Well another Friday and another look back at the last four years of CCE. This week we’re taking a look at year three, otherwise known as the year of the major redesign. I’m referring to a major redesign of the site itself, which took me over a month to finally finish. That new look is what you continue to see today on CCE, with some minor tweaks and changes. Gone was the black background and white lettering, replaced with a much higher contrast dark gray background with light grey lettering. The site also got its first splashes of color. More importantly I improved the navigation system, allowing readers to browse my archives by specific locations or types of ruins. Finally I added a gallery which highlights the illustrations, maps, and panoramics I’ve put together over the years.

Unfortunately a few of these new features haven’t panned out as well as I had hoped. The biggest reason has to do with time, as it takes me enough time just to write a daily post let along update all the other stuff on the site. Thats why my gallery is horribly out of date (the newest item on it is from 2009), the bibliography is now gone, and my Flickr and Youtube areas are gone. Its all just too much work for one guy to handle I’m afraid.

Year three also introduced CCE’s sister sites – Copper Country Forum and Keweenaw Free Guide. Because of the work I was doing on these other site, CCE’s posting schedule dropped from five days a week to three. It was a rather comfortable schedule, and one that I hope to return to once again in the near future. (don’t even get me started on how much work it takes to get a post out every day!) Finally year three was the debut of the Copper Empire map book – an endeavor that has proven very popular among my readers and one I hope to repeat here in the future.

That third year I felt CCE really matured and hit its stride. Gone were the exploration posts of old filled with copious amounts of theory and speculation. In their place were much more informative offering, with honest to goodness research and a much more refined knowledge of the area and its history. In the same spirit as those “anatomy of a steel dam” posts from season one (some of my favorite), I embarked on an in-depth look at stamping technology (a crowd favorite, I know), and did some informative articles on Calumet’s churches and the sandstone quarries. Other explorations during this time included a great deal of the southern range – specifically the Trimountain and Baltic Mines – along with the Stella Cheese Factory, Quincy Reclamation Plant, and finally some of the great C&H’s surface plant. Here’s a few of the highlights:

Anatomy of a Mill: Stamps
My return to one of my first explorations – the Mohawk Mill – presented an opportunity to do something a little more “in-depth”. The result was a detailed look at the entire stamping process, from the time copper rock arrived to the mill to its final expulsion into the neighboring lake.

Ghosts of Calumet
One of my most infamous posts occurred in year three – but I had never intended it to be anything but a fun little diversion from the mind-numbing boredom that was the Anatomy of a Mill series. What was suppose to simply another then and now post detailing various parts of Calumet as the look today in comparison to how they looked at the empire’s prime turned into an experiment in photo manipulation. In the end it turned into an intriguing idea that I intend to revisit again in the future.

St. Anne’s Church
It should be no surprise to my regular readers that I have two loves when it comes to CCE. One is maps and map making (I love maps, especially old maps of the Keweenaw. So if anyone’s got any old maps they’d like to send me, by all means be my guest!) The other is architecture. This church series was my second major architecture forey, and was generally much better received then my Calumet Facades series. I think anyone can appreciate a beautiful church, and Calumet’s got more then its fair share.

The Stella Cheese Factory
Sometimes CCE branches away from copper mining and investigates ruins of a different nature from time to time. Year One had the Redridge dam, year two had the Atlas Powder Plant. Year three had the Stella Cheese Factory. An awesome ruin that was actually originally a mine building. (But on private property and strictly off limits without permission)

Now Available: The Copper Empire (Vol I)
This is the post that introduced the world to the awe and spectacle that is the Copper Empire Historical Atlas. (Get your copy today!)

Sandstone Quarries of the Keweenaw
This post on the Keweenaw’s sandstone quarries is a prime example of the type of researched historical materials I was putting out during year three.

Well that wraps up year three. Next week we’ll take a look at Year Four and look ahead at what’s in store for CCE in year five and beyond!