The last great American gold rush occurred in Death Valley in the early 20th Century. The Eureka Mine was built in 1909. Today, the tunnel into the mine is a place of broken tracks and ghostly dreams. The tunnel is not open to visitors. It was fenced off, requiring me to make this photograph through one of the openings of the chain link fence. This scene could not be seen with the eye – the entrance to the mine was too dark. Yet the sensor of a digital camera can show us things that the eye cannot. It took a one second exposure to get this much detail to appear. By pushing my lens shade up against the chain link fence, I was able to hold the camera steady enough to make this photo. The rock-strewn track enters the mine and then vanishes into blackness. The last things we see are the railroad ties, broken and skewed, just like the hopes of those who invested their money and dreams in the lonely place.