Homestake Gold Mine History – South Dakota Saga – 1940 – CharlieDeanArchives / Archival Footage
Homestake Gold Mine History – South Dakota Saga – 1940 – CharlieDeanArchives / Archival Footage
Gold mining and the life of gold miners in South Dakota, as seen by the Homestake Mining company. How ore is drilled and brought up to surface. The route of General George Custer in 1874 is shown. Mine shafts, logging, South Dakota gold mine machinery, draftsmen, lab technicians shown. .
CharlieDeanArchives – Archive footage from the 20th century making history come alive!
Interesting stuff. I cringed while watching the workers handling the mercury and cyanide solutions though. I can’t imagine the long term health effects of working in the mills there or elsewhere in the era.
My grandfather, a Norwegian immigrant, died in 1945 from illnesses that the contracted working in Homestake Gold Mine. He started around 191l and worked until the early 1920s. Went out to Detroit and worked in the automobile factories until he was laid off because of the Depression. Then in the early 1930s he returned to Lead to work for Homestake until he died in 1945. During World War II when the mining of ore stopped so the miners could go off and fight in the war, he being an old man stayed and worked to process the ore that had already been mined. As far as not polluting the environment, what a lie for I remember that creek of black cyanide that flowed from the mine through the center of Deadwood when I lived there as a kid. Because Hearst owned the press and the mine, Homestake never got any bad publicity. Now this way of life is that began in the early 1900s disappearing and only remembered by a few of us who had family that lived through it.
Homestake had there hand In a little of everything. I Wonder If Homestake Cared about their people with morals or was it the almighty dollar that they cared about. From this PR Video it was a beautiful thing for sure. I would hope it was a beautiful thing for the employees as well.
This guys voice gives me a headache.
Mining has come a long way…the level of social, environmental scrutiny miners get nowadays is unbelievable. How do the dakotans feel about mining these days?
"TVR Exploring" recently posted a video, exploring an old gold mine which was apparently abandoned during or shortly after the 1940s with a LOT of equipment left behind, rotting or rusting inside it for 70 or 80 years – While not on as large a scale as this mine, it’s interesting to learn more from this documentary about what he was looking at, and how it all may have once worked.
"TVR Exploring – Absolutely Loaded Abandoned Gold Mine"
https://youtu.be/HgLS1pPu9YA
My dad worked there in the early fifties as a contract miner. He didn’t make enough money to afford a house. He lived in a small trailer with my mom, and my 2 older brothers. Once he figured out he would never make a decent living he left.