After passing through the large brick-lined opening gracing the Mohawk hoist building’s southern facade we found ourselves looking out across a grand hallway running down the structures torso. Both sides of this hallway were lined with massive concrete foundations. The one to the left once supported the hoist itself, while those to the right cradled the compressors. Slicing through these foundations were a series of dark passageways that made their way towards the building’s far corners. As interesting as the foundations were, those tunnels were a much more powerful draw.

The first tunnel we spotted made its way alongside the hoist foundation itself – seen off to the right in this picture . This would be an excellent example of one of those “maintenance corridors” that I talk about so often during other hoist building explorations, only this particular beauty still has its roof. Most of the time these corridors are found roofless and look more like trenches.

The opening on the right leads up to what would have been the hoist engine. It most likely permitted egress for the engine’s steam inlet, which would have fed steam into one of the engine’s cylinders.

Here’s a look up one of those steam openings. The view of the window would have originally been blocked by a massive iron clad cylinder sitting just above our heads.

Turning to look further down the tunnel we find very little except a window opening (on the left) and a ragged opening smashed through the building’s shaft-facing foundation wall.

Heading over to the opposite side of the hoist foundation we find another identical tunnel / maintenance corridor. This one is a mirror image of its southern brother, with the steam pipe inlet sitting to the left here. Cut into the ceiling here was an opening to the building’s main floor, which would have originally housed a stairway. How do I know it was a stairway? (Next slide please….)

Because part of the missing stairway can still be seen sitting down along the ground, including the bracket that once supported the bottom step. At some point the stairs were obviously torn out. Probably for scrap.

Directly across from that last tunnel we found yet another, but this one was making its way along the compressor foundation. This particular tunnel was much taller then the first two and a bit more dank as well. Even more interesting was the fact that this tunnel didn’t just stop at the building’s outer wall – it made a right turn and continued even further!

Here the tunnel was making its way between the building’s eastern wall and the compressor foundation. But in the end it went nowhere except to a dead end. There was one interesting detail to note however.

These guys. About halfway up the inner wall – the compressor foundation itself – were a series of square openings. From our vantage point at the bottom of the tunnel we couldn’t see what was inside, but there was definitely enough of them to take note of.

With the aid of a single small window that was allowing a small amount of light into the tunnel we made our way back out the way we had come. Though the tunnel was short in length, I was happy to sky above my heads in stead of concrete. Considering the building’s age you couldn’t be sure if it would collapse on top of you while you were down there. Luckily fate spared us this time.

With the extent of the building’s dungeons now behind us it was time to take a look up top….

To Be Continued…

The remains of the Mohawk No.6 surface plant sit on private property and are not open to the public