Allouez Mine

The success or failure of a copper mine depends greatly an the amount of red metal that lie trapped underground. Sinking shafts and driving long drifts underground in the search for copper is a futile and wasteful endeavor. Mining companies needed to discover the location and richness of copper deposits on their land with the most minimal use of capital. In the early days mines relied on the wisdom of the native people, and often sunk shafts near ancient Indian mining pits…

The Allouez mine takes many forms. It is in fact three different mines in one, working three completely different lodes. First there was the original mine which worked the Allouez Conglomerate lode starting in 1869. This was followed in 1905 by the opening of shafts along the Kearsarge Amygdaloid lode across the highway. These shafts are the “New Allouez” and a town of the same name was erected nearby. The third and final Allouez was a single shaft opened by C&H in 1943 working the unique Houghton Conglomerate Lode just behind New Allouez.

Sitting next to the hoist building at the Allouez-Douglas Mine stands a mysterious structure. It’s a wooden tower, rising three stories in height. While it stands separate from the rest of the building, it is connected to is by a series of pipes high up on the structure. At the tower’s top sits an array of pipes, which end in what looks like spray heads. A short railing rings the perimeter of these pipes, but there seems to be no way of egress to the top. It’s a structure we haven’t seen near any other hoist. Lets take a closer look.

The first Allouez Mine – Old Allouez – was begun in 1869. The mine used two shafts to open the newly discovered Allouez Conglomerate Lode sitting at the base of a hill later known as Bumbletown Hill. The mine was the first in a long line of mines to operated in the Allouez Gap, predating most of the other mines by a good 20 years. The mine was worked on and off again through the end of the century but was never very profitable.