The Overlooked Coal Mining Heritage of Roslyn

One of the aspects of Roslyn which stood out when I began studying it on the internet--many months before I made by first visit in May of 2007--was an very significant coal-mining heritage. As you can see just from the pictures of the coal miners' memorial, there HAD to be a great mining past to this town. Here is one picture of at least nine underground coal mines operated by the Northern Pacific Railroad dba Northwestern Improvement Company: Mine No. 1 to the immediate east of Roslyn (click for a larger image):

I decided to find a way to integrate this unavoidable part of Roslyn history into my diorama even though the producers and writers of NX carefully excluded any reference or scenes of any kind of mining in their mythical town of Cicely.
Here you see a mine coming out of the side of a residential hill in the same manner that these structures appeared along the east hills of Roslyn, Washington: (click any image for a larger version)..

Here you see a closer view of the residential hill. Eventually I will place a model of my interpretation of Maurice's log mansion on this hill in place of the mansion you see there now.

The coal line tracks from the mine extend outside the building as you see here. These are the east-approach tracks leading into the Cicely town model.

In this scene is a line of Great Northern coal cars that I included as a reminder of the true nature of Roslyn-as-Cicely: