The Greenhorn
John's account of his first shift underground as a green flunky in the Creede mines: the fears an old hand could play on a newcomer, the fifty-pound box of dynamite that taught him more from one bad headache than any lecture could, and the geology that turned every day's hike to the working face into something closer to a classroom. He credits mine engineer Paul Davis for that education, then closes with the U.S. Geological Survey scientists — Tom Steven and Jim Ratte, later Phil Bethke and Paul Barton — whose work on the Creede district put the little mining town on the map.
I was afraid of everything my first shift underground as a flunky. I had heard the tales of Tommyknockers, cave-ins, glory holes, and deadly gas but, mainly, I was afraid of the old hands who loved to see a smartaleck kid make a damned fool of himself and they were experts at steering him along that path. My Dad had clued me in on the left-handed monkey wrench and bushel of hitches gags and I avoided them, but I couldn't avoid the foolish and costly mistakes a greenhorn fashions on his own in trying to win approval of the shifter. My saving grace was that I was strong, willing, and determined to be a rock hard, hard rock miner.
The first thing I learned was that I could slam the point of a pick against a rock face and have sparks shoot off the point and the pick bounce back in my face, whereas a fifty pound box of soft sticks of dynamite, one and one eighth inches in diameter by eight inches in length would blow a hole in that solid rock five feet in width by seven feet in height by five feet forward and produce sixteen tons of broken rock if the holes were drilled correctly. One powder headache was sufficient to teach me to drill the holes correctly and use dynamite sparingly, only enough to break the ground, nothing more.
Once the physical problems in mining are solved, it became fairly routine but never dull. Every day was exciting to me and none more so than when I was following a mineral-filled structure or "vein" as miners called it. I had studied geology under mine engineer Paul Davis and, coupled with mineralogic studies, the daily hike to the face was more like approaching a classroom than a dark hole where I earned a paycheck. The hydrothermal convection system that filled fault fissures with ores of gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc in the Creede Caldera also deposited beautiful quartz crystals of amethyst color and banded quartz veining with native silver that were nothing short of spectacular.
I was most fortunate to become acquainted with Tom Steven and Jim Ratte of the U. S. Geological Survey, when they first visited Creede and, later, with Phil Bethke and Paul Barton of the Reston, Virginia U. S. G. S. office who combined their talents to produce a very comprehensive report on the geology of the Creede district as well as producing a widely accepted model of the preparation to deposition to alteration of such a unique closed system. In short, their work put the little mining town of Creede on the map.