Search for the Elmwood Mine

By Chuck Neely

In April Evelyn and I visited our home state, Tennessee, and while there set out to locate the "Elmwood Mine." Neither of us had heard of the Elmwood Mine while growing up. We lived 60 miles or so from this area and were plenty occupied locally with scouting, collecting Civil War relics, crinoids, and arrowheads, and playing sports. Most of the mining in my area was strip mining for phosphate. 

Much later after Evelyn’s Dad bought some land in Smith County, we heard of the area’s zinc mines. At a rock show years later we discovered some of the by-product of the zinc mining to be some very fine Fluorites, Calcites,  Sphalerites and a few other gems. 

So after years of collecting specimens from rock shows we decided on this trip “home” we would find the Elmwood Mine. We had no clue of its exact location but found Elmwood on our map and headed that way. When we felt like we were getting close, we stopped at a store. A young man there claimed he knew where it was and I was told to go back to I-40 and East to the next exit. It would be marked Gordonsville. Go back under the interstate and the mine was just right there. 

Once at the Gordonsville exit we were surprised to find quiet a bit of commercial development but no mine or sign of one to be found. I took a road that led through an industrial-looking area and lucked out. It ended at Middle Tennessee Zinc, Gordonsville. 

This area was fenced and gated with enough signs and warnings that would compare it to a military missile site. No one was working the gate but it had a courtesy phone which I picked up, dialed 0, and got a voice mail.  

I could see there were a few vehicles at a building about a hundred feet further in, so I decided to take my chances and ride on in. Once inside I saw a man working in a brushy area bordering the property. I told him we were rockhounds and interested in looking around. He said I could leave my contact information and his boss would call me the next day. Since we were traveling to another part of Tennessee the next day I asked if we could just take a few pictures. "No, we do not allow any pictures inside the property. At least I cannot give you that permission." 

I asked if he worked in the mine, and he said that normally he did, but that day only a couple of guys were actually working the mine and they were only doing routine maintenance at the upper shaft.  

I inquired about Elmwood and he told me this mine is connected to Elmwood but that location was completely flooded for over 2 years. All of the mine required a high degree of pumping to make it accessible. When the mine was fully operational it has enough tunnel that, if you put it end to end it would reach to Chicago. I think he said the entrance shaft was about 1200 feet deep. 

I asked if the semi-precious materials I was interested in were collected from tailings, but they were not. The specimens have to be mined from pockets just like the zinc, from deep inside. 

I told him I had read that the mine was opened temporarily not long ago and a group of people were allowed to collect some specimens. He said the mine was pumped down for some repairs and possibly shown to a prospective buyer, and during that time a few people did go in. I asked where the Elmwood shaft was and he didn't know. He said he didn't think there was anything there anymore. It was abandoned and all flooded.  

We took a few pictures from the Gordonsville mine entrance and then set out to find Elmwood. We rode through Carthage to Hwy 70 West and did find Elmwood, TN, but there were no signs along the road pointing our way to a mine of any kind. We ended up in a town called Chestnut Mound and came upon another country store. I asked the lady at the store for a sandwich and while she was making it I asked her about the Elmwood Mine. She did not know where it was but soon a man pulled up outside to the gas pump and she told me this man would know. When he came in to pay for his gas I asked and he said, just to go back to Elmwood and take a left just before the Caney Fork River bridge.  

I collected my sandwich and a couple of cold drinks and headed back toward Elmwood. 

At the point where the bridge was in view there was an obvious left turn. We took it and proceeded along the river about a mile where on the left was a driveway and gate house with a sign saying Mid-Tennessee Zinc. It had some of the similar warnings as Gordonsville but instead of a phone it had a sign-in book. About 100 feet in was a small temporary construction-type office and in a moment a dump truck loaded with the whitest lime gravel I'd seen came from further inside the area and stopped at the office. A couple of minutes later he drove past us and on his way. A man inside the office came out and got in a pickup truck and drove back the other direction.  I noticed the public frontage road we came in on circled the area and went up a hill around the perimeter. We decided to go around that road for a look. On our left were huge piles of white gravel and on our right before we started going up the hill was the Caney Fork River and a small herd of cattle.  As we drove up the hill and could see over the mounds of limestone the view turned into an expanse of almost turquoise blue water bordered by white gravel roads that led to more large mounds of gravel on the uphill side. There was a front end loader there moving some gravel and this was probably the site where the dump truck had just been loaded. There were a few large metal buildings and one of them had all of the rigging that made up what had been the shaft entrance.     Up the hill we stopped at a clearing with a view of the entire mine area. It was sort of melancholy, breathtaking and maybe exciting just standing there in full view of the Elmwood Mine. There had obviously been no mining done here in quite some time, but I knew this was the source of many of my most treasured specimens in my collection.		Photo by Evelyn April ‘09
		Below is a Google satellite photo of the Elmwood Mine and the area surrounding it.  -- from http://maps.google.com/

We walked the perimeter road and took several pictures, of course, collected a rock or two from the roadside and decided not to try going inside. We were there and had seen enough. Life was good.