser paused for a second, then shrugged. “If you say so. Now, I believe we a Larty to catch, a planet to land on, and a CIS base to infiltrate.”
A chorus of “Understood, sir,” followed, and the eleven clones walked towards the LAAT in silence. They knew what they were getting into. And they knew that they may not be able to count on each other during it.
i handed you my secrets, my past, my life. I trusted you with them; i loved you. You promised you'd lock them up, and swallow the key; no one will would ever find them.
Somehow the lock came undone, and my secret came out. They floated into everyones home, and they were no longer secrets. I trusted you, and in the end, you lied. Now, my secrets are out and imbedded onto my skin for everyone to read-- all because of you.
1. i want to start selling my photos, but i'm not sure how. Anyone know?
2. I want a penpal. One the likes to take photos especially so we can send each other disposable cameras, fill them up, and then send them back.
3. i like guys with a 5 o' clock shadow.
4. i don't like meat, chips, salt, or soda. i'm a fan of the sweets.
5. I like chocolate milk a lot.
6. I wonder if anyone is jealous of my photography; probably not. But, honestly, i'm very jealous of other flickr members photography skills. i want to be as good as them.
7. not to brag or anything, but i'm a pretty awesome new driver.
8. i think i've turned into a big flirt recently. I never use to be, but my sister told me i should lay off a bit.
9. i noticed that i don't have a style for photography. it's all over the place.
10. So i typed all these ten facts out and once i was done i accidently clicked "cancel". All my facts were lost. I was able to think of 7 but the last three, including this one, were new. I was very upset.
I'm posting this shot as a celebration of the fact that we found out we're having a little girl! This is our first baby, and we're beyond excited. And for those of you who have offered thoughts and prayers concerning my husband's lay-off last month . . . thank you! He found a fantastic job!
Much better large: 'I'm so close . . .' On Black
Interestingness - Top 100 (March 23, 2007 #54)
To reach this half-alive heart
He had to touch my eyes
To show me truth that's real to me
'Cause it speaks of all I've left behind
Coming alive is harder than anything I've tried
And fear, don't reach for me now
'Cause I'm so close, so close . . .
-- Jill Paquette
IT BEGAN WITH RL201—and it ended with RL201.
AVRO ARROW RL201 was the very first Arrow to fly…and it was the very last Arrow to fly.
Earlier in the day RL203 made "Arrow history" as it was the only time a passenger flew on an Arrow. D.E. "Red" Darrah went up with "Spud" Potocki to fine-tune the Arrow's fly-by-wire system. All in vain, as we now know.
THIS PIC is very, very, rare. In fact, I had never seen it before, until only a month ago!
It shows AVRO ARROW RL201 sitting in one of Avro Canada's hangars on February 19, 1959 just before…or just after it's very last flight. The last flight of any Arrow in the Arrow program.
Sad and ominous.
The storm clouds were indeed gathering.
FEBRUARY 20, the very next day was BLACK FRIDAY when Diefenbaker's government cancelled both Avro Canada programmes (the Arrow interceptor and the Orenda Iroquois jet engine) LEAVING Avro Canada NO CHOICE but to lay off all 13,000 GTA workers.
THIS PICTURE I think came originally from the collection of
Marc-André Valiquette. I did extensive work to clean it up somewhat for this post. Therefore it has my "black bars".
I OWN ALL of Marc-André's ARROW books.
All 5 including…
Destruction of a Dream - Tragedy of Avro Canada and The CF-105 Arrow (Volumes 1-4) can be found at Aviation World in Toronto, or online here: www.aviationworld.net/default/catalogsearch/result/?q=avr…
Marc-André's books are great both for their extensive history and for their copious historical photos.
I often return to my posts to edit content, or continue work on my photos FYI.
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——-——— WARNING!!! : DON'T READ THIS! —-——-———
When CANADA was SUPER-GREAT we produced the CF-105 Avro Arrow Interceptor and the PS.13 Orenda Iroquois Turbojet Engine.
Why were these Canadian technological achievements so awesome, you ask?
CF-105 Avro Arrow's “FIRSTS and NOTABLES” to the uninitiated:
• FIRST AIRCRAFT designed with digital computers being used for both aerodynamic analysis and designing the structural matrix (and a whole lot more).
• FIRST AIRCRAFT design to have major components machined by CNC (computer numeric control); i.e., from electronic data which controlled the machine.
• FIRST AIRCRAFT to be developed using an early form of "computational fluid dynamics" with an integrated "lifting body" type of theory rather than the typical (and obsolete) "blade element" theory.
• FIRST AIRCRAFT to have marginal stability designed into the pitch axis for better maneuverability, speed and altitude performance.
• FIRST AIRCRAFT to have negative stability designed into the yaw axis to save weight and cut drag, also boosting performance.
• FIRST AIRCRAFT to fly on an electronic signal from the stick and pedals. i.e., first fly-by-wire a/c.
• FIRST AIRCRAFT to fly with fly by wire AND artificial feedback (feel). Not even the first F-16's had this.
• FIRST AIRCRAFT designed to be data-link flyable from the ground.
• FIRST AIRCRAFT designed with integrated navigation, weapons release, automatic search and track radar, datalink inputs, home-on-jamming, infrared detection, electronic countermeasures and counter-countermeasures operating through a DIGITAL brain.
• FIRST HIGH WING jet fighter that made the entire upper surface a lifting body. The F-15, F-22, Su-27 etc., MiG-29, MiG 25 and others certainly used that idea.
• FIRST sophisticated bleed-bypass system for both intake AND engine/exhaust. Everybody uses that now.
• FIRST by-pass engine design. (all current fighters have by-pass engines).
• FIRST combination of the last two points with an "ejector" nozzle that used the bypass air to create thrust at the exhaust nozzle while also improving intake flow. The F-106 didn't even have a nozzle, just a pipe.
• Use of Titanium for significant portions of the aircraft structure and engine.
• Use of composites (not the first, but they made thoughtful use of them and were researching and engineering new ones).
• Use of a drooped leading edge and aerodynamic "twist" on the wing.
• Use of engines at the rear to allow both a lighter structure and significant payload at the centre of gravity. Everybody copied that.
• Use of a LONG internal weapons bay to allow carriage of specialized, long-range standoff and cruise missiles. (not copied yet really)
• Integration of ground-mapping radar and the radar altimeter plus flight control system to allow a serious strike/reconnaissance role. The first to propose an aircraft be equally adept at those roles while being THE air-superiority fighter at the same time. (Few have even tried to copy that, although the F-15E is an interesting exception.)
• FIRST missile armed a/c to have a combat weight thrust to weight ratio approaching 1 to 1. Few have been able to copy that.
• FIRST flying 4,000 psi hydraulic system to allow lighter and smaller components.
• FIRST oxygen-injection re-light system.
• FIRST engine to have only two main bearing assemblies on a two-shaft design.
• FIRST to use a variable stator on a two-shaft engine.
• FIRST use of a trans-sonic first compressor stage on a turbojet engine.
• FIRST "hot-streak" type of afterburner ignition.
• FIRST engine to use only 10 compressor sections in a two-shaft design. (The competition was using 17!!)
The Avro Arrow was Canada's finest aviation achievement, even though it never entered RCAF service.
DETRACTORS … thanks for comin' out ~
© 2015 Special Projects In Research
A slide scan from my collection of CF-GCV. At the time of photo it was operated by Pacific Western Airlines doing fire control in the Smithers area. The Otter has an amazing and lengthy history as written by Otter historian Karl E Hayes of Ireland.
The second Otter built, CF-GCV, made its first flight from Downsview on 2nd May 1952 and joined
the prototype in the flight test programme, flying as CF-GCV-X. It was used by DHC to certify the
Otter as a float plane. Like the prototype, it had been constructed with a pointed vertical fin, which
caused stability problems and in September 1952 the fins on both these Otters were changed to
what became the standard production fin, allowing the Otter to achieve commercial certification in
November 1952.
In July 1952, GCV piloted by Russ Bannock, DHC's Sales Director, was flown to Goose Bay,
Labrador where it was demonstrated to some of the RCAF's “top brass” and was undoubtedly
instrumental in the RCAF's order for Otters. After the DHC-3 achieved commercial certification in
November '52, GCV continued in use from Downsview as a demonstrator. In August '53 Russ
Bannock flew GCV to St.John's, Newfoundland to demonstrate it to Eastern Provincial Airways (EPA)
and so impressed were they that they bought the Otter. GCV's first task with EPA was on a Canadian
Marconi contract flying out of Goose Bay until the end of October '53. On one occasion, it broke
loose in a gale, damaging the tail. Parts were ordered from DHC, but had to be made specially as
GCV was a prototype aircraft. Trans Canada Airlines had difficulty fitting the parts into one of their
North Star aircraft, but they were eventually squeezed into the aisle between the passengers and
flown to Goose Bay, where the Otter was repaired.
