As some of you might have noticed the posts here on CCE have slowed down dramatically and have been sporadic at best. The reason for this is the amount of time I have been devoting to those historic maps I’ve mentioned in the past. In the process of my research for those maps I have stumbled across a great deal of new information about topics I have previously covered here on CCE. Today’s information deals with the stamps sands of the Portage Lake region, and the old stamp mills that created them. (You can view the original post HERE)
In that original post I list five mills along Portage Lake: Atlantic, Quincy, Pewabic, Franklin, and Isle Royale. It turns out there were actually a few more mills in the area – more in the range of nine actually. Here’s a new map with the additional mills and sands in place:
In this map the yellow shaded areas are stamp sand deposits; the yellow squares are rough placements of the stamp mills that deposited those sands; and the yellow lines are the old trams or railways that delivered the rock to the mills. Lets take a closer look at each of these mills:
Atlantic Mill
This is the first Atlantic Mill, and was in fact built for the South Pewabic Mine in 1867. After the South Pewabic’s failure, the Atlantic took over operations and re-opened the mill (along with the railway that served it) for its own needs. What I find interesting about this mill’s set up is how the rock bins and the mill itself are set apart by a couple hundred feet. The bins are atop the bluff (where you can see the railroad trestle in the photo above) while the mill itself sits down along the lake. A series of chutes allowed the rock to slide by gravity down the bluff and into the mill building. The Atlantic Mine must have liked this system because it used a similar approach in its new mill out at Redridge.
(Note: in the photo above the tramway seen to the right was used to deliver coal and other supplies back up to the top of the bluff for loading onto rail cars. It was not used for copper rock)
As far as the Atlantic Sands go there are actually two places in which they were dumped. At first thy were simply dumped up in front of the mill. After the government sued the Atlantic for dumping its sands into the navigation channel, it complied temporarily with the court order by sending its sands down to the mouth of Coles Creek. This created the second set of sands also marked on the map. Later the Atlantic built a new mill down at Redridge where they could dump sands at will.
Old Osceola Mill
This is one of the new mills that I discovered during my research that surprised me a little. Finding it involved a little investigative work on my part, but the clues were all there for anyone that was willing to pay attention. For one the point of land here is labeled on most maps as Osceola Point, which seems odd at first. There’s also a road near this point called Mill Road. After taking a look at the Sanborn maps I was confronted with a few more interesting tidbits, including an old RR right of way that branched off from the Mineral Range main line towards this mill (shown on the map).
This mill only operated a short time, before it too was forced to move by the government. The new Osceola Mill was constructed at Tamarack Mills and this one was abandoned and removed.
Hancock Mill
Starting originally as part of the Quincy Mine, the Hancock Mine was sold off to the Hancock Mining Company in 1859. It worked three shafts within the town of Hancock along the Pewabic Lode. The shafts were connected via a short tramway down to Portage Lake where a small mill was constructed. (Above is a look at that tramway, with the Hancock mine in the background) This mill had another short life, and was abandoned along with the mine around 1872. When the mine reopened several decades later the rock was transported via the Mineral Range Railroad to a leased head at another mine’s mill.
The sands deposited by the Hancock Mill formed a great deal of Hancocks waterfront – now home to several new condo’s.
Quincy Mill
The first Quincy Mill set at the bottom of a ravine which separated Hancock proper from the rich neighborhood of East Hancock. (now occupied by the old Chevy dealer’s building) This old map from the Library of Congress provides an excellent view of how it was once set up. The mill was responsible for the large section of land on which the current Ramada Inn and those new condo’s next to the bridge are located. The mill had to move along with the rest due to the government’s lawsuit. The new mills were built out along Torch Lake.
Pewabic and Franklin Mills
These mills are show above, with the Pewabic in the center and the Franklin on the right. While I had originally placed these mills correctly I had not labeled the corresponding sand deposits as accurately. I had mentioned that the Quincy Smelter was built atop of the Franklin sands – and it was not. It was actually built atop the Pewabic Sands, which makes sense considering the smelter was constructed before Quincy was able to buy out the Franklin.
