Buildings at the EVRAZ Pueblo steel mill are reflected in the window of a building near the former Colorado Fuel and Iron plant on the southern end of Pueblo. (Joe Mahoney, The iNews Network)
Re: “Colorado OKs incentive for film on Pueblo’s historic CF&I steel mill,” June 12 business news story.
The documentary film on Pueblo’s CF&I steel mill is an interesting and laudable project.
The nearly 100-year-old Climax molybdenum mine near Leadville has a similar and equally historic story to tell. The Climax mine was the largest underground mine in the world. Each of the three main levels were the size of a small town. Each level had a traffic control dispatcher directing the numerous ore trains and small service locomotives criss-crossing the underground tunnels. Like street traffic, motormen would occasionally run a red light and collide with another locomotive.
More than 40 tons of ore was removed from the bowels of the Earth each day to meet the world’s demand for molybdenum. Mining people, dignitaries and visitors from around the world came to see and learn about this giant and unique mining operation.
Today the mine is an open pit operation, a continued part of Colorado and world mining history and certainly worthy of a state-sponsored documentary to teach and preserve the story of an unparalleled mine.
Carl Miller, Leadville
This letter was published in the June 21 edition.
