South Dakota Saga (ca 1938)

la [Music] la [Music] A pathless wilderness wild rugged that was the Black Hills of South Dakota in the early 1870s a Hardy Frontier far from the paths of civilization where Fortune beckoned with a glittering smile and life hung on the quickness of a trigger finger there was gold in them th Hills Gold at Spring Creek gold at crook City gold at Central City gold on the mountains in the rivers and in the dark depths far below the surface of the Earth for centuries uncounted men have sought fought and died for gold as they did in the Black Hills when the West Was Young brave men came from the north the East the South the west by the tens The Hundreds the thousands they tunneled the mountain side they combed the gulches they strained the rivers creeks and streams in their wild quest for gold but the Romantic day of the pler miner was short lived no more could gold be washed from the coarse gravel of the creek beds the plers were worked out the be whiskered Pioneer with pick shovel and gold pan had served his day and that day he served well for he set the stage for a greater era and new industry destined to take its place with agriculture in South Dakota Among The Men Who sought for gold in those daring days was Moses Manuel he was interested in the scientific mining of hard rock formation getting gold out of quartz ore so hard it could not be chipped by a Miner's pick Manuel and his party prospected the winter of 1875 without success and then on April 9th 1876 they discovered a ledge an outcropping of ore that then was termed a lead they sank their Discovery shaft in the side of a draw and they called it homestake lead and the mining camp which leaped to life took the name of lead City the original site of the home stake mine has disappeared and in its place has risen a thriving industry geared to Modern progress today lead is still a mining camp but a mining camp with 20th century trimmings the homestake mine is still there for lead is home stake and hake is lead but mining in the Glamorous days of Y is a far cry from the complicated and scientific methods in use today it takes more than a pick and shovel to get gold ore out of the ground now and more than a gold pan to get the gold out of the ore would you like to mine for gold today gold mining means raw materials men and construction combined with the science of chemistry and the wonders of modern engineering all of which are necessary to make home stake or pay new construction which will take 2 years at a cost of about $3 million to complete this complex steel structure the head frame rises from a man-made Mountaintop Plateau to reach nearly 150 ft Skyward in this massive Building made with more than 800,000 bricks steel and concrete giant equipment will control the hoisting and lowering of cages which carry men and materials this model of the Yates shaft shows what has to be done the great construction work underground blasted out of solid rock but it isn't done from the top down the shafts are cut from the bottom up tunnels or drifts as the minor call them are blasted from the solid rock to connect old workings with the exact location of the new shaft then the latter moves upward in many separate segments or links which one by one are merged into a single vertical opening Precision Engineering makes sure the drifts meet the new shaft at the right places but it's not as easy as that opening up a level and placing it in proper condition for mining requires many months of work drilling blasting ditching hauling waste rock more than 3 and 1 12 million fet of Timber or enough to build more than 200 five room houses go into the shaft this drift leads to one of the ore Bodies 2 years to finish the job hundreds of Men at Work under the ground on the surface high in the air two years of work through the toughest kind of rock millions of feet of Timber hundreds of tons of concrete and steel thousands upon hundreds of thousands of dollars for equipment before one single ton of ore can be taken out that's what gold mining is today where is that old time pick and shovel now the new Yates plant when complete will look like this several million doll Ross Plant built in 1934 with a shaft where operations are now being conducted on many levels the levels are spaced 100 ft apart down to 1100 ft then 150 ft apart to the bottom of the mine now we're after gold down we go 81 81 that's the signal we heard a moment ago the marvels of shortwave radio used for safety in the mining of gold ore these Great and Powerful drums each holding more than a mile of stout steel hoisting Cable in one layer wind and unwind rapidly as the cages speed up and down the shaft carrying their car go to a safe haven vertical Transportation lowering human cargo over 4,000 F feet into the Earth four times as deep as the height of the Empire State Building flashes of light are levels an indicating arm is geared with micrometer finess and tells the operator exactly where the cage is at all times 3650 ft 38 00 ft 3950 ft 4,100 ft below the surface at a speed more than 3 times as fast as a modern elevator in perfect safety over 2,000 men work for home stake the miners work in two shifts which are rotated changes and hours for every man at home stake safety is a first consideration helmets of light material tough ER than steel work lamps with a battery to keep them lighted for 8 hours steel towed shoes with spiked soles for safety but above all it is the thorough understanding of their job and an unfailing observance of safety practices on the part of the men themselves that have brought the home stake record to its remarkably low accident rate prospecting shaft sinking drifting raising cross cutting diamond drilling all preliminary to actual mining of the ore here's the air driven Diamond Drill outlining the gold bearing rock gold ore is mined by two methods the shrinkage Stope method without Timber and a square set method with Timber these