Oldest living Granby miner turns 92

November 5, 2006
Todd G. Higdon

GRANBY - Robert Charlton, 92, sits in his easy chair thinking about the times that he had as a Granby miner.

“I started working as a miner when I was 21 years of age,” Charlton said. “My dad was a miner when I was growing up.”

Charlton started working the mines in Commerce, Okla., and Treece, Kan. He worked these mines two years before coming to the mines in Granby.

“I was a shoveler,” noted Charlton. “All in all, I worked eight years in the mines. I am considered the oldest living Granby miner today.”

Granby, which has the distinction of being “The Oldest Mining Town in the Southwest,” began its mining days of lead in the early 1850s.

As a shoveler, he filled large ?-pound” buckets with ore each day.

“Usually, I worked about 200 feet in the ground,” said Charlton. “And there were hazards in the mines.”

The first hazard that he encountered was in Commerce. While inside of a mine, Charlton was shoveling on a drift, with another miner working with him, when part of the shaft caved in. The two miners had to dig holes in the debris to escape from their confinement.

When he arrived in Granby, he started shoveling in the Davis Shaft on the prairie, which Hwy. B now runs through.

And there was another dangerous instance that sticks in his mind.

“I was in the ‘can,' which is what they lowered us down in, and it flipped over,” Charlton said. “I hung upside down by my knees until I was pulled back in by my fellow co-workers.”

But the top hazardous incident happened when Charlton worked at the mill on top of the tailings pile in icy weather.

“I lost my footing and tumbled more than 300 feet down,” recalled Charlton. “I hit a board about 150 feet down from the top.”

Charlton was knocked out, but continued to fall until he reached the bottom, narrowly missing a dump truck.

“I suffered a cracked collarbone and later experienced some back problems,” said Charlton. “I came home with my arm in a sling and a scraped nose.”

For his fall, he acquired the name “Superman.”

“I was lucky to be alive after that fall,” Charlton said.

When he was a miner, he made $6.80 a day.

“That was some good wages back then,” noted Charlton. “I purchased three to four patches of land while I worked in the mines.”

After the mines closed, he farmed, which he had been doing while mining until 1957.

“I quit farming and opened a gas station, on the corner of Highway 60 and B,” Charlton said. “I operated it for 20 years.”

After he retired from that, he worked in the Granby Manufacturing as a janitor for eight and a half years. At the age of 73, he left the factory.

“I miss the mine business,” said Charlton.

Today, he helps one of his children stack wood near the Missouri-Arkansas state line.

“I also smoke, about a pack a day,” said Charlton. “I have been smoking since I was 10 years old.”

A while back, he donated his mining helmet to the Granby Miner's Museum.

“Now people can see what we used,” said Charlton.
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