captain Jack
Sr. Member
Don't want to bore anyone but I think this warrants tha whole story.
During some research I found out that there was a 300 yr old mine right up the street from my house that I knew nothing about. After checking it out it turned out that the sites were scattered out along a joggers path and only one old shaft (see pic #1) was fenced in and posted with no trespassing signs. I am assuming that this was mainly for public safety. The structure is about 200 yrs old and could collapse at the touch of one ignorant kid with an M-80. The other parts of the mine are lying scattered throughout the woods without markers or even paths going to them. An old rail car (I think that's what they're called, the cars on tracks that carried the coal out of the mine.) sitting with the bottom rusted out next to a tree, many parts of the mine caved in, and other structures half covered in dirt that quite frankly I have no idea what they were.
The caving in of many sections of the mine makes for an extremely hilly terrain throughout the woods, you feel like you could fall through another part that is about to collapse at any moment. So I was treading carefully.
Most of the areas that caved in were basically just dirt pits. Some filled with water and some not. But some allowed you to glimpse at the wood and stone supports inside the mine. outside one of these there were 4 or 5 metal rods poking out of the ground, I believe to be from this time. They appear to be iron, but read on my BH as coin/AL/iron. I also dug two of them up at another spot. (see rods in pic #10)
I hit many signals, most iron and most turned out to just be random scraps of unidentifiable metal. I got discouraged both by the sheer number of signals and the difficulty in digging. In most areas there were stones ranging from the size of my hand to bigger than my head only a few inches under the soil. Moving large rocks to dig wore me out quickly over the course of 4 or 5 hours.
My questions come to this. first, does anyone know what any of these structures are? other than the first pic which was one of the mine shafts, and the rail car, I don't know what any of them are.
Second, does anyone know what those metal rods are? Worth digging up? Anything??
Third, in spite of the astronomical unlikelyness, does anyone recognize either of the items I brought home?
And finally, there was a LOT of rock in the area that resembled lava rock. This is not usually found in VA naturally, that I know of anyway. Any ideas on why there was so much of it? One thought I had was if the entrances to the mine (which seem to all have been covered with rocks and dirt by the county I am guessing) were blown shut with dynamite maybe melting rocks in the process. The rocks are very light and are a reddish gray color, and very pitted, just like lava rock. Some of these rocks were the size of my head...pretty big.
Interesting note, as the pic shows, for an abandoned mine, there is still a large amount of coal sitting right on the surface of the ground. Some pieces as big as my hand.
During some research I found out that there was a 300 yr old mine right up the street from my house that I knew nothing about. After checking it out it turned out that the sites were scattered out along a joggers path and only one old shaft (see pic #1) was fenced in and posted with no trespassing signs. I am assuming that this was mainly for public safety. The structure is about 200 yrs old and could collapse at the touch of one ignorant kid with an M-80. The other parts of the mine are lying scattered throughout the woods without markers or even paths going to them. An old rail car (I think that's what they're called, the cars on tracks that carried the coal out of the mine.) sitting with the bottom rusted out next to a tree, many parts of the mine caved in, and other structures half covered in dirt that quite frankly I have no idea what they were.
The caving in of many sections of the mine makes for an extremely hilly terrain throughout the woods, you feel like you could fall through another part that is about to collapse at any moment. So I was treading carefully.
Most of the areas that caved in were basically just dirt pits. Some filled with water and some not. But some allowed you to glimpse at the wood and stone supports inside the mine. outside one of these there were 4 or 5 metal rods poking out of the ground, I believe to be from this time. They appear to be iron, but read on my BH as coin/AL/iron. I also dug two of them up at another spot. (see rods in pic #10)
I hit many signals, most iron and most turned out to just be random scraps of unidentifiable metal. I got discouraged both by the sheer number of signals and the difficulty in digging. In most areas there were stones ranging from the size of my hand to bigger than my head only a few inches under the soil. Moving large rocks to dig wore me out quickly over the course of 4 or 5 hours.
My questions come to this. first, does anyone know what any of these structures are? other than the first pic which was one of the mine shafts, and the rail car, I don't know what any of them are.
Second, does anyone know what those metal rods are? Worth digging up? Anything??
Third, in spite of the astronomical unlikelyness, does anyone recognize either of the items I brought home?
And finally, there was a LOT of rock in the area that resembled lava rock. This is not usually found in VA naturally, that I know of anyway. Any ideas on why there was so much of it? One thought I had was if the entrances to the mine (which seem to all have been covered with rocks and dirt by the county I am guessing) were blown shut with dynamite maybe melting rocks in the process. The rocks are very light and are a reddish gray color, and very pitted, just like lava rock. Some of these rocks were the size of my head...pretty big.
Interesting note, as the pic shows, for an abandoned mine, there is still a large amount of coal sitting right on the surface of the ground. Some pieces as big as my hand.
