As we take a walk behind the old hoist building and underneath the concrete trestle atop which the main line for the Copper Range Railroad once ran, we find ourselves in view of a large ruin just up the hill. It was a ruin that we had seen before, in fact very similar to a one ruin in particular – the hoist foundation at Gratiot Mine. It was all there, from the odd steel brackets on top to the scoops taken out of the mandibles for the drum cranks. There was now no mistaken it’s identity, this was the foundation to an engine house. But its use of steel brackets instead of metal rods and concrete instead of red brick would date it much younger then the hoist building that still stands. A confusing find until we discovered the history of the No. 4.

As I had mentioned in the previous post, the current hoist building that still stands is in fact the original hoist building. The one we were now looking at in ruin was the new hoist – built to replace the old one. In the end, however, this newer hoist’s much larger size and increased power demands would be its undoing. As the Champion became to lose money, this new hoist was just too expensive to run. It was probably costing more to hoist the copper coming up from the Champion in those later years then the copper was worth. The hoist was shut down and dismantled. The old hoist regained its title.

These brackets – one on each of the foundations “mandibles” – was a large clue to this structures purpose. Atop of these were most likely mounted the large piston casings for the hoist. Inside these casings the steam would act on a large piston, moving it back and forth.

That reciprocating action of the piston was transferred to a circular motion by means of a crank, connected to the piston with a long crankshaft. Here in the foundation you can see the “scoop” cut out of the concrete that allowed room for the crank to work. The crank would then turn the hoist drum, either directly or through some type of gearing.

Running along the outside of the south mandible is the old maintenance corridor. Atop this trench would sit a concrete or wood floor, and under it would constitute the building’s basement. At Gratiot these corridors were still covered by concrete, creating interesting tunnels to explore.

Here are some of the remains of this roof over the corridors (or floors depending on your perspective). I think these metal beams once were used to hold up the floor (ceiling). The floor has long been eroded away leaving only these.

I don’t know about these. I think the barrels we see now were added to cover something else up, but they don’t move so I couldn’t see what was under them. Perhaps they were original, but I doubt it. They sit on the end of the northern mandible, facing the No. 4 in the distance. My only guess is that they might have had something to do with the skip (hoist) rope, since the rope from here was directed along the ground to the head-frame instead of up along pulley stands. Maybe there were pulleys on these that turned the rope to the south immediately after leaving the drum. I don’t know.

One last piece of the puzzle. This large piece of framework sits upside down right outside the north mandible of the hoist foundation. I don’t know if it originally belonged to the hoist or the boiler house nearby (or neither). It was obviously cut off from something, but I don’t know what.

Moving on…