Conner Bank: This ore bank, situated in LL 181 on the Iron Belt RR, was worked to a considerable extent in the 1800s.   It had already been long abandoned, with the cuts reported as "partially filled with water", when Samuel W. McCallie visited sometime prior to his 1900 publication of "A Preliminary Report on a Part of the Iron Ores of Georgia".

Railbed of the narrow gauge RR spur line

Remaining evidence of mine works

Water-filled mine cuts, now a pretty black-water pond

Reflections in the still black water

Mushroom-encrusted log

Another section of the narrow-gauge RR spur bed

NE of the Conner Bank, on LL's 214 & 215, was the Pauper Farm - Collins manganese deposit. Mining in open cuts (and later tunnels) started here in 1908, and continued through the 1940s.

Entrance to southern-most cut at Pauper Farm

Pauper Farm - southern cut

Pauper Farm - north end of southern cut

Southern cut

Probably one of these same open cuts at the Pauper Farm from Report on the Manganese Deposits of Georgia Geological Survey of Georgia, 1919

Looking down on entrance to Pauper Farm middle cut

Pipe sticking out of earth bank at Pauper Farm mine

Pauper Farm - wall of middle cut

Nearby was the Peachtree Mine. Iron ore was mined here to feed the Stamp Creek furnaces.

I never had the chance to explore this mine. Photo courtesy of Save Pine Log WMA FB group.

All Text & Images: Copyright 2015.