Quincy Mine. Hoist, and Tram

A Houghton-Hancock landmark visible from miles around, the Quincy Hoist hauled copper from over a mile deep. The 726 million pounds of copper it yielded from 1856 to 1925 kept the area prosperous for decades.

The best all-around underground mine tour in the Upper Peninsula is based at this Keweenaw landmark on Quincy Hill above Hancock. The giant hoist, perched like a beacon on the northern hilltop above Houghton-Hancock, is one of the few reamining.

Half a century ago there were dozens of these imposing towers along Keweenaw's spine, all with the same distinctive slope toward Lake Superior to the west. That's the angle of the long shafts through which miners were trainsported by rail and the basalt rock, typically embedded with 1-2% copper, was brought up to be crushed and processed to yield pure copper ingots.

Until the big open pit copper mines to the west emerged in the 19th century, a small 3x26-mile strip from Mohawk to Painesdale supplied the entire country with its ever-growing demand for the metal that eventually became the wire that conducted electricity to America's homes and busnesses.

Don Hunt

One of the few remaining homes of the Quincy miners. Frequently, the family lived downtairs and rented the upstairs to indiviudal miners. As many as 14 occupied these little homes at a time.

The Quincy Mine still standing is the last of a row of ten. Its shaft penetrated 9000 feet down, where miners worked 12-hour shifts in 90° F. temperature. Most were Finns, among the lowest of the classes of immigrants who came to work in these hellish conditions. Many lived on the second story of small homes a miner family rented to 8 or so miners to make ends meet. When there were still 12-hour shifts, the "warm bed" phenominon emerged. A weary miner whose shift had just finished collapsed onto the same bed a miner on the next shift had just vacated.

While the miners were dirt poor, the mines' wealthy owners on the East Coast and in Detroit didn't stint when it came to paying for ostentatious buildings like the steam hoist that fed and retrieved the 1 5/8-inch cable that hauled the mine cars down and back. These handsome buildings were symbols of the capatalists' success.

The two-part, almost two-hour tour
shows the monumental technology mining companies developed to extract copper. It begins with the giant hoist, a drum 60 feet high holding 13,200 feet of cable.

There's a an aesthetic power to mining machinery and structures like this Nordberg steam hoist and the adjacent No. 2 shafthouse. Tour guides are articulate Michigan Tech engineering students, retired miners, and others. They can field all kinds of mining-related questions on many levels. They give visitors an interesting overview of mining at this famous site. Engineering buffs of all ages, from upper elementary on up, are likely to enjoy the tour immensely.

From the hoist, tourgoers take a tram directly down the steep hill near East Hancock. (It's the Midwest's only cog-wheel tram, similar to those at Pike's Peak and Mount Washington.) The tram offers a panoramic view of the canal, the lift bridge, downtown Houghton, and the surrounding countryside. In the 1880s four such tramways transported copper ore from these mines to stamping mills on the Portage Canal in Ripley. The tour's optional underground portion also takes visitors on a tractor-driven wagon into a hillside adit (a horizontal mine passage) for half a mile, where it intersects with the seventh level of Shaft No. 5. It's quite an experience to stand inside a large stope (a room cleared out by blasting and removing copper-rich rock). The slanting angle of the stope's ceiling shows the tilt of the earth's crust in this area. The fault line of ancient volcanic eruptions is where copper mineralization took place here through a combination of circumstances.

The tour shows what a big-time operation Keweenaw copper mining once was. The hoist was designed to haul up a five-ton skip loaded with ten tons of ore at a speed of 36 mph from a depth of almost two miles. At the beginning and end of each shift, 30-man cars replaced the rock skips and took workers down into and out of the mines. This happened at the shafthouse, marked by the tall headframe that held the pulley rope. An informative six-minute film shows poignant glimpses of the men as they take their seats in the man cars to be plunged to a dark, hot, and dangerous place of work.

The hoist operated from 1920 to 1931, at the end of the Copper Country's heyday. The Quincy Mining Company had the resources to build this largest-ever steam-powered hoist because it had mined one billion pounds of copper since opening in 1846. (An excellent short history of the Quincy Mining Company is on the "archives" section of www.lib.mtu.edu , then choose "about the collections" and click on Quincy.)

When the giant hoist was installed, the Quincy No. 2 shaft was already over a mile deep. Mine managers hoped that a much deeper shaft would be dug. But the copper had become increasingly low-grade. Worldwide competition soon made it too expensive to extract. Only 40% of the Keweenaw's copper has been removed. Today's copper comes from much cheaper open-pit mines in Utah, Arizona, Chile, and Australia. A mine in Peru promises to surpass all the others.

The once-booming peninsula began its decline with the strike of 1913, which itself was brought about by local mining companies' unpopular efficiency moves. The Quincy mine closed in 1931 and reopened temporarily during World War II. Of its 92 levels, groundwater has flooded up to the eleventh level.

On the underground copper mine tour, visitors don coats and hard hats in this drippy environment, always a chilly 40° at this level. (At deeper depths temperatures became uncomfortably warm.) Loose rock has been bolted for safety. (The Keweenaw mines used to lose a man a week due to rockfalls and cave-ins.) Visitors enter a high, scaffolded "stope," dug out of the rock where copper deposits were found.

Be sure to allow time to see the interesting videos and exhibits in the hoist house, where the tour begins. Displays include a sampling of beautiful minerals from the Seaman Museum on the Michigan Tech campus; an exhibit on Native American use of Keweenaw copper 7,000 years ago; a video on Keweenaw mining; and models of a copper mine and equipment. A realistic G-scale railroad model of the mine and mill shows mining trains in action.

The Quincy Mine Hoist Association, a volunteer group of mining enthusiasts, has stabilized and renovated or restored the hoist, hoist house, and No. 2 shafthouse. Many other buildings have become ruins, picturesque compositions in stone and brick. The ruins stand out most dramatically in early December, when a light dusting of snow makes the buildings pop out in contrast. The web site www.quincymine.com has a downloadable site map under "Quincy Mine" that helps one envision how the mining operation fit together and functioned. Many people often drive by the poetic landmark ruins without seeing how the pieces fit together.

In summer from June 10 through late August the Keweenaw National Historic Park Visitor Info Desk is staffed. Between 9 and 5, Sunday 12:30 to 5, trained summer interpreters can field questions about the "cooperating sites" of the Keweenaw National Historic Park (Quincy Mine, Calumet Theatre, Coppertown, Old Victoria, etc.) and about other things to see and do in the area. It's next to the Quincy Mine gift shop and ticket office, inside the onetime supply house. Thirty-minute Porch Talks are given Tuesday at 3 p.m., Wednesday at 10 and 3, and Saturday at 11.

The Adventure Mine tour near Mass City and Ontonagon, is also recommended. It provides a good view of mining on an earlier, smaller scale. The Delaware Mine near Copper Harbor is worthwhile but not quite so informative.)

Located 1 mile north of Hancock on U.S. 41. (906) 482-3101. Open from May 13 through October 29. Through June 16 and from Sept. 6 through October 29, open Mon-Sat 9:30-5, Sun 12:30-5. From June 17 through Labor Day open Mon-Sat 8:30 a.m.-7 p.m., with last tour beginning at 6:30 p.m. Surface & underground tour with tram ride: $12.50 adults, $7.50 children 6-12. Under 6 free. Surface tour and tram ride (no underground): $9.50 adults, $4.50 children. Handicap access: call.

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