Even though the Otter had been delivered to EPA in August '53, its official sale date from DHC to
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EPA was 18th December 1953 and GCV was registered to EPA on 5th January 1954, based at
Gander. EPA had a winter mail contract from the post office, and the Otter was used on this
alongside the company's Norsemen, Beavers and Cessna 180. The contract ran from January until
April/May and covered the towns and settlements around the island of Newfoundland as well as in
mainland Labrador. During the summer months, the mail was brought in by ship, but with the winter
freeze up of the coastal waters, the mail had to be flown in.
On 20th February '54 Beaver CF-GBD crashed into the mountains on a mail delivery flight to
Parson's Pond and Port Saunders on the west coast. As Marsh Jones writes in his much
recommended book on EPA (“The Little Airline That Could”):”The following morning I departed
Gander in Otter GCV with a load of mail for Flowers Cove. Bill Easton and an aircraft engineer
George Furey came along to assist and survey the damaged Beaver. We landed our mail at Flowers
Cove then flew south to the crash site, located about 200 yards up on a snowy slope from a good
size pond which we called Benny's Pond. We landed and while George Furey was assessing the
damaged aircraft we lugged the mail down a snowy slope to the Otter. After take-off we delivered the
Beaver's mail to Parsons Pond and Port Saunders, then returned to Gander”. The Otter was then
used to fly the necessary spare parts, tools, camping gear, provisions etc into the accident site, and
to keep the camp supplied while the Beaver was being repaired, which took until 9th May '54.
In winter 1955 Otter GCV was again used on the post office mail contract, in the course of which it
encountered some difficulty. Again, to quote from Marsh Jones excellent book: “On 28th February '55
I departed Gander with Rex Clibbery (our Canso captain) and a load of mail for Charlottown and
Black Tickle in southern Labrador. A refuelling stop was made at Roddickton and the first mail stop
was made at Charlottown, at the head of St. Michaels Bay. With excellent weather we proceeded up
the coast to Black Tickle. A circuit was made for ice observation, and as everything looked normal,
we landed heading out the bay along the line of tree top markers. During the turn to taxi back to the
inner bay after landing, the skis broke through the ice and the aircraft settled on the upper struts of
the under-carriage. What a predicament!”
“Black Tickle is completely devoid of trees and my immediate thought was to build a platform over
the area where we had broken through, but what would we use for material? One of the numerous
bystanders suggested that there might be planks in Guy Earl's shed on his fishing premises. I told
the man to bring over all the long planks and poles he could find plus nails and ropes and a block
and tackle. We then unloaded the mail. We ended up with more than enough material and built a
long platform around the nose of the aircraft, on which we erected an “A” frame lean-to over the
propeller hub and a long line going out to a 'deadman' secured in the ice. On this we secured our
block and tackle and before dark we had the aircraft skis well clear of the ice, with planks laid under
them to support the aircraft until, after a night of freezing temperature, the aircraft could be lowered
back onto its undercarriage again”.
“The area where we had broken through had been a large crack in the Bay ice about ten feet
wide which had frozen over. With a light layer of snow it was impossible to see and unfortunately noone
had bothered to mark it as unsafe. The following day, March 1st, was clear and cold and there
was now at least eight inches of hard slush ice under the aircraft. We lowered the Otter onto the
platform and pulled the aircraft clear of the area. On inspecting the aircraft it was found to be free of
damage and after heating up the engine we started up with no difficulty and taxied back to the inner
bay where we secured the aircraft for the night. The weather was not suitable for flight the next
morning, however we utilized the time in returning all the material and gear to Mr.Earl's shed. We
departed Black Tickle in marginal weather on 3rd March and with another refuelling stop at
Roddickton, landed at Gander in mid afternoon”. After that excitement, the Otter continued on the
post office contract until the end of the season.
EPA had also received a government contract to support construction of the Mid Canada Line of
radar stations. It was one of several operators who benefited considerably from the construction of
the radar defences of North America. The Pine Tree Line, Mid Canada Line and DEW Line were,
particularly in eastern Canada, relatively inaccessible by land transport and so the airlines became a
necessity for their construction and re-supply. The revenue generated by these projects was of great
assistance to such young companies as EPA and allowed them to grow both in experience and
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equipment. EPA's contract with the Department of Defence involved two Cansos CF-HFL and CFHGF
and Otter GCV, which occupied the aircraft all that summer of 1955. The Cansos were used
mainly to move petroleum products to the sites where the radar stations were being constructed. In
conjunction with this, the Otter moved general freight, provisions and personnel from the base at
Knob Lake (Schefferville), Quebec. GCV was particularly active, flying upwards of 550 hours that
summer.
1956 saw a similar pattern of operation for the Otter as in the previous year. During the winter it
was engaged on the mail contract, and in the summer based out of Knob Lake on the Mid Canada
Line contract. On 6th July '56 Canso CF-HFL ran short of fuel and force landed on a lake fifty miles
north of Knob Lake. It was located after a two hour search by Otter GCV and 20998, a USAF C-124
Globemaster. The Otter then flew in fuel for the Canso. In November '56, GCV returned to DHC at
Downsview for overhaul and repaint. It was painted 'stearman vermillion red' overall with white
cheatline and black trim.
In the early part of 1957, GCV was extremely busy with a Department of Defence contract resupplying
the Hopedale and Cartwright radar stations in Labrador. On 14th March '57 en route from
Hopedale to Site 206 (Lakehead), the tail ski broke off on landing, causing some damage to the rear
fuselage, which was repaired on site. During the summer of 1957, the Otter was again based at
Knob Lake for POL and construction support of the Mid Canada Line. By the end of the summer the
construction phase was complete and the Otter went back down to Newfoundland. On 31st October
'57 it suffered some damage at Quidi Vidi Lake, St.John's and was repaired on site.
CF-GCV's next posting in spring 1958 was to Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island in the Northwest
Territories, where EPA had received a contract to supply and service a Pinetree Line radar site on
Resolution Island which lay off the southern tip of Baffin Island at the junction of the Hudson and
Davis Straits. Resolution Island, some 180 miles from Frobisher Bay, had a 1,500 foot gravel landing
strip, which made the Otter an ideal aircraft to rotate personnel to and from the radar station and fly
in supplies. On 14th October '58 GCV flew from Frobisher that morning on a supply flight to
Resolution Island and took off in the early afternoon for the return sector, carrying the pilot and four
passengers. It was to be a day of remarkable drama.
While in the cruise, the pilot noticed the oil pressure needle fluctuating and the oil pressure
dropped sharply. He instructed the passengers to put on their life jackets. The situation deteriorated,
with white smoke coming from the engine, which was running rough, vibrating and rapidly losing
power. At this stage the Otter was over Lower Savage Island and the pilot, knowing they were going
down, put out a mayday call and sought a place to land. As the sea ice was very rough, he selected
a small lake on Lower Savage Island and decided to land on the wheels, to maintain directional
control, and to try and put the Otter after landing on the beach. The Otter touched down on the
frozen small lake and rolled for some 300 feet. Unfortunately however the aircraft then broke through
the ice, requiring a very rapid evacuation by the pilot and his four passengers, who reached the
shore with some difficulty. The cockpit was soon completely submerged and then the fuselage filled
with water and sank, leaving only the tail protruding above the ice.
As luck would have it, a USAF KC-97 Stratocruiser callsign “RONSON 29” rapidly came to the aid
of the downed Otter. As major Robert C.Schmidt of Strategic Air Command's 40th Air Refuelling
Squadron/40th Bombardment Wing later wrote of that “remarkable day”: “We had departed Goose
Air Base on the morning of the 14th headed for Thule, Greenland. We were cruising at 15,000 feet
and had just passed 90 miles east of Lower Savage Island when we heard the mayday call and
headed for the island, having received ATC clearance to conduct a search. We made several passes
over the island at two thousand feet and noticed an object sticking out of an ice-covered lake. We
spotted the red tail of the Otter and men waving their arms frantically from a rock adjacent to the
lake. We dropped survival kits and notified Frobisher Bay of the exact position.” Major Schmidt
commended the Otter pilot (“one heck of a fine fellow and an outstanding pilot”) for putting his aircraft
down on the only available landing area in the vicinity.