miners are climbing into a Stope from which The Ore is being removed by the shrinkage method shrinkage Stope mining consists of breaking ore away from Solid Rock as the roof of the opening or Stope becomes higher the miners use the broken ore as a platform on which to work loose Rock hanging overhead is pried off with long steel bars miners call this barring down pneumatic drills bite deep into the tough hard ore to make holes for blasting 10 ft into Solid Rock every day 3,000 steel drills go into the m every day 3,000 steel bits are taken out for sharpening prying down loose Rock drilling holes deep into the ore and loading the holes for blasting require an 8-hour working cycle 3 million sticks of dynamite every year 1 million blasting caps to set off a million blasts for nearly a million and A2 tons of ore mined annually in the home stake mine the blasting is done at the end of of the day outgo the tools and outgo the men to a safe place far from the blast they light the fuses the smoke curls up it's all over until another shift repeats the cycle when the shrinkage Stope is mined up to a height of 125 ft the chamber is filled with broken ore which must be drawn through chots into one ton cars strong Timber planking and steel guards protect the loaders from flying ore one ton of ore to a car 20 cars to a train 20 tons of solid ore and not a flake of gold in sight locomotives powered by electricity locomotives powered by compressed air all run on tracks from All Points underground run regularly on a complete Railway system 80 miles of Steel track to carry equipment materials and gold ore ore mined by the square set method consists of timbering to take out the ore which was left in place to support the roof and sidewalls during shrinkage Stope mining these men are working under the pillar you saw in the picture a moment ago the process is the same here as in the shrinkage Stope method drill blast and remove the ore water runs through a rifled drilled hole in the center of the drill steel the water does three jobs cool cools lubricates and prevents dust down goes the ore to the Loading level below and what punishment that Timber takes it has to be strong to stand that pounding 1T Square tough Timber from the Black Hills this model shows you what the mine actually looks like a massive underground structure of sturdy Timber the higher up the miners drill and Blast away the farther down the ore Falls the miners go up and the ore comes down in this Subterranean Cavern our supplies ready for use timber for extending the square set structure tools drills and extra equipment standing by on the job for the time it is needed air for power and air for help every minute of every day 500,000 cubic feet of fresh air go into the mine and 500,000 cubic feet come out clean fresh air every minute of the day for every man underground these men are working in a heading a dead end away from the main drifts and cross cuts of the mine but they get plenty of clean air through canvas or galvanized iron ventilating pipes 4,000 ft underground but still there is air for the miners and air for power but why air for power to drive 5 100 air drills 38 air locomotives small ventilating fans and other equipment where does it all come from why it comes from here these great compressors running day and night furnish High Press air for many machines water for spraying to keep down the dust water from Sand used in filling worked out shrinkage stopes water from the earth water for the drills 600 Gall of water pumped from the the mine each minute or enough for a city of 20,000 people and it all has to go someplace but where's the gold let's look for it that's funny there's none to be seen it's there all right but in minute quantities 410 of an ounce to a ton of Rock The Ore is hoisted at night this skip is filled with 8 tons of four and there it goes 25,000 lb of ore and steel at 2500 ft per minute all of the new Timber used in the mine is lowered through shafts the old and broken Timber is hoisted to the surface more than a thousand miners are lowed and hoisted through the shafts every day this heated tunnel leads directly from the shaft to a modern change house the the miners pass from the shaft to this room without going outside here modern facilities guard against sudden changes in temperature safety precautions on the surface as well as underground here's the gold or again and what a beating is in store for that rock The Ore is on its way now to the gyratory crusher the first of a series of crushing machines no one machine can do the job so the Simon Crusher now breaks the Rocks down to about 2 in size like this it takes power and plenty of it 2-in Pebbles from chunks of solid rock but it's only the beginning from the crusher to the stamp Mill 180 stamps each with a falling weight of 1550 lb 300,000 tons of water are used every 24 hours in the proc process to reduce the ore to a finess sufficient for the removal of the gold the fall is from a height of 7 in to break the ore fine enough to pass through a screen with 3/4 in openings these machines are called Rod Mills revolving cylinders 12 ft long 6 ft in diameter round and round 10 of them breaking the ore to Pieces smaller than a grain of wheat here's what's going on inside 35,000 lb of steel rods hammering against 28,000 lb of Manganese steel plates whirling around 17 times a minute tough going for the ore and for the steel rods too this is what a 10t rod looks like after going through the mill in the rod Mill much of the ore is ground fine enough and requires no further grinding and this machine called a classifier floats the fine ore out and sends it on its way periodically a measured quantity of quicksilver is fed into the Mills this laboratory demonstration shows what takes place in the rod Mill quick silver and gold brought together form a gray putty-like mask called amalgam the heavy amalgam settles to the bottom of the pulp to be captured on