While the Keweenaw may be best known for its vast treasures of red metal, it was also once briefly home to yet another mining boom – in sandstone. It was in 1861 that a man by the name of George Craig first discovered the peninsula’s stone riches as he travelled along the Superior shore near the mouth of the Portage River. The son of a prominent English quarry operator, Craig knew top quality sandstone when he saw it exposed in sheer cliffs along the shore.

During the next decade Craig attempted to mine the red rock but with little success. He managed to establish one of the region’s first quarries along the Portage River about a mile inland from shore. In the process a short narrow-gauge tramway was built from the quarry to a dock along the river and a small collection of company houses sprung up nearby. This small settlement – known as Craig – was the first along the river, and had the distinction of becoming home to the region’s first post office.

Today very little remains of the old quarry, except the pit itself. Partially filled with water, the old quarry sits along a sharp bend on Jacobsville Road about a half mile south of the cemetery. The small town of Craig no longer exists, but you can still find the old raised tramway running out from the quarry to the river.

Here’s a shot inside the quarry as it looks today. Originally these walls were vertical, but over time erosion has dumped a large amount of debris at their base.

The Craig quarry was short lived however, succumbing to the competition of several new players to the region. The first – and most prominent – was a man by the name of John Henry Jacobs. Jacobs and a few other investors began the Wolf and Jacobs Company in 1883, mining an area just east of the Portage River lighthouse. This new quarry began work cutting straight into those towering cliffs that Craig first discovered years earlier.

Over the next decade the Jacobs’ quarry would grow substantially, producing over 300,000 cubic feet of stone a year. Sharing in the quarries wealth was the nearby town of Jacobsville (named after Jacobs himself), which became home to over 750 people by the turn of the century. Along with the quarry, the town boasted its own school and several churches. Meanwhile up the road the early town of Craig and its quarry simply faded away. By 1896 the old Craig post office closed up shop as well, moving south to the greener pastures of Jacobsville.

The Wolf and Jacob’s Company would undergo several management and name changes over the years, culminating with Jacob’s departure from the company in 1891. A few years later the old company re-organized once again, this time becoming the Portage Entry Quarries Company. By this time the company had manage to grow into a monster, owning controlling interests in every sandstone quarry in the region. From that point on any sandstone taken from the Keweenaw was known simply as Portage Entry Sandstone- after the company itself.

The old Portage Entry quarry is enormous, at least three to four times larger then any other Keweenaw quarry. Considering the majority of all red stone taken from the region came from this one quarry, it makes sense. Today, however, a great deal of the old quarry has been filled in. I’m not sure when this happened, or why, but I do know that its current visible size is much less then that shown on older maps. In the image above I’ve colored in yellow the original size of the old hole.

Today you can still see the old quarry from along Red Rock Road as you leave Jacobsville. Just after the road makes a sharp left turn past the lighthouse it will drop down into a narrow gully – this is the old quarry. Looking off to the right (towards the lake) you can still make out the old walls of the quarry. Just like at the Craig quarry, erosion has deposited a great deal of debris along the walls and it has since filled with water.

To Be Continued…

Some information for this post obtained from The Sandstone Architecture of the Lake Superior Region by Kathryn Bishop Eckert as well as the Chassell History Page