The historical report of the USAF's 920th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron, callsign
“Footloose”, based at the radar station on Resolution Island, also tells what happened, all times
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quoted being Zulu/Greenwich time, the local time being four hours earlier: “At 1635Z Otter CF-GCV
departed Resolution Island for Frobisher Airport. At 1709Z RONSON 29 a KC-97 en route from
Goose to Thule called Footloose Control and stated that the following call had been received from
GCV at 1707Z on 121.5 “Mayday, on fire, landing at Lower Savage Island”. Efforts by Footloose to
contact GCV were unsuccessful. At 1711Z Footloose assumed control of RONSON 29 and first
vector for Savage Island was given. All agencies at Frobisher and Goose were alerted while
RONSON 29 was en route. The KC-97 arrived over Lr.Savage Island group at 1740Z and five
minutes later reported sighting GCV. At 1756Z RONSON 29 sighted five survivors and reported that
GCV was half submerged in the centre of a lake about three miles inland. Terrain was reported as
very rough and rescue by fixed wing aircraft impossible”.
“Footloose requested RONSON 29 to orbit the scene as long as possible and to drop as much
survival gear as they could. At 1800Z Frobisher notified Footloose that they were loading a C-54D
72617 of the 4087th Transport Squadron, SAC, with survival gear to drop at the scene and
estimated off in 30 minutes. At 1827Z RONSON 29 successfully dropped two E-1 kits and sighted
survivors opening them. At 1910Z RONSON 29 reported second successful drop of two E-1 kits
which included notes from Footloose advising survivors of rescue plans. At 1846Z C-54 72617 was
airborne from Frobisher and at 1927Z Footloose assumed control of Air Force 72617. At 1938Z the
C-54 had radio and visual contact with the KC-97 and had sighted survivors. By 1950Z the C-54 had
completed two successful drops. Survivors were now in possession of blankets, food gasoline,
sleeping bags, exposure suits and a radio. By 2009Z RONSON 29 and Air Force 72617 had
departed Lower Savage Island for Goose Air Base. At 2313Z Footloose requested Air Force 72488,
another C-54 of the 4087th Transport Squadron, which is based at Ernest Harmon AFB, Stephenville,
Newfoundland, to attempt to contact survivors when over Lower Savage Island. Air Force 72488
reported negative contact but sighted several flares. At
1247Z the next day (15th October '58) MATS C-118A 33242 arrived over Lower Savage Island after
being diverted from course by Footloose. The C-118 reported successful radio contact with survivors.
They reported everyone was OK but very cold and they had no way to build a fire”.
Rescue came later that day in the form of the US Navy supply ship “Greenville Victory”, a vessel
which already had quite a connection with Otter aircraft, having been part of the Naval task force
which had sailed to Antarctica in 1955 and subsequent years in support of the 'Deep Freeze'
operations. The vessel managed to come to within two miles of the island and then launched a motor
boat with a rescue party. The pilot of the Otter and one passenger were located on the beach and
brought back to the ship for hot soup and biscuits to revive them. The motor boat with the rescue
party then returned to the island, accompanied by the pilot, as they had to make their way inland to
the lake where the Otter was, and where the other three passengers had established a camp. This
was quite a difficult undertaking, as it was by then dark, freezing cold, and the terrain between the
beach and the lake was uneven and treacherous. The rescue party carried battle lanterns to light
the way and also rifles and side arms, as polar bear tracks in the snow were plentiful. On arrival at
the camp, they found the three passengers in high spirits, having made good use of the USAF
dropped survival gear. Before they set off to return to the motor boat, they shone their lanterns
across the lake, illuminating the tail of the Otter, which was all that remained of the aircraft above the
ice. It must have been an eerie scene in the stillness of this very remote spot.
Having trecked back to the motor boat, they sailed back to the “Greenville Victory”. At 0551Z on
16th October, Footloose was advised by Air Force 72674, another C-54D of the 4087th Transport
Squadron, that all survivors were aboard the ship in good condition and rescue operations were
completed. The “Greenville Victory” then resumed course for Thule, Greenland. At Thule the
survivors met up with the crew of the KC-97 which had first come to their help and could even view
movie footage of the incident taken by one of the Stratocruiser's crew. The pilot of the Otter and his
passengers were flown by the USAF from Thule to Torbay, Newfoundland, where they arrived on
22nd October, none the worse for their dramatic experience. The pilot of the Otter that day was Jim
Rowe, who would subsequently lose his life in the crash of EPA Otter CF-MEX (332) in Greenland in
August 1961.
That crash at Lower Savage Island marked the end of GCV's career with EPA, who regarded the
Otter as a total loss “due to submersion and the remote location of the accident”. EPA purchased
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another Otter, CF-LEA (286), to replace GCV, which was delivered on 6th November 1958, and in
the meantime they used Beaver CF-GQU on the contract to re-supply the Resolution Island radar
site from Frobisher Bay. The wreckage of GCV was turned over to the insurers, who sold it to Mr
Frank Ferrer, a US citizen from Miami, Florida but then living in Montreal, who was flying as a pilot
with one of the American carriers who were servicing the DEW Line sites at the time. Mr Ferrer
managed to retrieve the Otter from Lower Savage Island and transport it by ship to Frobisher Bay,
where it was restored to flying condition. On 30th June 1959 a ferry permit was issued for a flight
from Frobisher Bay to St.Jovite, Quebec base of Wheeler Airlines Ltd, to whom Mr Ferrer had leased
the Otter. CF-GCV was registered to Wheeler Airlines Ltd and entered their service.
In July 1959, Wheeler Airlines secured the contract to re-supply the eastern sector of the DEWLine
radar sites, taking over from EPA, and already had a number of Otters working on the contract,
in conjunction with the company's larger aircraft. Its DC-4s flew regular flights from Montreal north to
Frobisher Bay, and the Otters then flew out of Frobisher to the radar station on Resolution Island and
other sites. Otter CF-GCV returned to Frobisher Bay and resumed where it had left off while with
Eastern Provincial, supplying the radar station on Resolution Island. In April 1960 Wheeler Airlines
underwent a major re-organisation. The heavy transport division of the company and all its larger
aircraft were sold to Nordair. The company was re-constituted as Wheeler Airlines (1960) Ltd and
continued with its bush operations. CF-GCV and the company's other Otters were registered to the
new operation, and GCV continued flying from Frobisher Bay.
On 29 June 1960 GCV was yet again en route from Frobisher to Resolution Island, where the
weather was clear except for a fog bank which covered part of the runway. The airstrip at Resolution
was a 1,500 foot gravel strip and was on much higher ground than the surrounding terrain. The flight
was uneventful until the Otter was on final approach from the west to the gravel strip. Severe
downdrafts were encountered at this point, which forced the aircraft below the level of the runway,
requiring the pilot to use take-off power to regain the height which had been lost. The use of this
extra power resulted in increased airspeed that was sustained after power had been reduced up to
the point of touchdown. The touchdown was within the first 200 feet of runway, and brakes were
applied before the tail made contact with the ground. The wheels sank into a soft spot on the runway
and the aircraft pitched forward, coming to a stop when the propeller blades touched the ground. At
this point the tail dropped heavily. The fuselage was broken about ten inches behind the rear door.
The prop blades were bent at the tips, the tail landing gear was torn away and the skin on both sides
of the rudder was bent and buckled. Temporary repairs were effected on site and a ferry permit
issued on 8th July 1960 for a flight from Resolution Island to Montreal, where permanent repairs
were carried out over the winter. That incident ended GCV's career with Wheeler Airlines and on 4th
April 1961 the aircraft was registered to Canavia Corporation of Montreal in connection with its sale
to Pacific Western Airlines, to whom it was registered on 1st December 1961.
Having served all its career up to this point on Canada's east coast, the Otter headed west and for
the next six years faithfully served Pacific Western Airlines, providing a full range of bush services. In
1966 it was based at Fort Nelson, BC on forest fire duties. The Otter was eventually sold by Pacific
Western to Thunderbird Airlines Ltd of Prince George, BC to whom it was registered on 29th January
1968. There was a change of name to Northern Thunderbird Air Ltd on 9th August 1974 but the Otter
continued flying out of its base at Prince George. On 15th October '74 the Otter suffered another
mishap, when it went through the ice of Ominica Bay in Williston Lake, to the north of Prince George.
