Compressor House

While most mines paired up a dedicated boiler house for each hoist, the steam from those boilers were often used in a variety of applications. The steam would often be used to power other engines at the mine, such as compressors or pumps. It also was sent to radiators to heat some of the buildings. These peripheral uses were fed by a series of steam pipes that ran underground from the boiler house out to the other buildings.

As we stepped through the door to the Hoist building at Centennial, we felt like we stepping into a post apocalyptic ruin. Almost everything seemed to have been left exactly as it was a half century ago, like the workers simply left at the end of the day but never returned. The snow that had found its way inside by means of the roof and open door covered everything in a white blanket, further adding to the mystic.

When we first entered the hoist building at Centennial, we had thought that we had found two steam engines. Everything we found seemed to back up our assumption. A large pipe entered the building from the outside, for steam most likely. These lines continued inside the building and distributed that steam to each engine. We then tried to figure out what the engines did. There were three main things that steam engines were responsible for on a mine site: hoisting, pumping water, and compressing air (for the drills).

Mines were built where the lode dictated, with little room for improvisation. Like most lodes, the Kearsarge Amygdaloid on which the North Kearsarge worked was narrow, only 200 feet wide at its thickest. The graceful curve of the lode’s path sent it under swamps, marshland, or – in North Kearsarge’s case – under a steep hillside. From the relative flat area at the road, the topography quickly made a steep rise past the boiler house, under the raised trestle, and up to the building we know found ourselves.

Its been a very busy few weeks, and we haven’t gotten out as much to explore the copper country. The result of such scarce exploration has resulted in a scarcity in photos and adventures to tell of here. So to help fill the time I took a look back in the archives to find something new to write about. The archives are in fact rather large – over 100 locations, 8,000 photos, and 14 hours of video. While we have been a lot of places, not all of those places are yet ready for inclusion on this blog. Some sites require repeat explorations to “get it all in” or to at least to provide a decent detail. These locations are works in progress, and will require us to return. South Kearsarge is one of these places.

As we branch out our exploration away from the hoist and shaft ruins, we quickly discovered that we had stumbled across an expansive operation. Atop hills, along the side of hills, down hills, in valleys, along old trails; the ruins just kept popping up out of the frozen ground. It had quickly become too much for us to keep track of, and we decided to call it quits and return another day. Before we left we were able to record a small portion of what was to find at Trimountain, mainly bits and pieces really. Today we present those morsels to you, as an appetizer for our return this summer.

Stretching out from where we stood was a row of concrete foundations, all of similar size and shape. These were beds for large pieces of machinery that had been removed long ago. Sprinkled along them were the steel rods and metal brackets that once anchored those machines. At first we thought we were looking at one long foundation, but a series of dividing walls told us we were looking at three separate buildings placed up against each other.

If it wasn’t for the discovery of the Pewabic Lode by Quincy’s northern neighbor, “old reliable” may have never survived its misfortunes along the Quincy Lode. It didn’t take Quincy long to find the Pewabic’s extension onto its property and begin sinking shafts to exploit it. But while the Pewabic lode may have single handedly saved Quincy from oblivion, it wasn’t so helpful to the Pewabic Mine. For the next 30 years the Pewabic Mine languished to find a profitable amount of copper along its section of the lode. In the end it couldn’t make it work and Quincy happily snatched its property up for its own.

After yesterday’s first post on our Mesnard exploration, readers pointed out the existence of a large group of ruins sitting just behind the modern structures we had featured. I had noticed those same ruins on aerial images myself (highlighted on the image above) before heading out on the trail, and was intrigued. Heading out to Mesnard that day I knew I had to find out what those ruins were. It turns out that even without those aerial images to warn us of their existence, clues on the ground would have alerted us to their presence.

As is the case with any copper mine top billing often goes to the stars of the show – the hoist and the shaft. But a mine’s minor players also deserve their due, since they two have had a role in the final production. Two important members of this supporting cast are the boiler and compressor buildings, the subjects of our post today. But just as you often have to sit through an entire movie to discover who played the janitor, you also have to do some serious bush-whacking to find the ruins of these buildings which often sit far from the mine’s stars.