In a more controversial decision, I have decided to label the Franklin Sands further to the east along the land now occupied by the junk yard. The reason for this is due mostly to the placement of the mill’s launder in the Sanborn maps I have been studying. Instead of exiting the Franklin Mill from the south wall (and out to the sands in front of the mill), the launder in fact exited the building from the east. That would seem to suggest that the sands in front of the Franklin Mill were in fact laid by the Pewabic and the Franklin sands were to the east of the mill.
Grand Portage Mill
This is a new one, and an early one at that. The Grand Portage Mine opened as the Portage Mine in 1853, becoming the Grand Portage half a decade later. It opened a series of shafts up the hill in the current city of Houghton itself. The old mill sat on the corner of Shelden and Portage Streets (hint hint), at the current location of the City Offices in the old Masonic Temple. Its sands make up most of the land on which the Dee Stadium and UPPCO building now sit.
Shelden & Columbian Mill
The Shelden & Columbian Mine was a merger between the once independent Shelden and Columbian (Albion) Mines. These mines worked the Isle Royale Lode between the Isle Royale Mine atop the hill and Portage Lake. Its two-stamp mill was built along College Ave in 1866 and was connected to the mine by a short tramway which ran along “Tram Road”. The mill only operated for a few years, but managed to create most of the land on which the current East Houghton Waterfront Park now sits.
Hopefully this post will help clear up a few problems with my original Keweenaw Sands Series and answer some questions along the way. I’ve come across a great deal of other new information as well, so in the next few weeks I’ll be posting some updates to older posts via the comments sections. Keep a look out for them!
Now onto our next exploration: the Quincy Reclamation Plant….
Holy way… I had no clue there was that much artificially created land along the portage!
As long as the delay in posts produces results like this, it’s worth the wait.
It funny, back then the government didn’t care that they were dumping stamp sands into Portage per se, only that they were dumping them into the navigation channel.
I had a question, I know that they’re are sands at coles creek, and i spent over a few hours fishing there for salmon earlier this year, and I never noticed till the other day when my battery died and i was out recharging it that there is quiet a large ruin right by coles creek,
Is this an old mill or something else?
There was a large Smelter at Coles Creek, I believe it was the Michigan Smelter
Yeah, the old smelter there has some pretty extensive ruins. I have only ever explored a small part of it, because most of it is on very private land. There is a small part which you can access from the snowmobile trail which runs above it.
There are also clearly some supports for a railroad running through the ruins, probably above the rock bins, but I have never found evidence of a railroad bed leading to them.
Heres a post card off Pasty.com
http://www.pasty.com/copperrange/smelt.htm
Kind of interesting, photo looks just like the post card except in black and white
http://rs6.loc.gov/pnp/det/4a10000/4a13000/4a13000/4a13098r.jpg
Wow,
its amazing how many huge buildings were up here,
Now apart from michigan tech, there isnt much at all…
Heres a article by the Corp of Engineers collecting data for the House of Reps to pass a law to stop the mining compaies from dumping stamp sand in Portage Lake. Hard to imagine how wide Portage Lake used to be.
http://books.google.com/books?id=MM9IAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA1699&dq=%22quincy+mining+company%22&lr=&as_brr=1
That’s a great resource Gordy, especially when it comes to just how much stamps sands were dumped into the lake. It also looks like I was pretty much on the mark as far as which mines were in operation along the Portage – except one. The listing of the Huron caught me off guard, since I was under the impression that the Huron used its inland mill at the Huron Dam. This report seems to suggest that the mine used a set of mills (the report refers to them as plural) along Portage Lake for some time. None of my sources referred to this early Huron mill at all. Interesting….
The only possibility I can think of is that the Huron mill was located down near where Copper Range built its roundhouse. (where Houghton’s waterfront park is currently located). I always thought that shore didn’t seem natural, and its location at the mouth of Huron Creek might not be a coincidence…
What part of that shore really seems normal after reading this.
Could you even imagine what would happen now a days if anything like that was tried
Another thought, since so little had flowed into the lake would be what the creek carried down as run off, unless of course they just used a sluice to run it down to the lake, I think that would be more a possibility. From what I read, the mill was about 2100 ft from the mines connected via tram way and the mines were about 2 miles south of Houghton. (Sanborn Map)
I have saw where one of the Old Hancock Mining company shafts was right in a building with a sign signifying a shaft was located there,by White St. right off US 41 past Pat’s Foods. There is even a street named Shafter located by it.
