Roy Newman was blinded and nearly killed when a stick of dynamite misfired in his mine in 1929, but he recovered and returned to work it alone for another 45 years. Believing that rich lead, zinc, and silver ores lay deep in the mountain, he kept working and did encounter low-grade veins of ore. He drove 1,600 feet using only hand-held drills, a four-pound hammer, explosives, and his ingenuity. Though blind, he could faintly detect light in the corner of one eye and used this ability to keep the mine workings straight by setting a carbide lamp in the middle of the track several hundred feet from the working face, then standing a pick in the track a few feet from the face and moving his head back and forth until the pick handle blocked the light. Living alone in a cabin near the mine through pleasant summers and long, harsh winters, and helped by friends and family who supplied him with food and other basic needs, he maintained his optimism and persevered, saying, "I like the challenge that Mother Nature presents the miner who searches for her secrets."