a copper plate which also has been treated with Quicksilver yes sir there's the first sign of gold we've had but you'd never know what to look at the amalgam is softened by the addition of more quick silver and cleaned up in this hydraulic press all ready now for a last change of face into gold the crushed ore is now leaving the rod Mills on its way to the ball Mills where 2in balls pound and grind grind and Pound The Ore so fine that 2/3 will pass through a 200 mesh screen how fine is that a square inch with 40,000 openings through which the sand must pass the heavy material on the right is a sifting cloth used in flour Mills to sift flour fine enough for flour but it can't compare with the even finer mesh used in sifting the mill sand these classifiers separate the Sandy part of the ore from the overflowing slime the overflowing slime is piped to another plant for special treatment the sand is raked out of the classifiers to go on its way to the cyanide tanks lime is added to the sand pulp another step in the chemical control of this complicated process water water everywhere and not a drop to drink but what you see going into that tank is gold bearing sand the water just helps it along there are 28 of these Redwood tanks each holding 700 tons of sand 8 hours to fill a tank and 20 to drain the water from it then the top must be R why to prevent caking and then air is forced up through the sand to provide oxygen necessary in the cyanide treatment the incoming cyanide solution goes on dissolving the particles of gold left in the sand after amalgamation and liquefies it it's hard to imagine gold being dissolved in a liquid like sugar in your coffee but that is exactly what cyanide solution does it turns gold into liquid and there it is liquid gold gold in solution and the solution in that bottle is worth about 2 cents but what about the sand manmade erosion washing it away returning it to the mine for filling the stopes from when it came this tank holds 200 tons of gold bearing solution gold taken from finely ground ore by the action of chemicals remember the Slime that clay like substance floated away in the classifiers here the last minute particles of gold are taken from it in these great presses here is a department that is highly important the assay office from the time the ore is mined samples are taken crushed and analyzed for necessary control of operations every step of the way the ore is tested this is for control to make sure the right procedure followed all along the line there's the first piece of gold we've seen and it weighs but a tiny fraction of an ounce at last the gold is made that is if you can call the result of all the mining grinding and processing you have just seen making gold this is the end for the small briquettes of amalgam and the precipitate The Melting Pot with heat the Quicksilver is separated from the amalgam and the resulting crude bullion is taken out of the retorts in this furnace the gold precipitate is refined into crude bullion by melting the impurities are removed by the slag next the bullion is remelted and further purified ready to be cast into gold bars this is the final result of the vast operations above and below less than a week ago this gold was imprisoned in hard and tough Rock thousands of feet below the surface of the Earth What miracles of Science and Engineering it took to recover this gold from The Ore 4/10 of an ounce of bright yellow metal is what you see here and it comes from one ton of ore one ton of ore mined with modern equipment one ton of ore hauled and hoisted to the surface one ton of ore crushed and ground to a fine sand one ton of ore through through the rod Mill for amalgamation through the great tanks for cyanidation the coordinated effort of hundreds of men above and below the surface of the Earth complicated Machinery modern science all working together so that 410 of an ounce of gold may be rested from one ton of ore but there are other things important to gold mining necessary vast basic all blending to a common purpose sand filling for example here hundreds of tons of ore have been taken out something must be put back to fill the Open Spaces combating the great Rock pressures which otherwise cause surface caving and to protect nearby underground workings these openings must be tightly filled but with what with sand from the mill after all the ore has been drawn from the shrinkage stopes the stopes are filled with waste baren rock then sand is loosed into the broken rock for a tight fill the successful mining of marginal lowgrade ores depends upon holding cost to an absolute minimum since 1931 homestake taxes have increased at an alarming rate and with them costs consequently great blocks of ore are left in the mine lost forever because the cost of reopening the stopes in the future would be prohibitive the lighter area is marginal ore the black is ore increased costs cause shrinkage in the minable ore shorter life for home stake and inestimable loss to its employees and to the state of South Dakota another engineering department has a highly important function in the home stake mining operation mechanical engineering this department has to do with maintenance service and operation every year this department makes and sharpens over 1 and A4 million pieces of drill steel for use in the mine special steels for 101 other uses are kept on hand at all times many kinds of special shop Machinery are needed so that the mine and all other departments may receive prompt service and a supply of special Parts and Equipment over 4,000 ft of ventilating pipe are made annually to provide healthful ventilation at all depths The Foundry produces over 2 million pounds of iron castings every year repair works such as this for the maintenance and operation of hoists Crushers conveyors air compressors mine pumps and boilers is constantly going on work as delicate as adjusting and balancing a fine scale or the repair of