GCV had taken off from McKenzie with twelve Native Indian school children on board, who were
going to Ingenika. In the area of Ominica Bay, visibility was about four miles, but suddenly light snow
conditions turned into a very heavy snow fall, with visibility reduced to one quarter mile. Rather than
taking a risk with his precious load, the pilot decided to set the Otter down on the ice covered lake
and wait for an improvement in the weather. All was well until near the end of the landing roll when
the ice gave way and the aircraft began to sink in the water, not for the first time in its career!
The pilot quickly removed the wet children from the machine as it sank, and took them to the
shore where a fire was started to warm and dry them. Then he guided them on a two mile hike
through the woods to a logging camp where the children were given a good meal and put to bed.
Thankfully a happy ending for the children, but the unfortunate GCV had almost completely sunk into
the lake and was locked into the ice, with only its tail visible, an eerie repeat of its earlier submersion
37
on Lower Savage Island.
The recovery of the Otter was undertaken by Denny McCartney and is fully described in his most
excellent book “Picking up the Pieces”. He describes how, the following January he proceeded to the
lake and with his helpers erected an “A” frame from sturdy logs, which was used with a pulley to
raise the sunken Otter, having first cut the ice from around it. Then the ice had to be cleared out from
inside the aircraft, and the whole aircraft and engine thoroughly checked and made airworthy. Then a
section of ice was carefully checked for security and an airstrip was marked out with small
evergreens as a guide for the pilot in his take off run to fly back to base at Prince George, a flight
made without incident. At the time of this incident, this hard-working Otter had accumulated 12,140
hours total airframe time.
That incident marked the end of its career with Northern Thunderbird Air. GCV was sold to Silver
Pine Air Services of Pine Falls, Manitoba, who sold it on to Walsten Air Services of Kenora, Ontario
in 1976. After six years on the ground and a lengthy rebuild by Northern Servicentre at Reddit,
Ontario C-FGCV flew again on 11th June 1980 and joined the fleet of Walsten Air Services, flying
from Kenora on charter work. It was normally active during the summer months only, flying tourists,
hunters, fishermen to remote parts of the province. During the winter months, it was stored at Reddit,
Ontario. GCV was equipped with Bristol 7850 floats, a type normally used on Beech 18s, one of
which was also in the Walsten fleet. On the Otter, the ventral fin was replaced with two vertical fins
on the horizontal stabilizer, to provide increased stability with the larger floats.
GCV continued to serve Walsten Air Services for many years, and on 19th June 1994 was
involved in a minor incident. The Otter was landing at a lodge at Forest Lake, north of Vermillion Bay,
Ontario when during the approach it struck and severed an un-marked low-level power line which
served the fishing lodge. It landed without further incident. GCV's fifteen years of yeoman service for
Walsten Air Services came to a tragic end on 20th September 1995. That morning the pilot took off
from Kenora and flew to Stewart Lake, some sixty miles west of Dryden, to pick up five passengers
and their equipment. The passengers were all anglers on a fishing trip, all being close personal
friends coming from Cross Plains, Wisconsin. The Otter flew the party to an outpost camp at
Salvesen Lake, Ontario about fifty miles north-west of Kenora. Tragically the Otter crashed during the
landing when it flipped over and became submerged, killing all six on board. The remains of the Otter
were taken to Walsten Air's facility in Kenora.
you have to be watch full when looking for birds in the SWAMP as this hungry Gator was eyeing me. Other photographers warned me to watch out for the Gators. i'll try to lay off of posting for a while but get excited and want to share some of my shots. Also met some great fellow Cajun photographers!
I am sharing this not for the photo itself, which has some obvious limitations, but for what it represents. It is the first railway-related photo I took in the UK after returning to the railway hobby following a lay-off of over twenty years, although at this stage I may not even have realised that I had actually returned.
Class 158 dmu No. 158778 speeds past Hewish crossing in North Somerset on Wednesday 22nd August 2007, most likely bound for either Weston-super-Mare or Taunton. The "158" is still in the livery of TransPennine Express, presumably having only recently been transferred west from that TOC. I was doing an afternoon hike from Congresbury to Clevedon. The railway here was just one of several obstacles I had to negotiate, the other main ones being the River Yeo and the M5 motorway. In the case of the latter, this was achieved by passing through a narrow tunnel built to allow a major rhyne to flow through, with a foot gangway squeezed alongside it.
In the intervening decade I have had lots of fun catching up with railway developments I had missed, travelling on new lines for the first time, discovering Flickr and its friendly community of like-minded enthusiasts, improving my railway photography (I hope!), dusting off the old photos from my youth and breathing a bit of new life into them, and much more besides. I hope it continues for a long time yet.
From Menace.. Because Menace would have just been like "Meh, whatever happens Happens"
And today Thank you so much everyone for the hugs and sweet words.. we just got word that the client that could have pretty much caused our business to have to lay off several people has in fact renewed their contract with us, I have not felt a sense of relief this big in years, I have had no sleep for 3 months worrying about the outcome of this event today...and finally Finally I can sleep.
Thank you Friends for listening <3 it means the whole world to me!
After going bankrupt in 2002 and closing more than 300 stores in the U.S., and laying off about 34,000, geniuses at KMart figured that messing around with their well-liked 40 year old logo would somehow bring them back from the brink. In a word... "Wrong". Kmart did five prototype stores with a new logo, layout, and lime green and gray color scheme. Here's the first of the bunch, in White Lake Township, Michigan.
The four others were all in central Illinois: Peoria, Pekin, Morton and Washington. The Washington store closed, but the others remain, a concept failure for all to see. I'll never understand why companies get into trouble, and the first thing they think will "save" them is to muck around with their logo/branding. Let it alone, guys. 99.9% of the time, your problems aren't in your logo!
Our Daily Challenge - Song Title
So lucky my new sneakers are blue suede
You can burn my house,
Steal my car,
Drink my liquor
From an old fruitjar.
Do anything that you want to do, but uh-uh,
Honey, lay off of my shoes
Don't you step on my blue suede shoes.
You can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes.
Well, it's one for the money,
Two for the show,
Three to get ready,
Now go, cat, go.
Killer Whales of the west coast of Whalsay, weather conditions were low cloud and mostly calm dry conditions. The Killer Whales (Orcas) were first spotted on the east side of the calf of Linga an Island which is situated of Symbister Harbour. The whales then proceeded into the north west traveling between islands Bruceholm and Hunderholm headed to a bight which lays off mainland Shetland called Bunnydale, here the whales frolicked around breaching and playing swimming upside down etc. Here as you will see in one of the photos the whale also grabbed a tystie for a snack. They then left this location and headed south again around the island of Hunderholm and carried on proceeding south towards nesting and Lerwick area. In the pod there were 2 large Killer Whales and three smaller cubs. The whales travelled at a speed around 6-7 knots into the south.
The Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area is situated south of Elphinstone Creek and to the west of School Street and Kerr Street, in the town of Ravenswood, about 85km south of Townsville and 65km east of Charters Towers. The Ravenswood goldfield was the fifth largest producer of gold in Queensland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its main mining periods, prior to modern open cut operations (1987 onwards), were: alluvial gold and shallow reef mining (1868 - 1872); attempts to extract gold from sulphide ores below the water table (1872 - 1898); the New Ravenswood Company era (1899 - 1917); and small scale mining and re-treatment of old mullock heaps and tailings dumps (1919 - 1960s). In 2016 the Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area contains surface structures from eight mines: the Grand Junction, Little Grand Junction, Sunset No. 1 and Sunset No. 2, Deep, General Grant, Duke of Edinburgh, and Grant and Sunset Extended mines, as well as the mill associated with the Deep mine, and the Mabel Mill tailings treatment plant (most structures dating from the New Ravenswood Company era). It also includes remnants of two treatment plants (Partridge and Ralston’s Mill, and Judge’s Mill) from the 1930s; and the Chinese settlement area (1870s to the early 20th century, covering the first three mining periods at Ravenswood).
