Mining Turkey Fat and Rosin Jack

Mining Turkey Fat and Rosin Jack. Buffalo National River.

My daddy…was almost killed…in the mines. It caved in and they heard gravel and felt it hitting their hats. They started running, well it did kill one man. It caught him. He almost got out, but he didn't. But the rest of them got out. , Nadine Goodall, Rush resident

, About a tenth of a mile up the Rush Mountain Trail are the openings-now gated and locked- to the workings of the Morning Star Mine. During the early 1890s zinc mining was simple. Rich ore (smithsonite), containing up to 52 percent zinc, was easy to find. With pick and shovel, miners dug the lemon-yellow mineral they called turkey fat., By the late 1890s the richer ores became scarcer, and miners had to dig deeper into the hillside. There, miners found amber-colored rosin jack (sphalerite zinc mineral) in stratified beds, pockets, and fissures. By 1916 extracting the ore required more sophisticated tools and methods, like compressed-air drills and jackhammers, blasting with dynamite, and milling with state-of-the-art concentration tables. With the need to mine deeper came increased dangers for the miners, and some miners died digging the ore., [Sidebar:] , What's Here Now. Today the unstable mines are gated to keep people out and allow bats in. The old mines have become important nurseries and hibernating places for bats. Bats are very vulnerable to disturbance. Protect the bats and yourself by staying out of the mines., Indiana bats roost in the abandoned mines.