Stories from the Homestake Gold Mine

Description of the book

The Price of Gold: Stories from the Homestake Gold Mine is a coffee table book with film portraits of and short stories from those who once worked at the Homestake Gold Mine in Lead, South Dakota. The collection includes stunning portraits of former miners, electricians, hoist operators, receptionists and chemists alongside their stories of humorous pranks, harried rescue operations and the loss of loved ones to mining accidents. 

Created by South Dakota natives Erin Lorraine Woodward and Nick Hubbard, this collection offers “a rare window into an underground world” and tells of lives lived above and below the city of Lead. Both Woodward and Hubbard worked at the Sanford Underground Research Facility, a world-leading science facility now located in the former gold mine, where they met many of the individuals featured in this collection, inspiring them to share these compelling stories. 

Author bios 

Erin Lorraine Woodward is the author and creator of The Price of Gold: Stories from the Homestake Gold Mine. After graduating from Black Hills State University, she was a science writer at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF), where she wrote about advancements in science and engineering. Erin lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband David. They met underground at SURF, where David worked as a physicist with the LUX-ZEPLIN dark matter experiment. 

A photographer and videographer based in the Black Hills, Nick Hubbard captured the photos included in this collection. An alum of Black Hills State University, Nick worked at the Sanford Underground Research Facility before founding his own multimedia company, Frontier Creative. 
Nick lives in Rapid City, South Dakota, with his wife, Kaylee, and their children.