Apr
One of the most celebrated and successful mines along the Keweenaw was “old reliable” atop Quincy hill. For almost a century and a half the mine produced 1.5 billion pounds of copper and paid its shareholders over 30 million dollars in dividends. But the mine’s reputation today ignores its very precarious and troubled beginnings. While the mine was established in 1846 – one of the Keweenaw’s earliest – it wouldn’t make a profit or pay a single dividend until almost 20 years later. Its early troubles stemmed from the lode Quincy first worked – the stubborn Quincy Lode. Although initially promising, the lode proved to be nothing but and mired the company in failure for decades. It wasn’t until the highly rich Pewabic lode was discovered nearby (around 1857) that the mine began to show promise. The rest is history.
Today most of the Quincy Mine property is owned by the Quincy Hoist Association and the Keweenaw Historical Park. We started our exploration at a small parking lot the national park had built near one of Quincy’s dry houses – now perfectly preserved in its ruined state. The dry house looked to have been built from two buildings that had been combined into one – sharing a common wall in its center. Due to the rocky topography, the building was sunken down into the ground at the end we approached it on. Inside we could make out a line of old lockers – the doors for which were scattered about on the ground.
The building was built from rubble – featuring some large cut pieces at its corners. Along its front facade was a line of evenly spaced windows – which is a common feature in dry houses. The building was only one story high and was most likely capped by a high-pitched roof. Following the front wall was quickly came to something that seemed oddly out of place.
This was no doubt a later addition to the building – since poured concrete walls like this wouldn’t be used until some time near the turn of the century. This was most likely added as an airlock – to keep cold air in the winter from entering the dry (and the hot air from escaping). Standing here today we could feel a brisk cold wind washing over the top of the hill. This structure probably made it more comfortable inside for the miners. Of course, they still had to walk a couple hundred yards across the road to get to work…
Just inside this concrete structure was a pile of these odd metal contraptions. They look like batteries, but I have no idea what they would be used for. They appear to be hooked together in series – so they must have all been used together for something. I just have no idea what.
Besides the single line of lockers and a collection of scattered locker doors there wasn’t much left inside the dry house. We did find these pipes – which I believe were used to dry off miner’s clothes. Originally they stood upright and were filled with hot water or steam. Miners would through their wet cloths overtop of them, and by the next day they would be dry.
I would have assumed this this building was heated through steam supplied by a nearby boiler house – but this small piece of brickwork along the wall would seem to suggest otherwise. It looks like it might have supported a stove vent for a wood stove or other type of heater.
Here’s a real mystery. This large steel drum looks almost like a boiler, that looks to have fallen here from its original spot. Its rather large and heavy – and sitting atop a pile of rubble which looks to be from the outside wall. Could this been in the buildings attic? I’m not sure, but it sure looks out of place here. It might not even be part of this ruin (but then how did it get here?)
At this point a large two story wall separated this part of the building from the one next door. We had to go back outside to go around and take a better look at it. Stay tuned….
Off topic, but I’d read somewhere that there was a picture hanging up at Tech of the Quincy Shafthouse with the Northern Lights. Is this the pic?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Collectable-Quincy-Copper-Mine-Aurora_W0QQitemZ300262098771QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item300262098771&_trkparms=72%3A1205%7C39%3A1%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C240%3A1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
That looks like it to me. I think the photo is hanging up in the MUB somewhere.
Those are indeed batteries, probably from an electric tram engine or other underground equipment. They’re still used in underground mines and tunnel construction where overhead power lines would be inconvenient or dangerous.
http://digarch.lib.mtu.edu/showbib.aspx?bib_id=599073#
Oops, I meant to include this picture:
http://www.mining.jamison.museum/images/1940%20mine%20train.jpg
Although the fellow in the first picture would probably have appreciated such an engine!
Gabe – thanks for dropping some comments! Always happy to see new contributers to the site. For some reason I never thought of a tram engine, but I thought they looked to big and cumbersome for miner’s lamps. I believe that Quincy was one of the first mines to use mechanical tramming underground and that most of the “exhibits” of those trams you still see today are from that mine. I assumed that they ran off of overhead lines, but as you suggest that probably wasn’t the safest route. But I wonder how efficient battery technology was at that time, how long an engine could go on battery power alone before needing a recharge?
I think Lankton’s “Old Reliable” says a bit about electrical tramming. I recall reading that some engines actually were run off of exposed overhead wires, but that batteries became the preferred power source (for obvious reasons!). Since the engines only had to make relatively short hauls, a big chunk of cells would last for a shift at least.
Quincy didn’t have a large number of battery Loci’s, they were set up for trolley types, since they had sunk the capital into the catenaries already. The battery loci’s have been used on development headings (where you wouldn’t want to blow up your catenaries) or for going back into older previously worked out headings, where the catenaries were already removed, or never put in.
Plus you would never bring the battery’s to surface, loci battery banks are HEAVY and cumbersome to move. All charging would have been done underground. I would think that since it’s a newer concrete structure off of the dry that the structure is the lamp room (kept separate to incase to goes ‘oomph’ from the hydrogen generated when charging). I would also venture to guess the batteries were a battery back up for the lamp charging rack, as electricity probably wasn’t as reliable when Quincy finally started switching to electric lamps as it is today. Even today you can find some sites using backups to the lamp racks since they take so long to charge back up and are so critical to get fully charged. Believe me, there is nothing worse than being underground when your lamp starts to go dim, worse when it goes out.
The batteries are strange because the vent cap, for maintaining them, is on the top, but there on rubber feet on the side closest to the camera, making it look like that’s the bottom, but id kind of figure that would leak if you did it that way.
I was thinking along Joe’s line of thought on those batteries having something to with the charging the miners battery pack.
I would venture to guess on the rubber feet on the side of the battry, its probably to keep the cell isolated from contacting anything else, being they are metal housings. Strange on how the feet are only on the wider side of the battery and none on the end. These cells are probably only 2 volts per cell, but the amperage could be a couple of hundred amps. From the looks of Mikes small photo, there seems to be several rows of the cells, 3 for sure. Depending on how many cells were hooked together and the amp hour rating, you could have one heck of a short circuit if more than one cell leaked. About the only battery you can lay on its side would be the more modern gel cells or a sealed battery. Those in the photo had to stay upright.
Ya, i know they cant be tilted. I didn’t think about isolation from a short circuit.
The ones in the front most of the picture, are tilted on there side, probably from age, im kinda curious, to see a bigger picture.
Is Quincy off limits to walking around, Do you need permission to be able to walk out there?
You can walk around outdoors at Quincy anywhere you like, as long as you don’t take or break anything.
If those are indeed batteries — and they do look like it — they could be quite dangerous if they’ve been sitting around all this time. Aged, untended batteries could be very unstable.
eh once they’ve sat around, they’ve lost all the chemicals, and i doubt they are of any threat, other than chemicals leaking into the ground……