With the hoist and compressor foundations thoroughly investigated, we turned our attention to find the source of their energy – the boiler house. Old Sanborn maps show the boiler houses to be attached to the rear of the hoist/compressor complex, so we took a walk around the building to take a look. First thing we found was what you see above – a small concrete slab attached to the hoist building’s northern face. We’re pretty sure the circular opening once brought steam into the building, so we had to be close. We continued around the corner to find…

…nothing much. Boiler house are notoriously hard to find, mostly because they don’t leave many clues of their existence behind. The same was painfully true here at Mesnard as what sat behind the hoist house was nothing but a grassy field… almost. Taking a closer looks we found a scattering of holes in the ground, which opened up onto a crawl-space under the field we sat on. This wasn’t a field at all, it was actually a large concrete slab which over the years had been covered by another dirt and run-off to create a field of grass. Interesting.

It was when I took a better look around that a spotted it – a large shape buried within the thicket of trees next door. I struggled through the branches and underbrush to come face to face with what you see above: a large tangled mess of concrete and steel. While a little confusing in the photo above, the long concrete tube that accompanied it was a dead give away. We had found the boiler house’s smokestack.

Following the concrete hulk to its opposite end, its prior role became even clearer. The owners of this property must have blasted the thing down, and then simply left it where it fell. Interesting about this stack was its tapered end seen here. This was something I don’t think I’ve ever seen on a copper country stack.

And here’s the rest of it, at least what’s left of it. Apparently the first half of the stack was much stronger then the second (or more likely the upper half just had further to fall), because the rest of the concrete tube had smashed flat on impact. This side here once connected to the tapered end seen previously. The actual end of the stack we couldn’t find, if it was there it had been smashed to pieces.

Finding both a concrete floor and the fallen stack, we went off to find the last remaining component of our boiler trilogy – the coal trestle. All boiler houses required large amounts of coal to operate, which were always stored right next door to the building itself (or in it in some cases). This coal was delivered by train, so we had to find some evidence of the old railroad line over which those coal cars traveled. At the far end of the field we finally found it. Not much left really, just a poor-rock stabilized dirt embankment, which would have supported the approach to the wooden trestle which must have passed over our heads. In the photo the boiler house would be behind us to our right. This approach looks very similar to one we found back at the Quincy Mill as well. Some companies never change.

Having seen all we came to see at Mesnard, we headed back to the road, at which time we came across this interesting find:

I featured a photo of this back a few posts, but never really talked too much about it. These tracks cross what use to be the main road to Calumet, but now is simply just a short road to the Mesnard Mine. These belong to the Mineral Range, which run out to the Quincy Mine (towards the background in the photo) for when they use to handle coal for the mine. These are dual-gauge tracks, which were designed to carry both standard and narrow gauge engines and rolling stock. These dual gauge set-ups consisted of three rails: one the standard gauge ran on, one the narrow gauge ran on, and one that was used by both gauges (the common rail). In the photo above the common rail is missing, which would have ran to the right. An interesting find none-the-less.