National and State Register

Bachelor-Commodore Mine Complex

Mineral County

The Bachelor-Commodore Mine Complex is significant for its association with the mining industry that created enormous wealth for its investors, promoted the settlement of the town of Creede and Mineral County, contributed to the local growth of dependent industries, such as farming and ranching, and evolved to encompass changing processes and labor practices. The Bachelor and Commodore mines were two of the biggest producers of ore within the Creede Mining District, then later, when their workings and output were combined, they had the most productive years of all the Creede-area mines. The historic district also reflects the evolution of the mining industry’s maximization of new technologies for cost-effective extraction of ore, providing important examples of mining engineering and architecture that range from the 1890s to the 1950s. Such prominent examples include the ore sorting houses at all three surface plants, the remnants of the aerial tramways, compressor houses with their machinery left intact; and the large waste rock dumps with their cribbing retaining walls that convey the significant amounts of material processed here and the impact the mines had on the natural setting