Adit, Gilligan Mine, Egan Canyon

On Egan Creek, near the townsite of Cherry Creek, Nevada, with a tributary stream flowing out of the adit. This was a silver producer starting in 1863(!), the first development in the Cherry Creek district. Later the mines around Cherry Creek proper became more productive. Production was from the silver-bearing "Gilligan Ledge" in the Prospect Mountain Quartzite. The mineralization is localized along a major fault.

The retrofitted masonry benches were really nice on a hot summer day. Alas, the whole set-up was clobbered in the big flood of 1997. I didn't have a camera to get a picture of the aftermath when I was there in summer 1998, but I got one this year. Alas, nobody has bothered to repair the site in the last 20 years!

With this kind of water flow, too, it would have been very difficult to keep this mine working. I'd say it might have been just a drainage adit, but there were ore-car tracks visible in it! So it must've been dry when actually operating.