I’ve always wondered about that building — seems like it should have been a shaft, but I’ve heard it was instead related to a stope hole. I’ve always wondered why there’s a nice new building with electrical work and such built over top of it.
The Hancock Mine in its original form consisted of three shafts: Shaft No.1, Dupuis Shaft, and Hill Shaft. No. 1 currently sits under the Finlandia Campus. Hill Shaft is somewhere up the hill near Quincy No.6 and Dupuis sits at the corner of White and Shafter streets, covered by that small building with the sign. There was also an adit, which opened up somewhere downtown I believe.
Later a fourth shaft was added (with the mine under new management) up the hill along Elevation Street near Pats Foods.
Yeah, I think it’s Dupuis shaft I saw, and now I know why it looks like there is some sort of mine ruins between Market and Ingot St. in Hancock. I always wondered what they were.
Darn, that didn’t work
I was trying to get the street view image from Google Earth
you can delete it
http://maps.google.com/maps/svpw?source=earth&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmaps.google.com%2Fmaps%3Fll%3D47.12959046%2C-88.58799861%26layer%3Dc%26cbll%3D47.12959046%2C-88.58799861%26cbp%3D%2C%2C%2C%2C&panoid=4SL5E-KMn2RNVjAy2t-9Lg
This is the Duquis Shaft
Well I’ll be damned.
Why not just cap it?
Perhaps it used to be used for a water supply? That’s not unheard of…
The sign said ” Hancock Mining Company, Dupuis Shaft Site 1859- 1938″ and it was surrounded by a barbwire fence
It’s interesting how these shafts and milsl were located right where highly built up towns are today and their evidence of being there is almost nil, except for stamp sand and what history shows us.
Its not capped incase it needs to be pumped. If the mine were to fill with water, No.1 shaft would be the low point and Finlandia would get a bit wet! I think MTU owns the lot and the building over the shaft. The roof has a removable section inorder to lower pumps should the mine fill too much with water.
Thankfully the Hancock and Quincy are connected at the 37th (+/-) level, Quincy bulkheaded itself off from the Hancock when the pumping ceased in Hancock, however the bulkhead leaks allowing a differential head to build during spring and subside during summer fall. Should a fall of ground happen and the two mines become isolated the need for pumping would arise again!
Where exactly is the fourth shaft on Elevation St., I went up there and there are ruins on both sides of the street, they both might look like mine sites.
So Quincy keeps the water level, and the low point is in a Quincy shaft, so then if blocked the Hancock low point would fill up. Which #1 shaft Hill or Dupuis?
The pump would be installed in the Dupuis, the No. 1 shaft is capped and probably is covered by a parking lot (I’m guessing). As for the No. 2 shaft up on Elevation, its on both side. The shaft is on the west side while the hoist is on the east. You can also see the old concrete trestle support for the train approach along Ingot street standing right next to a house.
Yeah I went up and saw those ruins yesterday, now I know what they are Thanks. I think Pats Foods owns the hoist ruins as a commercial lot.
I too just went up to see the ruins (the neighbors must be wondering by now!). It was really amazing — right there, under some trees, stuck between two houses, is a huge old cement rock house foundation. I must have driven past it a dozen times before and never noticed it! Can you imagine growing up with that in your back yard?
I know, I used to wonder what they were too, and I even saw toys on the capped shaft and a pipe sticking out. I wonder if those people even know what those ruins are?
Interesting new view of the Atlantic Mill on the Tech Website. I was a little surprised with the distance between the rock bins/crushing building and the mill itself, but I guess the rock would be crushed and carried by water to the mill itself. Also looking at this photo, it almost looks like the mill was near the top of the hill.
http://digarch.lib.mtu.edu/showbib.aspx?bib_id=676770#
I have heard that in the 1960s or something like that the old Hancock Shaft No. 1 on Finlandia’s or Suomi at that time caved in on a parking lot and took a car with it.