Leaving the Delaware’s superintendents house behind, we cut through the adjacent woods for a short spell before emerging on the edge of a large poor rock pile. The pile had been largely bulldozed flat, leaving a carpet of ragged red colored rock along the ground. The old rock pile sat at the crest of a hill, and provided some spectacular views out across the adjacent countryside. At first we were perplexed by this particular pile, considering its position to the east of the Delaware fissure. While this meant its identity could be that of the Stoughtenburgh, the red color of the rock meant that we were looking at a conglomerate vein and not a fissure. These rocks belonged to the Delaware’s successor – the Conglomerate Mine.

When it comes to Copper Country exploring there’s a level of rarity to everything you find along the way. The most common site is the poor rock pile, every mine has at least one and you’ll never find a mine site without one. Next up would be the hoist foundation, a common “H” shaped behemoth whose own size and gait insured its survival past all other buildings at a mine site. This would be followed by the smokestack – the base of which you are sure to find at most mines – the compressor house, and rock house.

Then you get to the more “rare” finds, such as the ever reclusive boiler house. Then there’s those extremely rare finds that only happen once in a hundred explorations – things that are almost a miracle that you find at all. At the top of this list is any piece of steam equipment that was utilized by the mines in the pursuit of their copper riches. These iron contraptions were decimated by the scrapping drives that ascended down on the peninsula during the great wars. Any hoist, compressor, or boiler that had managed to survive their abandonment were cut up and sent out of the area. Because of this its a very rare find to uncover any piece of steam equipment still intact and even more rare to find it intact in its original habitat. That’s why today’s find blew my mind. It was a boiler!

Well another Friday and another look back at the last four years of CCE. This week we’re taking a look at year three, otherwise known as the year of the major redesign. I’m referring to a major redesign of the site itself, which took me over a month to finally finish. That new look is what you continue to see today on CCE, with some minor tweaks and changes. Gone was the black background and white lettering, replaced with a much higher contrast dark gray background with light grey lettering. The site also got its first splashes of color. More importantly I improved the navigation system, allowing readers to browse my archives by specific locations or types of ruins. Finally I added a gallery which highlights the illustrations, maps, and panoramics I’ve put together over the years.

Leaving the Delaware’s store house behind we found ourselves standing along one leg of an unique “Y” intersection, that connects Delaware Road with an unnamed road that connects up with the highway. For all intents and purposes this is Delaware’s industrial core, where the mine’s collection of support buildings were constructed. Along with the warehouse, powder house, and store house we’ve previously explored, this area surrounding this intersection is also home to the mine’s main office, superintendent’s house, and captains house. Down the street, closer to the highway, sat the mine’s machine, blacksmith, and carpenter shops. As we made our way through the Delaware’s abandoned industrial corridor our sites were set next on another foundation wall visible across the road and seen in the photo above. This would belong to what was once the Delaware’s mine office.

The area we had entered upon the discovery of the warehouse was rich in ruin. Scattered about within sight were the remains of about four separate structures, some more impressive then others. The most impressive (and intact) was the warehouse, while the remaining ruins were essentially only glorified foundations. But due to the fact that we were standing along a rather steel hillside, even those foundations could be impressive at points. It all depended on your perspective.

Leaving the old Delaware fissure behind we continued on down the road towards the Conglomerate Mine – known today for being home to the Delaware Mine tours. After only a short walk down said road we discovered a rather impressive rock wall standing tall alongside the road in a grove of trees. The wall was from the gable end of a rather large structure – most of which we couldn’t discern from the trees that surrounded it. It was only the sheer hight of the gabled wall itself that allowed it to stand apart from the adjacent landscape – and created a rather impressive monument in its own right. Of course we had to move in closer to investigate.

Its Friday once again and that means another look back at CCE’s last four years of existence – this time looking at the site’s sophomore year. By the time summer was winding down in 2007 the site had managed to find itself a small but dedicated group of followers who were contributing greatly to the site in terms of comments and discussion. During this time CCE produced its first DVD – a tour of the Champion No.4 shaft – which I was finally wrapping up production on. I had also managed to gain the attention of the local newspaper, who wanted to do a small story on the site and what I was doing. The small story turned into a feature, and was put into a yearly publication the paper puts out during tourism season. Things were looking up – but not quick enough for me.