Thursday, September 3, 2009

Powderhouse Doorway

A wide angle shot of a brick  doorway in the middle of poor rock walls, all ruined.
The Central Mine's powderhouse still remains

Powderhouses were used by mines to store their explosives -- originally black powder, later dynamite and similar mixtures. To protect the people and buildings at the mines, powderhouses were built with very thick walls, far away from the mines. The powderhouse at Central is especially ornate, with a doorway lined with bricks -- a huge rarity for the time when it was built. Although the mine is long gone, much of the powderhouse still remains -- as it was designed to do.

Does anyone else think that the lines of this door are reminiscent of an explosion? Perhaps it's just the wide angle.

4 comments:

Laura Smyth, Publisher and Creative Director said...

Love the photo. We just demolished the old garage at our house and discovered that some of the interior walls were sided with old wooden dynamite boxes from the mines. Makes me want to go back to school for industrial archaeology.

DC said...

@Laura: cool stuff! That's a neat find for your house -- makes you wonder exactly how that came to be.

Unknown said...

Thank you a very informative post!

Summer said...

I think this photo has pushed it's way to the top of my favs list. I can imagine all sorts of fantastic and terrible worlds hiding behind the door:) I'd love to see some imaginative tinker with color... faded colors for the outside, shades of bright green and blue and an intense beam of sunlight peeking over the threshold...

But I'm just weird like that:-D