Batchit Arizona:The Rise and Fall
This post is about a western Grand Canyon guano mine, tramway, and mining camp.
This post is about a western Grand Canyon guano mine, tramway, and mining camp.
Photo courtesy Tom Martin
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Photo courtesy Tom Martin
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Photo courtesy Tom Martin
|
In January, 2025, I had a chance to look at two of the cables draping into the Colorado River at Mile 266.8 Left, on the boundary of Grand Canyon National Park and the Hualapai Tribe. These aerial tramway cables are from the 1957-1958 operations to sling bat guano out of the Bat Cave on river right up to the road head on the rim river left. At the time, bat guano was a prized fertilizer.
Roger Smith's book Batchit, Arizona: The Rise and Fall, by Batchit Books, is a good recounting of the mining endeavors. Smith covers the first attempt to install the main 9,850 foot-long stationary support cable. On the final tightening, a winch failed and the cable fell into the Canyon. This 1.5" diam cable was replaced by a successfully installed second cable and production began in July, 1957.
The moving haul cable was a roughly 20,200 foot-long loop. A splice in this cable began to fail in the fall of 1957. It was intentionally dropped into the canyon and replaced with a splice-less cable. In the fall of 1958, the miners discovered the nitrogen concentration in the guano buried at depth was too low to be used for fertilizer and the mine was idled.
A chance use of the tramway in a movie allowed the owners to discover the loop cable had failed. An investigation showed this cable was cut by a jet fighter in the fall of 1958. The fighter limped back to base while the haul cable fell into the Canyon. After a settlement with the Air Force, The main stationary support cable was released to fall into the Canyon.
The two cables in the photos are the main stationary support cables.
The book is available at the Mohave County Historical Society Route 66 Museum. Contact https://mohavemuseum.org/ for details.
There's a film on YouTube showing the tramway in operation here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtyKwpp4T_E
If you are building or have a library of rare and unusual Grand Canyon books, you should have this one in your library.
Roger Smith's book Batchit, Arizona: The Rise and Fall, by Batchit Books, is a good recounting of the mining endeavors. Smith covers the first attempt to install the main 9,850 foot-long stationary support cable. On the final tightening, a winch failed and the cable fell into the Canyon. This 1.5" diam cable was replaced by a successfully installed second cable and production began in July, 1957.
The moving haul cable was a roughly 20,200 foot-long loop. A splice in this cable began to fail in the fall of 1957. It was intentionally dropped into the canyon and replaced with a splice-less cable. In the fall of 1958, the miners discovered the nitrogen concentration in the guano buried at depth was too low to be used for fertilizer and the mine was idled.
A chance use of the tramway in a movie allowed the owners to discover the loop cable had failed. An investigation showed this cable was cut by a jet fighter in the fall of 1958. The fighter limped back to base while the haul cable fell into the Canyon. After a settlement with the Air Force, The main stationary support cable was released to fall into the Canyon.
The two cables in the photos are the main stationary support cables.
The book is available at the Mohave County Historical Society Route 66 Museum. Contact https://mohavemuseum.org/ for details.
There's a film on YouTube showing the tramway in operation here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtyKwpp4T_E
If you are building or have a library of rare and unusual Grand Canyon books, you should have this one in your library.