A relic of the mining past of Drumheller, a lone sentinel of creosote and timber reaching high into the sky over Rosedale, reminding us of the past, stood again time. That was until a few of weeks ago when a few keen eyes saw that it had tumbled into a pile of wood.
There are relics of the mining past like those throughout the valley, often unrecognizable as to what they were. What we know is it is at the site of the Star Mine.
While many have identified it as a tipple, Rosedale native Rick Trembecky was able to help the Mail understand what the structure was.
The Mine was opened in 1913 by well-known mining pioneer John Murray, who then sold his interests a year later to Star Coal Mines Limited.
The original Star Mine Tipple was actually on the south side of the river according to The Valley of the Dinosaurs by Ernest Hlady, up until the late 1920’s the coal was hauled across the river by cables to the tipple, (hence the name of the community of Aerial).
In 1929, a spur line was completed by the CPR on the north side of the river. They moved the tipple closer to the seam, thus no longer needing the tramway. It was converted to the swinging bridge.
But what about the tower on the hill?
It was not a tipple, but rather, according to Trembecky, it supported a cable system for dumping slack, the term used for egg-sized coal usually too small for commercial use.
“Those held big pulley wheels, the pulleys were actually railroad car wheels,” he explains. "They had to build that up higher, so they ran a double cable all the way up from the tipple. In between those two hills there, that’s where they used to dump slack."
He said they would run a giant bucket up the cables towards the tower, and when the bucket hit a tripper on the cable it would dump the slack and return back to the tipple.
This would go on all day, as the mine was working, and he remembers this from his childhood.
In fact, there is one memory seared into his mind and was vivid as he recounted it.
He was just in Elementary School in Rosedale playing in the schoolyard near where Inland Plastics is now today.
He explained the cables and pulley would need maintenance and they would send a worker up the hill in the bucket to grease the tripper.
“I actually witnessed this, there were four or five of us kids at Rosedale school,” he said. “This guy gets a ride up there and the guy in the bottom at the tipple says you wave to me when you want me to bring the bucket down,” explains Trembecky.
He says the bucket could only go up or down, and it only changed direction when it hit a tripper on the cable.
He said the worker climbed out of the bucket to do his work about 40 feet over the slack pile to work on the tripper, and he noticed the bolt was loose on the tripper. He grabbed a wrench and began to tighten it.
“He gives it a really good crank with the wrench. So the guy in the tipple was figuring he was ready to come down. The bucket started going.”
The worker was left hanging from the wrench over the slack pile. Trembecky said the man hung on for as long as he could but eventually fell into the hot slack pile.
A search of The Drumheller Mail archives appears to corroborate the story. In the Wednesday, April 25, 1956 edition, it confirms Victor Dropko “was working in a rising rock hoist bucket when he dropped to a small hill and then rolled down the steep slope.”
The May 9 edition reported a verdict of accidental death was returned to Coronor Dr. G.H Whitmore by a coroner’s jury.
His death was also reported in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix.
