Mayflower Mill Tramway, Silverton, August 21, 2011.

This was the largest silver and gold processing mill in the Silverton area. It was still operating when my wife and I were in Silverton, Colorado, in the early 1960. Hollywood westerns were filmed for many years at various places along the D&RGW narrow gauge trackage between Durango and Silverton (45 miles distant from each other). One was a Jimmy Stewart/Audie Murphy film titled "Night Passage" (lots of ng RR scenes) in which the final shootout occurred that the mill-end terminal of an aerial tramway that transported ore from a high mountain down to this mill. This mill once processed gold ore from the infamous Gold King mine near Silverton which mine the EPA inadvertently opened up a couple of years ago and caused a major flow of acid polluted water to flow into the Animas River. I took most of these photos in 2011; the mill had become a tourist attraction, complete with guided tours, and has not processed any ore since the 1970s.