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Mountain Mine, Man-engine House

The engine house was built in 1862 for a 36" cylinder beam engine driving a man-engine and a winding drum in the new Man Engine Shaft. Man engines combined reciprocating rods and fixed platforms in a shaft. As the rods moved up and down with the beam of the engine, the miner stepped from rod to platform and vice-versa, matching the strokes of the engine, so that he was carried up or down, typically in 10 or 12 foot stages. The winding drum was used for raising ore and waste to the main adit level. On the left is the roofless boilerhouse, on the right the bases for the man-engine gearing and the winding drum.