Between the twin cities of Calumet and Laurium, its Calumet that’s generally considered to be the more industrious of the two. That makes sense, considering the presence of several railroads scattered along the villages outskirts (including the Mineral Range, H&C and Copper Range railyards). But by the turn of the century available space around the village was becoming scarce and as a result incoming industries moved eastward in search of vacant land on which to build. Thanks to the presence of a Copper Range Railroad spur along the outskirts of Laurium (an area seen to the right in the aerial image above) there happen to be a great deal of open space right alongside the railway for those aspiring businesses to set up shop. Soon Laurium’s own industrial district was born, complete with a Brass Foundry, Gas Plant, Lumber Mill, and Coal Yard.

While the old rail lines lining Laurium’s east side are now gone, the old right of way on which they ran continue to be used as an ATV trail. Taking a stroll along this old grade reveals several clues to the village’s more industrious past, none so telling as this massive concrete wall sitting alongside the trail. We’ve seen too many of these to not instantly recognize what we were looking at: this was an approach abutment for a trestle.

Normally this type of abutment would have been back filled to form the approach, but this time the backside of the concrete wall revealed only a collection of graffiti.

In front of the abutment was a cleared area sprinkled with a series of equi-distant concrete pedestals. Each of the pedestals featured a set of iron bolts sticking up from their tops, a sign that they were once footings for some type of overhead structure. Considering that abutment fronting all these guys I would assume that structure was a trestle. And since we weren’t crossing any type of gorge or river, this particular trestle must of been of the coal variety – used to unload coal from train cars down onto storage piles.

Thrown off into the neighboring brush were a series of wood beam – such as the specimens seen above. I would guess these guys were once part of the trestle’s superstructure. They were definitely hearty enough to serve such a function.

Looking down at the spaces between those concrete footings we find a fine gravel sprinkled about on the ground. We could also spot small pieces of coal mixed throughout the gravel – another piece of evidence that seemed to back up our assumptions. We were looking at a coal trestle all right, but who’s?

Checking out that map of Laurium’s industrial corridor I posted above reveals only one possible candidate – the Van Orden Coal Yard. According to Sanborn maps, the coal shed built here was 425 feet long and stood 16 feet tall, with tracks placed on its roof. That would mean that the ruins we found here were all part of the old coal shed’s approach trestle, since the abutments height here is no more then six feet at best. The coal shed would of sat past these ruins, in the area now covered in brush and trees.

This made complete sense, except for one small problem. The location of the rail grade…

From this shot you can see the coal shed approach (on the right) and the old rail grade to the left. According to Sanborn maps the shed would of been to the left of the rail grade, not to the right. While this seems to discredit my theory, I like to think it created some further possibilities. One is that the approach we were looking at was in fact from a later but similar structure erected after the Sanborn was drawn. The other is that the ATV trail does not actually follow the old railroad grade, and that it sits along its own path. Then there’s the third possibility, that the Mineral Range lengthened its spur on this side of town down to this point, and its actually that railroad (and not the CR line) that the ATV trail is following.

To help answer those questions I decided to draw up a map Laurium’s industrial area superimposed over a modern aerial image of the specific area in question. It actually makes it all much clearer:

This map showcases every industrial building that can be found along this area of Laurium, including our coal trestle in question. From the looks of this map it becomes obvious that the section of ATV trail near our trestle does not follow the original rail line, as its apparent that the Copper Range line runs to the right of the Coal Trestle. This agrees with the Sanborn maps and helps solidify my theory that we were looking at the Van Orden coal shed. From this map it would appear that was indeed the case.