Today, Big Iron refers to big, powerful, and expensive computers. But over a hundred years ago, this was probably what they had in mind. Behold the state of the art in mining technology. And we don't mean data mining.
The behemoth you see before you is a Hendy "California" 5 stamp mill. A stamp mill is a gravity operated machine that crushes hard rock ore so that the mineral can be extracted. Rotating the pulley wheel raises the stamps. When they reach a pre-set height, they fall and crush the ore beneath it.
This mill was used to pulverize gold ore in Pine Grove, in the Sierra foothills. It was purchased by the Iron Man Museum (no, not Tony Stark), restored, and placed in Martin Murphy Jr. Historical Park.
There used to be a cache hidden on the stamp mill, but the cache was lost, the owner was not active, and the cache archived. Unlike the other cache, this one is not hidden on the mill, but somewhere more accessible. It is somewhat visible but hopefully blends in well enough. If it goes missing, I'll change the hide style. Bring your own writing instrument.
If you have not already done the multi-stage geocache Sunnyvale History - Iron Man, get the Stage 2 information here before you leave.
Congratulations to sweetpea1953 for being the FTF!
