The horse-powered whim was the most complex and
powerful of the hoisting device prior to the steam engine. The Marshal Bonanza may
have gotten a steam engine later in 1880. Horse whims had the horse walk around
in a circle and wind the hoisting rope around a large barrel-type drum. The Spanish
name for the device was "malacate", but they were used throughout Europe. In New
Spain, malcates (horse whims) were used mainly to hoist
water out of the mines. Though called here a California Whim, it has the rope
winding drum above ground level like the Spanish malacate, rather than below
ground level like the majority of U.S. variations of the device. It could hoist
a full whisky barrel of ore (visible between posts of headframe) as opposed to
only a half-barrel by the hand powered windlass seen in the Our Georgie photos.
The Capitol Mine was on the west slopes of Santa Rosita Mountain, a half mile west
of the Marshal Bonanza Mine and was located by C. M. Purdin (namesake of Purdin's
Camp) and A. N. Wiser and was 120 feet deep in July 1880. Its great depth compared
to the other mines in 1880 was why it needed a horse whim.
Tetilla Peak is in the distance, and beyond it the gorge of the Rio Grande.
reverse) A Trip from Trinidad, Col., Through New Mexico... (for
text see The Turquoise Mountain)
(front) Photographed & Published at Santa Fe, N.M., by Henry Brown.
This website is maintained by the Cerrillos
Hills Park Coalition
and is dedicated to the creation, enhancement and stewardship
of an historical, recreational, and cultural open space in
the
Cerrillos Hills, Santa Fe County, New Mexico, USA
