Crystal Mine Exploration: Massive Fluorspar Mill from 1929!

Closed in 1972, the Crystal Mine was a truly massive operation for the district, comparable to the later Eagle-Babb mine. It utilized irregular room-and-pillar mining to recover fluorspar, lead, zinc, and silver. While we were unable to locate any of the adits for the mine- they may have been covered by present-day surface mining at the site- the mill is almost completely intact, and spectacularly so! I suspect that there may be open access to the underground workings via the open cuts at the currently-active Hastie limestone mine. However, access into these would be through highwalls in a mine with previously-documented weak rock, and would not necessarily be safe. An adit was located, about a quarter-mile northeast of the mill, but its size, construction, and access imply it to be far older than the modern trackless entries known to have existed at the Crystal Mine. Does this adit connect to the Crystal's main workings? We'll try to find out if we return to this site.