The place contains important surviving evidence of: ore extraction (from underground shafts) and metallurgical extraction (separation of gold from the ore) conducted on and near the Ravenswood goldfield’s most productive reefs during the boom period of the town’s prosperity (1900 - 1908); later attempts to re-treat the mullock heaps and tailings dumps from these mines; and Ravenswood’s early Chinese community, which made an important contribution to the viability of the isolated settlement and was located along Deighton Street and Elphinstone Creek. The Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area also has the potential to reveal evidence of early alluvial and shallow reef mining, as well as domestic living arrangements on the Ravenswood goldfield. It is an evocative reminder of the precarious and short-lived nature of North Queensland’s mining booms, and has a special association with Archibald Lawrence Wilson, who established the New Ravenswood Company and improved both ore and metallurgical extraction processes on the goldfield.
Settlement and mining in North Queensland:
European settlement of the Kennedy Land District in North Queensland commenced with the founding of Bowen in 1861, and the spread of pastoralists through the hinterland. Pastoral stations were established up the valley of the Burdekin River, including ‘Ravenswood’ and ‘Merri Merriwa’. Townsville and Cardwell were both established north of Bowen in 1864.
However, mining, not pastoralism, proved to be the main catalyst for European settlement of North Queensland. In 1865 the founders of Townsville offered a reward for the discovery of a payable goldfield, and gold rushes occurred in the region from 1866. Mining employed 19.8% of the North Queensland population in 1868, and 50% by 1876, before dropping to 15% in 1911. Although gold mining attracted people to North Queensland, alluvial finds of gold usually led to temporary townships, whereas underground reef mining held the promise of more stable and permanent settlements.
Alluvial gold and shallow reef mining (1868 - 1872):
Alluvial gold was discovered south of the later site of Ravenswood, in tributaries of Connolly Creek on Merri Merriwa Station, north of the Burdekin River, in late 1868. Prospectors soon established ‘Middle Camp’ (later Donnybrook) on Tucker’s Creek, and ‘Lower Camp’ on Trieste Creek, with about 700 miners on the field by early 1869. Further north, in April 1869, the goldfield’s richest alluvial discoveries were made in three dry creek beds close to the site of Ravenswood: Nolan’s, Jessop’s, and Buchanan’s gullies. Despite these finds, many miners soon left for the rush to the Gilbert River (over 300km west of Townsville).
The parent reefs of the alluvial gold found in April were located about the same time as the exodus to the Gilbert – the General Grant being discovered first, followed by the Sunset. Both were visible above ground level, and both reefs would play an important part in the future prosperity of Ravenswood. In the next 40 years, nearly £3 million of gold would come from the reefs ‘in the little triangle between Buchanan’s Gully, just east of Macrossan Street, Jessop’s Gully, southwest of the town, and Elphinstone Creek’.
Other reefs were soon found north of Elphinstone Creek, and in Nolan’s Gully; and meanwhile, reefs had been discovered at Middle Camp. However, a lack of water meant that miners did not establish ‘Upper Camp’ (later Ravenswood) near the General Grant and Sunset reefs until October 1869, after a storm temporarily resolved the water issue. By this time, most miners had returned from the Gilbert. The three camps on the goldfield had a population of 600 by January 1870, most in Upper Camp. Work was slowed by a lack of water, until rains in February 1870 enabled panning and sluicing, the results of which confirmed that Ravenswood was the first significant reef mining goldfield in the northern half of Australia.
However, the miners needed to crush the quartz ore to extract gold. The first machinery for this purpose, WO Hodkinson’s five stamp crushing battery, the Lady Marion (or Lady Marian) Mill, was operational at Burnt Point (south of Upper Camp) from the 18th of April 1870. The first month’s crushing results caused ‘an even greater “rush” than that … caused by the discovery of the alluvial gold’. A second battery was operational in Upper Camp in August 1870, when the goldfield’s population was about 1200.
Official recognition of the goldfield and settlement soon followed. Government Geologist Richard Daintree visited Upper Camp in August 1870, and the Ravenswood goldfield (about 300 square miles) was proclaimed on the 3rd of November 1870. By this time, the goldfield had a population of about 2000, and Upper Camp had 10 ‘public houses’, with six public houses in Middle Camp.
The Government Surveyor, John von Stieglitz, arrived in November 1870, but was too late to impose a regular grid pattern on the settlement. Instead he formalised the existing plan, which was centred on the crossing of Elphinstone Creek by the main road (Macrossan Street), with tracks radiating out to the various diggings. Most commercial buildings were located along Macrossan Street. The resulting juxtaposition of mining, habitation and commerce gave the town its distinctive character.
The town was proclaimed on the 19th of May 1871, with an area of one square mile (259ha). This was later expanded to four square miles (1036ha) on the 13th of July 1883. Although gold had been discovered on Merri Merriwa Station, the name Ravenswood, after the run located further southeast, downstream on the Burdekin River, was preferred.
In 1871 the population of the goldfield was 900, with over half being in Upper Camp/Ravenswood, and by the end of 1871 there were five machines in Ravenswood. Hodgkinson’s mill had been moved into town, to a site just north of Elphinstone Creek, and was renamed the Mabel Mill. In 1871 the town had 30 licensed hotels, although these were referred to as ‘shanties’ and did not offer accommodation.
By this time Ravenswood also had a Chinese population, due to an influx of Chinese miners who had been forcefully evicted from the Western Creek diggings near Gilberton in mid-1871. At least three of the hotels of 1871 had Chinese licensees. The first Chinese had arrived in North Queensland in 1867, during the rush to the Cape River, and there were 200 Chinese looking for alluvial gold at Ravenswood in 1871. In January 1872 it was estimated that there were about 1500 Chinese present on the Ravenswood goldfield, and a matching number of Europeans. As the Chinese focussed on alluvial gold, and also provided other services, they were tolerated at Ravenswood, because the Europeans were now focusing on reef mining. The quartz reefs were originally worked at shallow depths by means of a windlass (hand-wound rope and bucket), or a horse-powered whip or whim (using poles, ropes and pulleys) raising the ore from shallow shafts.
Extracting gold from sulphide ores (1872 - 1898):
Despite its promising start, in 1872 the Ravenswood goldfield entered a ‘period of depression’, as its most important mines reached the water table at about 70ft (21m) deep – starting with the Sunset in 1871, followed by the General Grant, Black Jack, and Melaneur in 1872. Although the oxidised quartz (‘red stone’ or ‘brown stone’ quartz) close to the surface yielded its gold to traditional methods of mechanical crushing, below the water table the gold was in fine particles, which was not easily recovered by mechanical means. It was also mixed with sulphide ores; mainly iron sulphide (pyrite, or ‘mundic’ ore) but also sulphides containing lead, copper, zinc, arsenic, and antimony, which interfered with chemical treatments such as amalgamation (amalgamating the gold with mercury; then heating the resulting amalgam in a retort to vaporise the mercury) and chlorination (exposing roasted, concentrated ore to chlorine gas, and then precipitating gold out of the chloride solution). A process that worked on the ore from one reef might not work for an adjacent reef, due to a varying distribution of different types of sulphides. In addition, even if a process worked on a small scale, it could be uneconomical on a larger scale, given the price of transporting fuel to Ravenswood for smelting, or transporting concentrates for smelting elsewhere.
Once the mundic had been struck, ‘mining was "worse than dull" as the field grappled with the realisation that to break below the waterline, the days of the individual miner were over and the time of companies was looming’. The 1870s was a decade of major gold discoveries in Queensland, and miners keen on quick profits had plenty of new goldfields from which to choose. Many miners joined the rushes to Charters Towers (1872) and the Palmer River (1873). Charters Towers soon overtook Ravenswood as the most important inland town in north Queensland; and the Hodgkinson rush (southwest of Port Douglas) in 1876 also drew away miners.
However, Ravenswood grew during the 1870s and 1880s, despite the goldfield’s ‘refractory’ ores, and ‘mundic problem’. The goldfield had a population of 950 in 1877 (with 50 Chinese), rising to 1100 in 1880 (including 250 Chinese), and 2000 in 1883 (including 300 Chinese; with 190 working the alluvial, and 10 quartz miners).
The 1877 Pugh’s Almanac listed one Chinese hotelkeeper (out of seven hotelkeepers) in Ravenswood, and one Chinese storekeeper. The Chinese, as well as working alluvial claims and operating hotels and stores, were employed as wage labour in some mines; worked as roasters and chlorinators at the Mabel Mill; and operated 24 licensed gardens on the Ravenswood goldfield in 1883. Chinese gardens were vital in providing fresh vegetables to North Queensland’s goldfield populations.
