Mary Murphy Mine

The Mary Murphy Mine operated continuously from 1870 to 1925, and produced 220 thousand ounces of gold, worth $4.4 million then (or about $256,683,000 in 2023), plus considerable silver, lead, and zinc.

[1] There were two aerial tramways connecting the mine to Romley, Colorado, and the Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad.

Drainage from the old mine into Chalk Creek, a tributary of the Upper Arkansas River, would sometimes cause fish kills at Chalk Cliffs Rearing Unit, the state-run fish hatchery downstream, such as the kill of 800,000 fingerling trout in 1986.

[3] The Colorado Division of Minerals and Geology consolidated all of the surface wastes and capped them in a “high-and-dry” spot on the mill site.

Since then, the site has been used as test-bed for new ways to treat harmful drainage from abandoned mines in the Colorado Rockies.

Tramhouse, Mary Murphy Mine, 1984
Lower terminal at Romley, old tram from the Alley Belle mine. Ore was loaded onto railcars here.