2007 03 Eastern Nevada

2007 03 13 Pioche

Today I was back to the Pioche Ely Valley Mill site across 93 from Pioche. The light was much better today. I was in here for almost 8 hours all together, and ran out of light at the end of the day. I heard several owls in the building but never saw them, and several times a pair of big ravens came in to yell at me and then leave. I spent quite a bit of time talking to the caretaker, who has lived his entire life in this area. He knows a lot of local history. He remembers seeing the old mill here burn when he was 5. The old mill burned in 1929, the new mill was built over the old mill foundation, only much larger. The original mill got ore from the Pioche #1 mine in the hill above town, about a mile (or more) away. Most of the tram still exists.

First here's a shot of the train station in Caliente NV. I didn't actually stay in Pioche since I didn't know the place well enough, but next time I probably will. Instead I stayed in Caliente, about 25 miles south. I think the only reason Caliente exists is that there was water here and the Union Pacific RR goes through a narrow valley here on the way from Utah to southern Nevada. It's a beautiful old train station and is still in use by UPRR. (It was quite dark when I took this - it's probably a 30 second exposure.)

Here are a few quick exterior shots of the Pioche Ely Valley Mill. They really don't convey the size of the place. I didn't have time to shoot much digital inside today. The last shot of these 4 is of the hoppers into which the ore tram was unloaded.

I shot a lot of film inside this structure. It's a big airy space filled with cool milling machinery and beautiful light.

A couple more exterior shots. The left is of the old ore tram that went all the way to the mines up the hill from Pioche. The distance is at least a mile. The second shot is the pipe that carried tailings out to the tailing pond to be dumped. Some sort of remediation is going on now.

There is a tremendous amount of "rusty junk" inside the older part of this mill, just piled all over. All of it is covered with a very fine dust. It makes for some nice semi-abstract images.