For 19th Century diasporic Chinese communities such as Ravenswood’s, the establishment of specific cultural settlement areas, or ‘Chinatowns’, that ‘provided a range of sacred and secular services, including temples, stores, and accommodation’, was an important aspect of community building. Deighton Street, west of Macrossan Street, was the centre of Chinese life in Ravenswood. There were two eating houses close to Macrossan Street’s bridge across Elphinstone Creek, in the 1870s; and market gardens were located between Deighton Street and Elphinstone Creek, as well as north of Elphinstone Creek, interspersed amongst several crushing machine operations. There was also a temple south of Deighton Street. Temples were not just places of religious worship; rather, they were an integral part of a Chinese village. ‘They were places to meet, to check one's horoscope before embarking on a new venture and places where ancestors were venerated’. As well as being a place where the community could worship at any time, major gatherings were held at temples on festival days, with feasts and processions. The Ravenswood temple appears on an 1874 survey plan, making it the earliest known Chinese temple in Queensland. The nearby pig roasting oven is also a rare example of its type, and demonstrates the usual spatial arrangement of temple and oven, for community feasts.
Ravenswood continued to develop during the 1880s. By 1885, the Ravenswood goldfield had an estimated population of 2294 Europeans and 227 Chinese, with 1490 Europeans and 148 Chinese located in Ravenswood itself. Ravenswood at this time had four Chinese storekeepers, and two Chinese produce merchants, but all six hotel licensees were European. The Ravenswood National School, which began in late 1873, had an average attendance of 110 students in 1878, and reached its peak enrolment of 390 by 1889.
The 1880s were also a period of experimentation in metallurgical (gold extraction) technology. In 1883, the only method for dealing with sulphide ores was stamper mills and rotary buddles (which used water and gravity to separate and concentrate the crushed ores), but later Ravenswood ‘was the first place where the chlorination process and Wilfley tables, developed in 1896, to shake the ore and separate out different sized particles, and were used in Queensland, and probably the first place where the cyanide process (dissolving fine gold in a cyanide solution, and later precipitating the gold out of the solution) for extracting gold was used in Australia’. Other techniques attempted included fine grinding (using ball mills), roasting (burning off the sulphides), and smelting (prohibitively expensive, as it required high temperatures and thus a lot of fuel). By 1888 a new company at One Mile Creek, formed by Duncan and Peter Macintyre, had adapted an abandoned Cassell’s patent plant (a version of the chlorination process which was applied and failed in Ravenswood in 1886), to work on a ‘secret process’ (cyaniding).
Ravenswood mining continued to be viable, although only a (fluctuating) percentage of the gold was being recovered from the ore. In the mid-1880s there was even a temporary increase in the goldfield’s production, due to good returns from the Sandy Creek mines on the John Bull reef. For the next eight years, the principal producers of the district were the General Grant, Sunset, New England, Wild Irish Girl, Melaneur, and John Bull reefs, plus the silver lodes of the One Mile (at Totley).
Ravenswood’s economy survived the 1880s due to the development of silver mines at Totley, a township established about 2km north of Ravenswood. The silver mines opened circa 1879 - 1880, and Richard King floated the Ravenswood Silver Mining Company Ltd in 1882 – the year of Ravenswood’s lowest gold production between 1878 and 1898. Silver prices were high during the 1880s, and the Totley mines encouraged the Queensland Government to approve a branch railway line (off the Northern Railway between Townsville and Charters Towers) to Ravenswood in 1882, completed in 1884. The railway meant that some gold ores could be crushed, concentrated and sent for treatment at the Aldershot works just north of Maryborough or overseas to Swansea, in Wales. However, all silver mining had stopped by 1891, due to falling silver prices and over-expenditure on treatment plants.
Gold mining at Ravenswood continued during the 1880s and 1890s. Hugh Hawthorne Barton, who had operated Brothers Mill on Elphinstone Creek from the late 1870s, took over the General Grant, Sunset, and Black Jack mines, and the Mabel Mill (and later the Melaneur and Duke of Edinburgh mines), and floated the Ravenswood Gold Mining Company in 1887, with £100,000 in capital. From 1884 to 1896 Barton’s group was the largest and most successful operation in Ravenswood, its profitability assisted by the railway, economies of scale, and flexibility in ore-treatment methods. Barton utilised roasting, chlorination (by 1889), and smelting, and employed Chinese workers at the Mabel Mill. Along with their market gardens along Elphinstone Creek, Chinese employment at the Mabel Mill also influenced the location of the Chinese settlement area in Ravenswood. Meanwhile, the landscape was being altered by mining. The need for timber for boilers and for timbering-up mine shafts led to the loss of native trees in the locality, and goats also helped shape the landscape by eating regrowth.
By the mid-1890s, Barton was in debt to the Queensland National Bank, and his properties were seized in 1896, with the General Grant, Black Jack, and Mabel Mill being let on tribute (where a party of miners worked a mine, while giving the mine owner a percentage of any results) in 1897. The tributers refused to employ Barton’s experienced Chinese workers at the Mabel Mill, leading to disastrous attempts at chlorination. However, the goldfield’s production was boosted in the late 1890s when work resumed on the Donnybrook reefs for the first time in 20 years, and the Hillsborough (Eight Mile) reefs were taken up.
The New Ravenswood Company era (1899 - 1917):
Ravenswood’s boom period of gold production (1900 - 1908, with 1905 the year of highest production) is reflected in the town’s surviving mining infrastructure and commercial and public buildings. This boom occurred due to the efforts of Archibald Laurence Wilson (1852 - 1935). After gaining a diploma in mining engineering in Edinburgh, and working in New Zealand and on the Palmer River, Wilson arrived in Ravenswood in 1878. He was publican of the Silver King Hotel in Totley in the 1880s. As manager of the John Bull mine at Sandy Creek in the mid-1890s, he raised capital in London and installed a cyanide plant.
Wilson later travelled to London in 1898, where he floated both the Donnybrook Blocks Mining Syndicate and the New Ravenswood Company in 1899. Wilson was the General Manager of both companies, under their London directorates. Until 1917, the New Ravenswood Company was the largest mining operation on the Ravenswood goldfield. Registered with a capital of £50,000, the company purchased the General Grant, Sunset, Black Jack, Melaneur, and Shelmalier mines, and the Mabel Mill, from the Queensland National Bank (and later obtained the Saratoga, Duke of Edinburgh and London North mines), and initiated a new era in ore and metallurgical extraction. Using British capital, Wilson introduced modern machinery to work the mines, and effectively reshaped Ravenswood’s landscape. Wilson was known as ‘the uncrowned king of Ravenswood’. He was also Chairman of the Ravenswood Shire Council for some years, and was later on the Dalrymple Shire Council, until he resigned from poor health in 1934.
From 1900, both the Sunset and General Grant (also known as the Grant) mines were redeveloped by Wilson. These became the key earners for the New Ravenswood Company; by 1903 the two mines employed about 205 men, and were ‘the “backbone” of the town’.
The Sunset reef, which runs roughly northwest-southeast through the Ravenswood Mining Landscape, was the largest producer on the goldfield (almost a quarter of the total). It produced 14,722oz of gold from 1870 - 1894, and by 1900 it was worked from an underlie (an inclined shaft, following the dip of a reef) branching off from a vertical shaft 130ft (40m) deep. It was stated at this time that the reef had ‘much the same history as the General Grant, the two being generally worked together’. By 1903 the New Ravenswood Company had extended the underlie shaft right up to the surface, where a headframe was constructed to haul ore directly up the slope. The Sunset’s yield of ‘free gold’ (pure gold not combined with other minerals), which could be extracted at the Mabel Mill, peaked in 1904, then fell slowly. In 1905 an average of 170 men were employed at the mine. In 1908 the reef was being worked by the main underlie shaft, 900ft (274m) deep (Sunset No. 1); and a vertical shaft, 556ft (169m) deep (Sunset No. 2). As the Sunset reef was worked in conjunction with the General Grant and the Duke of Edinburgh reefs in the New Ravenswood Company era, its exact total production of gold is hard to calculate; but from 1876 to 1912 the reef probably produced about 177,000oz of gold; and probably most of the 22, 000oz that the company extracted from 1912 - 1917.
