The famous Trail Creek Mining District near Idaho Springs in Colorado is home to Phoenix Gold Mine, owned by the Mosch family – the longest running mining family in the entire state. The current owner is Al Mosch, who opened the successful mine in 1980, exposing a very high grade vein visitors can see on the tour.
While there are many sights to see and stories to tell, one of the most interesting aspects of the gold mine tour is that Al Mosch acts as the tour guide. Hearing his first person account of life in the mines is a unique experience that many other mines in Colorado don't have. There's only one Al, and he's at the Phoenix Gold Mine.
The Buzz checked in with Al to chat about how he ended up working at the gold mines, his history in the army and even his motivational messages to classrooms that take a tour at his mine.
The Buzz: Your family has been mining in the area for over 60 years. How long have you owned this particular mine?
Al Mosch: “I bought this mine in 1972. Before I bought it, silver mine was usually at much higher altitude. 10,050 feet. This mine had extremely rich silver. I used the profit to buy more mines.”
The Buzz: It sounds like these mines are still active. How did you end up giving tours of the mine?
AM: “The tourist business wasn't intentional. The Veterans Administration put me into it.”
The Buzz: The Veterans Administration?
AM: “When I was a kid, I went to school up here because my dad and grandfather were miners up here. The teacher here just beat the heck out to my hand so bad I couldn't stand it. I told my mom I didn't like it at all. When we'd get close to school I'd split and go up on the mountain and play all day. I did that for two days. At the end of the school day I'd jump off the mountain and go home. I lost all interest in school. I just wanted to keep the teachers off my back.”
The Buzz: It just wasn't your thing.
AM: “I knew how to keep a passing grade. That's all I cared to do. At 17 years old, I could get out of school and join US Navy. I figured I'd never put up with school again. They were advertising adventure and travel. After completing boot camp, the Navy gave me a whole bunch of tests. I was dreaming of entering a foreign country, all the adventure. I had never done my best on a test, but I did then. But the results – they wanted to send me to more school anyway. They were advertising adventure, pretty girls...”
The Buzz: It sort of put your plan on hold.
AM: “Boys like me, who had an attitude, they showed a guy who didn't go to school – he did the miserable jobs. I figured, I'd better do my best on the test. So I did a year of electronics training to be a technician.”
The Buzz: How did you do?
AM: At 18, they made me the youngest petty officer in the US Navy. All because they had a different way of teaching. It fascinated me. I worked hard at it. Top of my class. Then they sent me to another school for communications. After completing that, they eventually flew me to Africa.”
The Buzz: Why did they send you to Africa?
AM: I was 19 and I had to take an oath that my commander could kill me if we were captured. This was about 1949. We had a secret air base in Africa. We didn't tell anybody we were doing this, but we took flights over the Soviet Union at night. All us boys were given syonide poison tablets to take if we were captured – we had to be dead so they couldn't interrogate us.”
The Buzz: Wow. That's intense, especially for someone so young.
AM: I survived all of that. Then I ended up mining with my dad. He'd been a miner all his life. Then the market crashed. They set me up with a tour business. And I'm still in it.”
The Buzz: So you grew up working on the mines?
AM: I grew up in it. We've done a lot of mining at this very mine that I take tourists in now. My grandfather started mining in 1800. At 16, he already spoke multiple languages in anticipation of military academy.”
The Buzz: How did he get into mining?
AM: His mother married some guy that brutal to him. So when he was 16, he ran away from home. He walked all the way from New York to Wisconsin, where he saw his uncle had been working on a big, successful resort. He then walked to Colorado and found a big lake. He felt it was the perfect spot to do what his uncle had been doing in Wisconsin. He was busy cutting down logs when he saw two tribes of Indians were killing each other, out on canoes out on the lake, having a bloody battle. He was hiding in the woods. He figured he picked the wrong place and left it. There's now a resort where he initially settled. Guess it was the right idea at the wrong time.”
The Buzz: And your dad ended up helping him with the mines?
AM: My grandfather learned about gold mining and got into the business. My father started working at the mines at 11. He was born in 1900. I helped him in the mines.”
The Buzz: What are your memories of the mine back when you were a child?
AM: I remember chopping ice off of the tracks for the mine cart to go in and out. Freezing my toes off if I didn't have enough on my toes and fingers.”
The Buzz: Wow, that sounds like tough work.
AM: My father, Hans, was a tough guy. I liked working with him. The town of Idaho Springs had 11 saloons when I was a kid - more than any town in state of Colorado. They were full of miners fighting and drinking and getting rich from their mine. As a little kid I got to hear a lot of that when I went with my dad. That's what got me thrilled about staying in mining I bet.”
The Buzz: So you stayed in mining all these years. And then got into the tours.
AM: I take a lot of schools through the mines. Even Berlin, Germany classes come here every year to see the mine. Fourth grade classes. I enjoy meeting all these little kids and showing them the mine and what they should know, the dangers... I want them to be careful.”
The Buzz: What do you tell them?
AM: A guy from Baltimore, Maryland – he used to visit me every year. Ray Anderson. He'd come every year on vacation. We became good friends. He didn't look like he was feeling good the last time I saw him. I told him he didn't look right. He said, 'If I don't quit this bad habit I'm going to die pretty soon.' He had a last request – to put remains put in my mine. He wanted to be in there because he knew I took a lot of little kids through the mine to teach them history. He wanted me to tell them what caused him to die – smoking cigarettes. He wanted to pass it on to little kids so they wouldn't get started. Thousands of kids have heard his story since then. Those are my principles – teaching kids to be healthy. More important than money.”
The Buzz: What are some of your recent memories of working on the mine?
AM: I've had a lot of close calls in my life since I've been mining. Some people have wanted to know how close I've come to mining, all my years of mining. The answer is 52 times I could have died. It took me two weeks to remember – you sort of forget. It's in the back of your mind.”
The Buzz: What is one instance where you were close to dying?
AM: The last time I was going out to the mine tunnel on side of mountain – 50 kids in there, two groups. I was standing about a foot and a half away from the entrance. There's a huge horizontal beam at the entrance, two feet in diameter... It sounded like a stick of dynamite went off right over my head. I looked up above me. The horizontal piece was busted like a 'V' because a rock came off the mountain, rolling down the steep mountain and point hit right above where my head was. It broke that floor and broke that big beam. I could see the point of that thing right over the point of my head. It wasn't dynamite.”
The Buzz: Pretty crazy that some of your most dangerous moments didn't even revolve around the actual act of mining.
AM: What saved my life was my son. He's a mining engineer. Years ago I had him put that heavy beam across the top of that part of the mine. He put steel rods vertically... At the time he thought he was wasting time, but he did it anyway. If he hadn't done that, would not have been talking to you now.”
The Buzz: How many tours do you do a week?
AM: I don't know. I never count them. In the summer, quite a bunch. I just love meeting people from all over the world.”
The Buzz: It's like what the army promised you all those years back: Adventure, seeing the world.
AM: It's like a vacation coming here. I just had a person from Spain, one from Czek Zavakia. It's just different than what most people are used to. People usually are sitting in an office. People want to see what this is all about. The beautiful mountains. Leaves and the mountain stream. They can come panning gold. We teach you how. You still see some rich gold ore still in place. People love it. I have a whole bunch of tame chipmunks out here. A couple just came this morning from Kansas with three year old girl. She begged her parents to bring her back so she can feed the chipmunks. Sunflower seeds and chipmunks crawling on her hands.