Quincy Mill

Sitting on the shores of Torch Lake, just north of the town of Mason, sits the expansive facilities of the Quincy Stamp Mill. It operated for over 60 years, and was one of the last mine facilities closed in the Copper Country. Because of this, most of the facility still stands, providing one of the most expansive ruins in the Keweenaw. Exploring the mill alone would take a good day, let alone the rest of the numerous buildings at the site. But there is another treasure on the property that most people rarely visit, and most likely don’t know even exists. This is the Quincy Creek.

The sloped sides of the gorge were becoming increasingly steep as we progressed; the rims high above us slowly blocking any sunlight that tried to reach us. Because of this, the amount of vegetation we encountered diminished and the riverbed opened up ahead of us. Ahead of us a short cliff created a small waterfall that sprinkled into a shallow pool. The sounds of rushing water echoed around us, and every tinkle or drip was thunderous.

Its hard for a camera to capture the scope of the Quincy Creek canyon. Standing there in the stream bed, with the rising walls all around you, is much more awe inspiring then photos can capture. In an attempt to capture it, I took an experimental panoramic image. This image is a little rougher then most I have featured on this site, and tries something a little different

This dam was built in order to supply water to the boilers at the mill. Scattered around the side of the canyon was a collection of broken pipes. A similar pipe extended out from the front of the dam, connected to a broken valve. While this must be how the water was delivered down to the mill, it seemed odd that the pipe exited the dam from the top. In the face of the dam was a large square opening about four feet deep and was backed by a metal grate. This might have been a spillway or overflow valve of some sort.

Torch Lake sits at the southern end of the Traprock Valley, butted up against the rising ridge-line forming the Keweenaw’s spine. The 2700 acre lake is over 100 feet deep and home to over 200 million tons of stamp sand, dumped into it from the line of stamp mills along its western shore. The sands have permanently altered the lakes appearance and hydrology, creating hundreds of acres of new shoreline. Recently, these desolate sands have been capped with six inches of topsoil, in an attempt to rehabilitate the lake. It was along the top of one of these grass laden caps that we were now exploring, out on the sands deposited by the Quincy Mills over a generation ago.

Stamp Mills required millions of gallons of water – every day – in order to operate. This enormous thirst necessitated a nearby water source and the construction of large steam-powered water pumps to transport that water to the mill. At Quincy that source of water was Torch Lake itself, with the pumps built some distance from the shore. Feeding those pumps was a man-made tunnel which was run from the lake shore up to and underneath the pump house. It was this tunnel that we stumbled across soon after leaving the old coal dock.

Until the completion of the on-site turbine generator in 1923, steam was the principal means of power at the Quincy mills. This meant that there was need for boiler houses on site, one for each of the mills. While we couldn’t find any sign of the No. 2 boiler house, the No. 1 was a different story. For there the towing smokestack still stood, and by simply following it we were able to come across the building’s remains.

Standing only a few dozen feet from the smokestacks was what first appeared to be yet another smokestack. This one concrete, half the height of the previous concrete tower, and much thicker at the base. Approaching it, however, we quickly noticed the large opening on its front side. Inside we could make out what looked like a doorway with some sort of metal ladder inside. This was no smokestack. In fact, we have no idea what this thing was used for. The closest description I can come up with is that it’s some type of silo, used to store something but I have no idea what. More on that later, first the tour.

After leaving the remains of the old boiler/pump house, we took a stroll around the wooded area area surrounding it. Also once sitting around here was the large coal shed, superintendents office, and a series of trestles and rail lines. Sitting outside of the water tunnel at the opposite side sit the piers from the old No. 2 dock, used for delivery supplies. Most everything else we came across was half buried in trees and bushes, only pieces really of the larger puzzle.

The scope of the Quincy Mine operation is quickly illustrated by the continued expansion the Quincy Mill undertook at the end of the 19th century. At first Quincy built one mill here at the banks of Torch Lake complete with 5 stamping heads. Less then a decade later it built a second mill next door with three more stamp heads. Together, these two mills were capable of stamping over a million tons of rock per year, and producing over 25 million pounds of copper. But even that wasn’t enough. Due to the increased demand of copper during the first world war it became necessary to further expand the mills capacities with the construction of large additions to both buildings.