massive equipment weighing several tons it's all in the day's work for these skilled and experienced home stake mechanics here at the home stake coal deposit the mining of coal goes on spring summer fall and winter coal for hake light power and heat hundreds of tons of dirt are removed daily to expose the age old bed of coal and then deep down into the bed of coal nearly 100 ft goes the charge of explosive there go thousands of tons of coal one of Nature's greatest servants harnessed for the use of man machinery for loading the coal onto endless conveyor belts for transporting it to the Tipple or sorting bin on the surface machinery for transforming it into Power every day 350 tons of coal roll out of the mine and into the choots call for light power and heat call for the Kirk power plant at homestake coal to turn the wheels of Industry everything completely automatic clean and efficient distilled water is used in the boilers to protect them against corrosion here it is made 20,000 electrical horsepower and distributed for heat power and light at home stake water trickling down from the Black Hills is piped over the mountains through miles of tunnels to The Surge tanks where imprisoned air is freed from it to drop nearly 700 ft below into one of hom stak's hydroelectric plants 59 million kilowatts each year from hydr plants and steam enough to light all of South Dakota cities all used in her great industry the mining of gold new construction and improvements at home stake require tens of thousands of sacks of cement all of which come from South Dakota's Rapid City cement plant crushed rock in great quantities to keep Pace with the company's needs this is all supplied by the lead city crush ing plant bricks hundreds of thousands of them for home Stak and for South Dakota are made by private Enterprise at nearby belfu South Dakota raw materials for new construction South Dakota raw materials for a great South Dakota Enterprise more raw material in the Towering forests these Giants of nature are the backbone of the mining industry Timber timber for the mines scientific methods are used in logging no halfhazard cutting nor waste in the great Pine forests inspection before cutting a weeding out process that gives the young trees A Place in the Sun when the trees are stripped of their branches they are loaded on trucks for transportation to the Sawmill no place for oxen or horses now big diesels do the work in good weather and bad this big fellow is going to the mines out of the ground from a tiny seedling to a mighty giant of nature back to the ground to hold it up as man's great AE in Industry timber for the mine and a lot of it what you see here is about onee supply all that Lumber goes into the home steak mine in a single year you might wonder where it all comes from it all comes from areas like this but through selective cutting and reforestation there is no denuding of the forests here is a typical reforested area yes there's plenty of Timber and plenty of Beauty in the Black Hills for the generations of today and the generations of Tomorrow homak logging meets high standards of conservation in cutting thinning reforestation and fire prevention trained men protect its own Holdings and cooperate in emergencies on the public domain industry means science raw materials men from the grizzled prospector of yester year to the great home stake organization of today a Pioneer in the mining of gold yes but a Pioneer in the development of a greater claim the loyalty and contentment of its employees home stake pushes on This Modern Hospital equipped with the finest of medical and surgical apparatus is not only for the homestake employee here his family as well receives advice counsel treatment and Care from an expert staff of Physicians and trained nurses at no expense a liberal pension system adopted by home stake in 1917 is an added Comfort to those nearing the sunset of life and for the employees training in safety first aid and mine Rescue an accident rate only one half of that for the American mining industry as a whole play too is stressed at home stake and there's plenty of it for the employees and for all the citizens of lead this $300,000 Recreation Center was erected by the company in 1914 and includes a library with the knowledge of the world compressed into 26 6,000 volumes and all this cost the community not 1 cent these men are veterans veterans of Industry Veterans of Home stake every one of them has been employed for 21 years or more right now there are more than 400 members of the homestake veterans association this venerable gentleman Mr William Lang has worked with home steak for more than 50 years just a temporary job if you're musically inclined there's the band and a good one too bass drum Big Horns Piccolo the whole works and it makes good music happiness abounds and why not they are happy happy in the service of a company of which they are a part most of the employees of Home stake are homeowners secure in the knowledge of constant stable employment employment which has maintained a steady level Through The Years regardless of the trials of the times that that is a basic home stake policy yes men are the most important thing at home stake men from the north the East the South the West men from the South Dakota prairies men from lands across the sea men seeking life liberty and the pursuit of happiness under our flag and Constitution these men know that they are a part of homestake a part of an institution that is as much self Dakota as the Black Hills country from which it has grown a part of the Great Industries in the state which contribute so many raw materials to the operation of this Enterprise these men know that their success the security of their families and the 25,000 people in the great state of South Dakota who are directly or indirectly affected by this industry depend on the success and continuation of this great Enterprise [Applause] [Music]