In death, a member of Project Mayhem has a name.
This was an iconic white whale. You couldn't not see the smelter buildings and stack while driving down from the hills. They were on a huge, very active mining property. This particular smelter and power plant operated form 1914-1971. Its history can be traced back to the 1880's when the silver mine became a large producer of copper. A recent discovery further underground of one of the largest copper veins ever found, seems to have spurred a clean up of the historic buildings on the property. Sadly, I discovered them gone as I passed by this weekend.
This place was great for an explore but risky. The buildings inside the property were closed off from even the workers but patrols (when not at lunch) were every 20min.
I have only seen one photo of the outside of the building, taken by an explorer from the smokestack. I have also read an old story of another person who actually made it in. The story insists that while he was in the basement, a scrapper was trying to flush him out by making tons of loud noises. This actually happened to us too, but eventually we figured out because of the patrols, it had to be something else. Once unfreezing ourselves to go check, it was confirmed to be the echoey loose sheet metal pieces dancing with the wind.
Sanborn 1948
The buildings that were left until recently
1 The smokestack is 300' tall.
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6 The green, brown and missing windows created a dreamscape in the lower section. The color changes were incredible.
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22 It looks like they intend to keep the iconic smelter stack up.
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