Lead

It is pronounced with a long e and is a reference for a gold seam that can be seen with the naked eye… an investigational lead… a lead to lots of money, perhaps!

Lead was established in the northern Black Hills in 1876 after the discovery of gold.  Lead has a population of about 3,000 people and is steeped in history.  Lead is the site of the Homestake Mine, the largest, deepest and most productive gold mine on the planet.  There is a huge hole in the ground and a huge array of shafts and tunnels going down over 8,000 feet!

It was Friday the 27^th of April.  It had been raining since the previous evening.

Our first stop was the Black Hills Mining Museum.

There were a lot of great pictures and a model of a gold mine shaft crane, stamper mill, steam engines and other accessories.  It looked to be a working model, there was a start switch but it didn't work.  I took lots of pictures and will use them when I start my model railroad... after I complete the house.

The locomotive shown below was used in the mine to move equipment around the mine and hauling ore to the shaft elevator.  When I first saw it I thought it was a steam engine but it didn't have a smoke stack or firebox... it took a few minutes to figure out it was powered by compressed air.

We also stopped by the Lead visitor center, it is where the below picture was taken.  Inside we watched a movie about Lead and the Homestake mine.

There were things to see outdoors but since it was raining we didn't dally outside except to run back and forth to the car.

We will have to come back later when it is not raining.  Some of the exhibits were closed until mid May.  There were a couple of tours that looked interesting.