The General Grant, one of the most productive reefs on the goldfield, running roughly north-south just east of the Sunset reef, was worked almost continuously to the late 1880s, and periodically thereafter. By 1895 returns had diminished, due to the small size of the reef and its highly refractory ore. In 1900, the General Grant had a vertical shaft to 110ft (34m), and then an underlie of 610ft (186m), the bottom of the latter being 450ft (137m) below the level of the shaft mouth; but operations were ‘almost completely suspended’ as the New Ravenswood Company concentrated on the Sunset reef. To 1900 the General Grant had produced 23, 651oz of gold; and after crushing of ore from the mine resumed at the beginning of 1903, it was treated with ore from the Sunset. On average, 40 men were employed on the mine in 1905. In 1908 the powerhouse for both the Sunset and the General Grant mines was situated on the General Grant lease, with three Cornish boilers. By 1912 the General Grant had produced about 36,000oz of gold.
To the east of the General Grant was the Duke of Edinburgh reef, running roughly northwest-southeast. This was one of the early reefs discovered on the goldfield; and in 1872 it was identified by Warden TR Hackett as one of the 28 principal reefs. It was worked in several episodes prior to the 1890s, and was re-opened in 1891, producing 1286oz of gold during 1891 - 1895. In 1908 the mine was taken over by the New Ravenswood Company, and was reorganised as an underlie shaft with haulage machinery from the Golden Hill mine, being worked in conjunction with the General Grant until 1917.
Along with his modernisation of the goldfield’s best mines, Wilson also abandoned chlorination at the Mabel Mill, increased the mill’s crushing capacity to 30 stamps (by 1904), and introduced the first Wilfley tables to Queensland. Crushing resumed in January 1900. Wilson improved metallurgical extraction by ‘postponing amalgamation of the free gold till the great bulk of the sulphides had been removed by concentration’. The ore was crushed in stampers without using mercury. Then, using the Wilfley tables, the heavier Galena (lead sulphide ore) and free gold was separated from the lighter sulphides. The free gold and galena was then ground in Berdan pans with mercury, while the remaining sulphides (containing iron, zinc and copper) were dispatched to the Aldershot works (near Maryborough) for smelting. In 1902 - 1903, a raff wheel, 14.5m in diameter, was built at the Mabel Mill to lift tailings (post-treatment residue) up to a flume, which carried them over to the south side of Elphinstone Creek, where they could be treated with cyanide. The cyanide works (of which remnants still remain south of Elphinstone Creek) was erected circa 1904. A 21m long girder bridge was constructed across the creek to carry steam water pipes and electric cable from the Mabel Mill to the new works, which eventually comprised two Krupp ball mills and 12 Wilfley’s tables.
Due to the New Ravenswood Company’s efforts, the goldfield’s production increased between 1899 and 1905. Gold recovery increased from 18, 016oz in 1899 to 24, 832oz in 1900 and to 42, 465oz in 1905. The New Ravenswood Company paid impressive 50% dividends to its shareholders in 1901, 1902, and 1904; and 75% in 1903.
The productivity of Ravenswood’s mines during the New Ravenswood Company era was also reflected in the goldfield’s population, which rose from 3420 in 1901 to its peak of 4707 in 1903. The 1903 population included 215 Chinese, 89 of these being alluvial miners. In 1905 two Chinese were listed as ‘storekeepers and grocers’.
The population increase led to a building boom in the first decade of the 20th Century. Hundreds of new houses, the town’s first two brick hotels – the Imperial hotel (1901) and the Railway Hotel (1902) – as well as brick shops such as Thorp’s Building (1903), and the brick Ravenswood Ambulance Station (1904) were constructed in this period; the use of brick being spurred by the threat of fire. The New Ravenswood Company also rebuilt the mining landscape in and around the town, with expansion of the Mabel Mill, and new headframes and winders, magazines, boilers, and brick smokestacks erected beside all the principal shafts.
However, not all Wilson’s ventures in this period were successful. In 1902 he floated Deep Mines Ltd, with a capital of £100, 000, to sink a shaft east of the New Ravenswood Company’s leases. This mine (also within the Ravenswood Mining Landscape) was an ambitious attempt to reach a presumed intersection of the General Grant and Sunset reefs at depth. Using the capital raised, Wilson built a model mine and mill. The shaft was started in late 1902-early 1903, and construction work on the buildings and machinery was completed later in 1903. The mine reached 512m, the deepest on the goldfield, with extensive crosscutting and driving, but only about 240oz of gold was recovered. No ore was crushed at all in 1908. By 1910 a new shaft was being sunk ‘near the western boundary’; but the mine was abandoned in 1911, and never worked again. Wilson’s London investors lost at least £65,000.
The Deep’s mill, built nearby and operational by 1906, was a smaller version of the Mabel Mill, with gravity stamps, Wilfley tables, and a cyanide plant. Its site, adjacent to the mine, ran counter to the normal practice of siting mills near water courses. With the failure of the Deep mine, it milled ore from other mines until about 1917.
Another mine, the Grand Junction, was located north of the New Ravenswood Company’s most productive mines, in the Ravenswood Mining Landscape. The Grand Junction Consolidated Gold Mining Company was formed in 1900, and a shaft was sunk in 1901 (probably the No. 1 shaft on the Grand Junction Lease No. 520). In 1902 another exploration ‘deep shaft’ (No. 2) was sunk at the southwest boundary of the Grand Junction Lease No.503. The Grand Junction mine was another failed attempt to locate a presumed junction of the General Grant and Sunset reefs at depth; by 1908 it was owned by the New Ravenswood Company. Total production was about 425oz of gold.
Slightly more successful was the Grant and Sunset Extended mine, at the southern end of the Ravenswood Mining landscape. This was a deep shaft sunk by the Grant and Sunset Extended Gold Mining Company, a Charters Towers-owned company with Wilson as its local director. During the 19th Century, small mines had been operated in the Rob Roy reef, to the southeast. The Grant and Sunset Extended was floated in 1902, the intent being to locate the General Grant and Sunset reefs south of Buck Reef. The plant and buildings of the Yellow Jack mine, southeast of Ravenswood, were re-erected on the site. The shaft was down 70ft (21m) in 1902 and 930ft (283m) by 1908, with 50 men employed at the mine by the later date. The mine closed by 1910, but was worked on tribute until 1917, with about 15,000oz of gold obtained over 1904 - 1918.
The boom period at Ravenswood did not last. As well as losing money on the Deep and Grand Junction mines, the New Ravenswood Company faced the closure of the Aldershot works in 1906, and declining yields from 1908 to 1912. Although Wilson experimented with flotation (agitating crushed ore in oil and water, and extracting fine gold particles on the surface of air bubbles) and cyanide processes at the Mabel Mill, it was too late to save his company. The Shelmalier had closed by 1904, the Black Jack in 1909, and the Melaneur in 1910. By that year, the General Grant, Sunset, Duke of Edinburgh, and London North (obtained 1910) were the New Ravenswood Company’s only producing mines.
Few new buildings were constructed in Ravenswood after 1905. The hospital closed in 1908. That year the goldfield’s population consisted of 4141 Europeans (including 2625 women and children) and 181 Chinese (including 94 alluvial miners). This dropped to 2581, including 92 Chinese, by 1914.
Increased costs and industrial disputes in the 1910s hastened the end of the New Ravenswood Company era. During a miner’s strike between December 1912 and July 1913, over lay-offs, the fresh vegetables and business loans provided by Ravenswood’s Chinese community helped keep the town going. Although the miners won, it was a hollow victory, as the company could only afford to re-employ a few of the men. World War I (1914 - 1918) then increased labour and material costs for the New Ravenswood Company. The London North mine closed in 1915, and on the 24th of March 1917 the New Ravenswood Company ceased operations; ending large-scale mining in Ravenswood for the next 70 years.
By 1917, the Ravenswood goldfield had produced over 850, 000oz of gold (nearly a quarter coming from the Sunset mine), and 1, 000, 000oz of silver; making it the fifth largest gold producer in Queensland, after Charters Towers, Mount Morgan, Gympie, and the Palmer Goldfield. Ravenswood was also the second largest producer of reef gold in north Queensland, after Charters Towers.
Small scale mining and re-treatment (1919 - 1960s):
After 1917 the Ravenswood goldfield entered a period of hibernation, with intermittent small-scale attempts at mining. In 1919, Ravenswood Gold Mines Ltd took over some of Wilson’s leases and renovated the Deep mine’s mill, but obtained poor returns. Ravenswood Gold Mines also worked the Duke of Edinburgh from 1919 to 1930, with good returns reported in 1924. The General Grant and Sunset were also worked on a small scale from 1919 - 1921, while the Mabel Mill continued to provide crushing services for the limited local mining.
