At one time, the Homestake gold mine in Lead, South Dakota was the deepest and largest in the world. 40 million ounces of gold were extracted from the mine between its opening in 1877 and its closure in 2002. The mine had both open pit and deep shaft operations. It is now the home of the Sanford Underground Research Facility.
The film clip below shows construction of Homestake Mine's Yates headframe and its associated hoistroom. (A headframe is a structure erected above a mine shaft. A headframe's pulley wheels and other mechanisms, paired with a hoist and steel ropes or cables, move miners and equipment down and up a mine shaft.)
Another clip from the film shows miners at work more than 4000 feet below the surface. (The mine would eventually reach a dept of nearly 8000 feet.) Miners drilled, blasted, and moved both waste rock and ore. The film also shows some of the large machines required for delivery of air for breathing, compressed air for tools, and large amounts of water used for a variety of purposes in the mine.
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