As I mentioned yesterday, we spent the good part of our morning in Houghton, MI waiting for our mine tour to start. There are probably dozens of places you can visit in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan to walk through an old copper mine, but we picked The Quincy Mine Hoist Association.
You also might recall from yesterday, that when it was almost time for our tour to start we crossed the bridge and found ourselves in Hancock, MI.
The roads in Houghton and Hancock are pretty special to put it mildly. Due to the fact that the cities are built on the sides of hills, there are some very steep roads. There were times I wasn't sure my truck was going to make it up and the active hill assist mode even came on a couple of times. Add to that the fact that these communities can get literally feet of snow in the Winter then you might be able to imagine how exciting driving can be.
I am actually glad we decided to do the Quincy Mine tour. It was rather expensive at $40 per person, but the company is a non profit and the fees they charge are one of the only ways they can keep the tours running. In addition to that, it gave us the chance to see the largest steam hoist ever built.
The tour was a two to three hour event, so we definitely got our money's worth. Plus we got to wear hard hats!
The tour started down at the Steam Hoist building which is where we took the opening picture at. Through the window in the background you can see the mine shaft that the hoist used to pull the copper ore out by the hundreds of tons.
Just another picture of the shaft house.
We got really luck and our tour guide was actually the director of operations for the Hoist Association or something like that. You could tell he was really proud of what they are trying to preserve here and not just a kid that had memorized a script.
He wasn't quite old enough to have been alive back when the mine was in operation (late 1800's early 1900's) but he talked about it like an older person does when they are remembering something from their past.
As I mentioned before, the hoist was powered by a steam engine and the drum you see in the pictures wound up a cable that was probably the diameter of my forearm. Check out this blurb from Wikipedia
When the mine ceased production in 1945, the Quincy Number 2 shaft was the world's longest mine shaft, at 9,260 feet (2.82 km or 1.75 miles) along the dip of the deposit on a 55 degree decline.[12][13] (measured vertically from the shaft collar, the depth is 6,200 feet.)[14] To raise and lower ore and workers into this shaft, the world's largest steam-driven mine hoist was built in 1918 and housed in the Quincy Number 2 Hoist House. The Nordberg Steam Hoist and its reinforced concrete building, built in the Georgian architectural style with brick veneer and Italian-tiled walls, cost over $370,000 in 1918 but was used for only eleven years until it ceased usage in 1929.[15] Weighing more than 880 tons, it lifted 10 tons of ore at 36.4 miles per hour, thus saving $16,080 in fuel bills in its first year of operation.[16] The hoist sat on the largest concrete slab ever poured, containing 3200 cu. yards of concrete and over 8 tons of reinforcement material.[17] The Number 2 Hoist House was built as a reinforced concrete structure on a scale rare for 1918, making it one of the first of its kind.[18] The very decorative Hoist House was used as a showpiece for visiting investors.
I can verify much of what is written above falls in line with what the tour guide tells us, so this is one of those cases where you can actually believe what you read on the Internet. The concrete building was massive and it is no surprise to me that it cost as much as it did to pour back then.
The tour guide said they spared no expense with the building even putting in special glass from overseas to refract the sunlight to keep the temperatures down in the building etc.
There was a single man who worked on the upper platform controlling the hoist. The other workers tasked with cleaning and oiling the steam engines were not allowed to talk to or disturb the hoist operator in any way.
With tons of copper and (probably less importantly back then) men's lives at stake, one distraction could mean total disaster. They used a series of bells to relay messages from down in the shaft to the hoist operator.
Eventually, it was upgraded to radio lines.
This post is getting long, so I am going to cut it short here. I will cover the rest of our Quincy Mine Hoist tour next week.
I do want to mention that the copper boom in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan brought people from all over the world back in the 1800's and 1900's. This can be evidenced by many of the similar town names that many of you may be familiar with in Europe.
Additionally, we can thank the Cornish miners (who were/are some of the best in the world the guide said) for the delectable item we call a Pasty. I will write more about that in a future post.
What started as wooden ladders down a hand dug shaft boomed into the marvel of engineering (for that time) that you have seen in the pictures above.
All pictures taken by @mrsbozz and I.
Other posts in this series
https://peakd.com/hive-114105/@bozz/bozzlife-the-beginning-of-a-grand-adventure
https://peakd.com/hive-114105/@bozz/bozzlife-traveling-the-up-part-1
https://peakd.com/hive-114105/@bozz/bozzlife-traveling-the-up-part-2
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
Thanks for the grand tour. Isn't the engineering just awesome?
So interesting to learn history in different regions, we took our sons down an old gold mine, ironically my one uncle had worked that mine for years.
When visiting Sweden went down a silver mine, that too was interesting.
Old engineering feats to extract metals from the earth, the stories told with pride, I hope places like this are kept as a memory and history tour for future generations.
!tip
This place should be good to go for a long time based on the number of visitors we saw come and go as well as the prices they were charging. It wasn't my first time at a place like this, but it was still a really cool experience.
Thanks for taking us along on the tour so interesting ;)
It was absolutely my pleasure! Retelling it reminds me how awesome it was.
that it was awesome for sure came across with your post
I'd be out of my mind. So much to look at and all of it just seriously cool. That cable spool is pretty intriguing to me and the size of the cable (and therefor the scale) just astounded me.
Really, really cool that you got a seriously engaged tour guide. That's half the battle it seems.
The hills in the two H towns were steep, but I had no trouble with them. Connie is a 140 HP motorcycle so if I'm close to the right gear she does fine. Coming down can be problematic if there are any slick spots on the road :)
Yeah, it was really impressive. He really knew what he was talking about with the hoist. I would have asked him a million questions if I had been able to think of them quick enough.
It's so cool that you guys took this side-trip. It looks very interesting! That old machinery is just so fascinating for some reason.
I definitely was. It reminds you of a time when the US was more of a leader in production and innovation. Sadly I think we have lost sight of some of those driving forces.
That's quite a machine. I don't think I'd want to work that far underground. Must have been a rough life. We went down a slate mine last year and that was bad enough. People spent their lives down their breathing in dust and in danger from cave-ins.
Yeah, it was pretty awesome. The tour guide talked about the lifestyle and the dangers. It was definitely some unforgiving work. My next post in this series will take us down into the mine.
That mashine is super cool 😉 it seems like a interesting but a little scary place to work at to.
I love this kind of history and your pictures are Great.
Thank you for sharing and I bet it was a Great experience? 😁
Have a wonderful week, cheers!
It was pretty awesome thanks! In the next post in this series we actually go down into the mine. Talk about scary. I actually have a funny story from that which I will share in that post. Thanks for stopping in!
Really? 😃 I look forward to read your next one and... Going in to the mine?
Kind of a fascinating scare 😬 lol
Take care 🌺 and I be back 😁
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