Consequently, Ravenswood’s population declined and the town shrank physically. In 1921 the town’s population fell below 1000, and by 1923 there were 530 people left, including 8 Chinese. During the 1920s, prior to the closure of the railway branch line to Ravenswood in 1930, hundreds of the town’s timber buildings were dismantled and railed away. By 1927, only the two brick hotels remained operating as hotels. The Ravenswood Shire was abolished in 1929, and by 1934 only 357 people remained in the town.
Despite this decline, some gold was still being extracted. There was a small increase in gold production between 1923 and 1927, and due to the gold price rise of the 1930s, some mines were re-worked and efforts were also made to treat the old mullock heaps (waste rock from mining) and tailings dumps with improved cyanide processes. Between 1931 and 1942, 12, 253oz of gold was obtained from the goldfield, the peak year being 1940.
A number of companies were active in Ravenswood in the 1930s-early 1940s. In 1933, the North Queensland Gold Mining Development Company took up leases along Buck Reef and reopened the Golden Hill mine, and the following year their operations were taken over by Gold Mines of Australia Ltd. The 1870s Eureka mine (near the Imperial Hotel) was revived by James Judge in 1934. In 1935 the Ravenswood Concentrates Syndicate began re-treating the Grant mullock heaps in the remaining stampers at the Mabel Mill, and dewatering the Sunset No. 2 shaft; while the Sunset Extended Gold Mining Company, with James Judge as manager, dewatered the Grant and Sunset Extended shafts (which connected to the Sunset, General Grant and Duke of Edinburgh shafts), and re-timbered the Grant and Sunset Extended, General Grant, and Sunset underlie (No. 1) shafts. The London North mine was reopened by R J Hedlefs in 1937, and Basque miners were working the Sunset No. 2 shaft at this time.
The Little Grand Junction mine, located at the intersection of Siggers Street and School Street, on the old Grand Junction Lease No. 520, was operated from 1937 - 1942 by local miners Henry John Bowrey and John Thomas Blackmore. Five men were employed at the mine in 1940. The shaft had apparently been sunk previously by the Grand Junction Consolidated Gold Mining Company; and Bowrey and Party reconditioned it and extended the existing workings.
In 1938, Archibald and Heuir set up a mill on the bank of One Mile Creek to treat mullock dumps, and the Ravenswood Gold Mining Syndicate (formed 1937, with James Judge as manager) began treating the mullock dumps of the Sunset mine in late 1938. The same syndicate also dewatered and reopened part of the Grant and Sunset Extended; and the Grand Junction mine was reopened by Judge circa 1939 - 1942.
The Ravenswood Gold Mining Syndicate’s (Judge’s) mill initially consisted of 10 head of stamps obtained from the Mother Lode Mill at Mount Wright (northwest of Ravenswood), powered by a diesel engine. The ore was crushed by the stamper battery, concentrated with Wilfley tables, and then either treated with cyanide or sent to the Chillagoe smelters. Initial success with some rich ore led to enlargement of the mill to 30 stamps in 1939 - 40. A Stirling boiler and a 250hp engine were also obtained from the Burdekin meatworks (Sellheim), and a rock breaker, elevator, and conveyor were installed. However, the upgraded mill proved to be overpowered and required a lot of timber fuel; the brick foundations used for the machinery were not strong enough; and the best ore from the Sunset had already been treated, so the mill closed early in 1942 and the plant was moved to Cloncurry.
Also in 1938, Maxwell Partridge and William Ralston installed a new plant south of Elphinstone Creek, to the immediate west of the Mabel Mill’s old cyanide works, to re-treat the old tailings with cyanide. A ball mill, filter, and other plant were purchased from the Golden Mile, Cracow in 1939, while later that year a suction gas engine and flotation machine were also installed. This operation closed circa 1942, and the coloured sands on the site today are residues from the flotation process: the yellow sand is from the floatation of iron pyrites; the grey sands are copper tailings; and the black material is zinc tailings.
There was limited activity on the goldfield in the late 1940s to early 1960s. The Empire Gold Mining Syndicate treated mullock dumps from The Irish Girl, London, and Sunset mines from 1946 to 1949, as well as some of the dumps from the Grand Junction (1947). The Duke of Edinburgh mine was briefly reopened by Cuevas and Wilson in 1947, and the Cornish boilers on the site (one with the maker’s mark ‘John Danks & Son Pty Ltd makers Melbourne) may relate to this (unsuccessful) operation. Percy Kean reopened the Great Extended mine at Totley in 1947, and later purchased Partridge’s mill in 1951 to use it as a flotation plant to treat the silver-lead ore from Totley, adding a diesel engine, stonebreaker, Wilfley tables, and classifier. The Totley mines closed in 1954, although the Great Extended mine was briefly sub-leased by Silver Horizons No Liability, in 1964. Partridge’s mill was closed circa 1965.
Other attempts were made in the early 1950s to rework old sites. A Townsville syndicate led by Leslie Cook and George Blackmore reopened the Grand Junction mine in 1951, but it soon closed. James Judge also recommenced gold mining at Donnybrook, but closed in 1954; while 900 tons of tailings from the Deep mine’s mill site were taken for re-treatment at Heuir’s cyanide plant in the early 1950s.
A new industry:
In the 1960 and 1970s, Ravenswood’s population shrank to its nadir of about 70 people. At the same time, there was a growing nostalgic interest in old towns in Australia. In 1968 the landscape of Ravenswood was described in romantic terms: ‘Mute testimonials are the numerous mullock heaps which dot the countryside; the rusty remains of steam engines; stampers which were used to crush stone; and collapsed cyanide vats… Derelict poppet-heads…stand above deep, abandoned shafts. Colossal columns of chimney stacks rise majestically from the entanglement of rubber vines and Chinese apple trees.’ Some locals realised that preserving the town’s surviving historic buildings and structures was necessary to attract tourists and create a new local industry.
From this time onwards the town’s mining heritage was seen as an asset. The National Trust of Queensland met with locals in 1974, and a conservation plan for the town was published in 1975. Later, the town sites of Totley and Ravenswood were both entered into the National Trust of Queensland Register. Comments from an International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) trip to northern Australia in 1978 included ‘Ravenswood…is one of the most evocative (gold towns of Australia) and this must be preserved. A policy of “all that is necessary but as little as possible” must be strongly pursued’. The increased population of North Queensland, longer paid holidays, improved roads, and the rise of car ownership after World War II, all increased visitation to Ravenswood, as did the completion of a road past Ravenswood to the Burdekin Dam, in the 1980s. As a result, the town and its mining landscape have been represented in brochures, art, and photography. In particular, the landmark qualities of the tall brick chimneys are a distinctive feature in representations of Ravenswood.
Modern operations:
However, gold mining recommenced at Ravenswood in the 1980s, due to a rise in the gold price and the efficiencies gained from open cut mining and modern cyanide metallurgical extraction processes. From 1983 - 1986 the Northern Queensland Gold Company Ltd conducted agglomeration heap-leaching (spraying a sodium cyanide solution on previously mined material heaped on a plastic membrane), in the process removing a landmark tailings dump at King’s mine in Totley, and mullock heaps from the Grant and Sunset mines. In 1987 Carpentaria Gold commenced open cut mining of the Buck reef (the Buck Reef West pit) near the old Grant and Sunset mines on the south side of the town. Later, pits were dug further east along the reef. Some underground mining was also undertaken from the Buck Reef West pit until 1993, which broke into the old workings of the General Grant, Sunset, and Duke of Edinburgh mines. The old headframe at the Grant and Sunset Extended was demolished in 1988, and replaced with a new steel headframe, which was used until 1993 and then removed. The Melaneur-Shelmalier-Black Jack-Overlander reef complex, on the north side of the town, was mined as an open cut 1990 - 1991, before being backfilled as a golf course. The Nolan’s Gully open cut commenced in 1993.
Although modern mining revived the economy of the town, it did not replicate the building boom of the early 20th century.
The heritage significance of Ravenswood’s surviving mining infrastructure was recognised in a 1996 Queensland Mining Heritage Places Study by Jane Lennon & Associates and Howard Pearce; and a 2000 Conservation Management Plan by Peter Bell. In 2006, the population of Ravenswood, the oldest surviving inland town in north Queensland, was 191.
By the mid-2010s the population of Ravenswood stood at 255 people.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register & Australian Bureau of Statistics.