I stayed in New Mexico, continued on with my education, and had a decent enough career in economic research. Not many days go by that I don’t miss being underground though.
As eventually befalls most mining boomtowns, when the ore runs out or the demand for the end product disappears, Grants is a ghost of its former self, having been hard hit by the downturn in uranium prices in the early 1980s, due primarily to imported ore and the cessation of nuclear power plant construction.
Now, with the mines closed and the thousands of miners and their families gone, there are a few boarded up businesses and relatively few vehicles on the streets of Grants. Even so, every time I visit, what I envision driving down First Street or Santa Fe Avenue, is a vibrant community, bumper-to-bumper traffic, the long defunct Iron Blossom full of boisterous miners and a line of vehicles waiting to fill up at the now abandoned Kerr-McGee service station.
Although my former home nearby is long gone, San Rafael appears today as it did during the uranium boom; a beautiful green oasis.
A massive cleanup effort has helped to remediate some of the damage that was done as a result of the mining and milling process, and is ongoing. Most of the land has the look of stunning high desert country once again. It’s difficult to tell from afar there were ever any mines in the area at all.
On the long empty stretches of two lane blacktop, it is a leisurely, scenic drive out to Ambrosia Lake these days. Gone are the thousands of mine employees racing to and from work; the hundreds upon hundreds of vehicles having been replaced only by an occasional traveler now.
The former entranceway to Kermac’s Section 35, and the rutted road beyond remain, but the rusted gate is now closed.
Mining Terminology
Back—The ceiling or roof of an underground opening.
Backfill—Waste material used to fill the void created by mining an ore body.
Block caving—An inexpensive method of mining in which large blocks of ore are undercut, causing the ore to break or cave under its own weight.
Cage—The conveyance used to transport men and equipment between the surface and the mine levels.
Chute—An opening, usually constructed of timber and equipped with a gate, through which ore is drawn from a stope into mine cars.
Development—Underground work carried out for the purpose of opening up a mineral deposit. Includes shaft sinking, crosscutting, drifting, and raising.
Drift—A horizontal underground opening that follows along the length of a vein or rock formation, as opposed to a crosscut, which crosses the rock formation.
Dry—A building where an underground worker changes into working clothes.
Face—The end of a drift, crosscut, or stope in which work is taking place.
Grizzly (or mantle)—A grating, usually constructed of steel rails, placed over the top of a chute or ore pass for the purpose of stopping large pieces of rock or ore that might hang up in the pass.
Hoist—The machine used for raising and lowering the cage or other conveyance in a shaft.
Jackleg—A percussion drill used for drifting or stoping that is mounted on a telescopic leg, which has an extension of about 2.5 meters. The leg and machine are hinged so that the drill need not be in the same direction as the leg.
Lagging—Planks of unfinished lumber that have many uses in a mine.
Manway—An entry used exclusively for personnel to travel from the shaft bottom or drift mouth to the working section; it is always on the intake air side in gassy mines. Also, a small passage at one side or both sides of a breast. It is used as a traveling way for the miner and sometimes as an airway, or chute, or both.
Misfire—The complete or partial failure of a blasting charge to explode as planned.
Raise—Similar to a manway but used mostly for lifting material into a stope.
Rock bolting—The act of supporting openings in rock with steel bolts anchored in holes drilled especially for this purpose.
Skip—A self-dumping bucket used in a shaft for hoisting ore or rock.
Slag—The vitreous mass separated from the fused metals in the smelting process.
Slash—The process of blasting rock from the side of an underground opening to widen the opening.
Station—An enlargement of a shaft made for storing and handling equipment and for driving drifts at that elevation.
Stope—An excavation from which ore has been removed in a series of steps. Usually applied to highly inclined or vertical veins but frequently used as a synonym for room and pillar mining.
Tailings—Material rejected from a mill after most of the recoverable valuable minerals have been extracted.
Tailings pond—A low-lying depression used to confine tailings, the prime function of which is to allow enough time for heavy metals to settle out or for cyanide to be destroyed before water is discharged into the local watershed.
List of Names and Terms
Acoma Pueblo
Ambrosia Lake
Anaconda
back
ballroom
blasting board
Bloomington Country Club
Buchanan, Arnold
Bustos, Manuel
cage
call bell
Cargill, Calvin
Carter, Bob
chute
Clark, Bill
Coal Mine Campground
drift
dry
El Malpais
face
Fort Wingate
Friedt, Al
Garcia, Frankie
Gardner-Denver
Gonzalez, Al
Gonzalez, Anthony
Grants Clinic
Grants Mineral Belt
grants
grizzly
Gulick Hall
headframe
Higgins, Tom
hoist
hoist operator
Homestake Mining
Hornaday, Greg
Illinois State University
Illinois Wesleyan University
Ingersoll-Rand
Iron Blossom
jackleg
James, Tom
Kermac
Kerr-McGee
La Ventana
lagging
Laguna Pueblo
Magill Hall
manway
Martinez, Art
Milan
mining terminology
misfire
Mitchell, Gary
motor
motormen
Mount Taylor
mucker
Navajo Reservation
New Mexico Mining Museum
nitroglycerine
ore car
Ortiz, Daniel
Peters, Jim
Phillips Petroleum
pillar stope
powder
powder box
probes
raise
Ranchers Explorations
Randolph, Boots
rescue board
Riordan, Al
rock bolt
rock drill
roof Jack
San Rafael
Sanchez, Jerry
sand-fill
Schultz, Oscar
self-rescue unit
Shotgun
skip
slusher
slusher bucket
square-set