You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: Pickwick Mill Vignettes (Original Monochrome Photography)
That's a really cool project!! It's always fun to get see parts of history and how everything worked without the technology we have today. Like you said, these places would have been highly flamable with all the dust. I'm pretty sure a lumber mill in B-C had a devastating incident of that sort and most workers got trapped in a quick burst of flames and nobody could do anything about it. I went to see an old coal sorting mill in one of the last wooden tipples left in Canada a few years back, I really enjoyed it, your photos kind of reminded me of this trip. Thanks for posting!
Many grain mills met with unfortunate ends around here. One of the more explosive ones happened in the state capital of Minneapolis. Apparently, the fine wheat flour dust can actually explode. There's a great article about that disaster here, if you're curious.
There are some old iron mines in the northern part of the state that have tours. I'd love to see some of those. The coal mine sounds fascinating. I bet that was a dangerous place to work, too.
Surprisingly, Pickwick had a dust collecting room. I don't know how well it worked, but the people giving the tour said that, even when they have things up and running, they won't process grain because it's too dusty. Also, it takes a long time to clean everything up. It would make for amazing photos, though!
It was an unfortunate incident for sure. Certainly a lot of wild theories for the cause at the time, I guess people were still learning since it happened over a hundred years ago. The B-C explosion is the same concept but wood dust, it's much more recent events, you would think they would have known by now. Also dust collecting rooms are not that effective at collecting it all. I'm sure it catches lots but not the fine floaty stuff.
https://www.worksafebc.com/en/resources/health-safety/incident-investigation-report-summaries/explosion-and-fire-at-sawmill-in-burns-lake?lang=en
Iron mines would make for a cool visit too, all the history eventually disappears and forgotten as infrastructure becomes unsafe with aging or new regulations. Visit them while you still can! The coal mine was cool to visit but it was booming at a time where there wasn't much for safety or living standards, many died from illness related to both like typhoid fever and such. I made a post about it a few years back, see if I can dig it up...I had to look deep!! haha but found it.
https://steemit.com/travel/@ladybug146/a-haunting-history-last-wooden-tipple-in-canada
Ooh, that's a cool one. I love the wooden structures, especially. They look so rickety!
Yeah, you would think that after a few mine and mill explosions, that they would have found a viable way to filter dust from the air. Besides making it less likely to destroy your business and kill your workers, it would have made working inside a lot more comfortable. I imagine workers could barely speak after a day's work, breathing that in.
I would love to see the mines up north. Apparently, the tour includes taking the elevator down the shaft to see where miners would have pulled ore from the ground. I'd do it, for sure, but it might be hard to find someone unafraid of heights to go with.
Too bad I live in Canada!! I'm unafraid of heights and would totally go! Going in the mine is probably a neat experience and probably a bit rare because of cave ins and poor support from the times they were built, plus now regulations require abandoned mines to blow up all entry ways to prevent public access and that makes it a pain in the ass to excavate for tours later, well at least for Canada. You should go check it out while it's still there!
Funny that you called the structure rickety, that's the exact word I used when I first saw it too...lol...I still can't believe a actually went inside that rickety old thing!! Went in the shaft leading to the mine too, there is one long conveyor belt but it was too dark to take pics, we all had the old carbide headlamps they used at the time, they are pretty heavy. I don't regret it tho it was fun.
They don't learn anything unless industry standards forces them to. Caring about workers cost $$ out of shareholder's pockets. Should see the coal power plants I work at. Years of coal dust sitting on all the beams and structures just keeps piling on, was there when I started working over a decade ago! We use it a "juice" to go handrail gliding homer simpson style(the dust makes the gloves less sticky). Every time I walk around there, I'm just waiting for the same to happen there any day and hope I'm not on that shift! Sad state of affairs. Yet safety goes overboard on dumb things.