It didn't take me long to figure out that I had stumbled upon what was once the Centennial Mine #2. I wrote of the Centennial Mine's #3 and #6 shafts, as well as their stamp mill in the following older posts:
Arriving in Centennial
The End of an Era
Star of Arcady
As I explained in my previous post about the Centennial Mine #6, this ground was first explored by the Schoolcraft Mining Co. in 1863, and the Centennial Mining Co. bought them up in 1876 to continue mining the same land holdings. In 1896 the company was reorganized as the Centennial Copper Co., at which time they expanded their reach with new shafts.
The faded sign said "NO LOITERING"...well I guess I better get inside then.
Wow, what have we here...?
I quickly recognized that this structure must have been the shaft house, where the entrance to the mine itself would have been located, although it had obviously been heavily modified and the shaft mouth itself covered up.
However, I couldn't help but noticing that there were some spots in the floor that were looking a little suspicious...
Most likely this meant that the mine shaft was unstable and caving-in below the building. Hmmm, probably prudent to be careful where I step...
The Centennial Copper Co. was unusual because it sank shafts into no less than three different local copper ore-bearing lodes: the Calumet Conglomerate Lode, the Osceola Amygdaloid Lode, and the Kearsarge Amygdaloid Lode. In fact the great Calumet & Hecla Mining Co. (C&H) worked on these same lodes at fabulous profit, a couple miles to the south. Unfortunately these northern sections were not as rich as the parts owned by C&H, but the two Centennial-owned shafts on the Kearsarge Lode did eventually pay off nicely.
On Google Books I found one report from the Michigan Geological Survey dating to 1912 that lists the Centennial Copper Co. as headquartered in Boston, at an address of 12 Ashburton Place, with Quincy A. Shaw as president, and R.L. Agassiz as vice president. That year it was reported that the #1 shaft measured a depth of 3,821 feet and the #2 shaft measured 3,955 feet. Up to that point, the report stated, the Centennial had operated at a loss, but with new ore deposits being discovered at these depths in the #2 shaft, the coming fiscal year 1912 promised to show a turnaround in the Centennial's thus far mediocre fortunes.
Mike Forgave of coppercountryexplorer.com writes that indeed the Centennial #2 was to become by far the most productive of that company's seven shafts, and one of the most productive in the entire range. It sat directly next to the #1 shaft along the Kearsarge Lode, and together they produced two million pounds of copper per year. Centennial eventually operated a total of seven mine shafts in this area.
The unique side-by-side arrangement of the #1 and #2 Centennial shafts meant that they shared many features of their surface plant, including a boiler house, dry house, and machine shop. However they each still had their own hoist houses, and compressor houses. The #1's shaft house and rock house has been demolished, so to visit the site today you would probably never guess that this was the location of two mines and not just one.
Mike Forgrave observed that because of the disposition of the small Kearsarge Lode underneath the Centennial property, this left very little room for sinking shafts, which was why they were set immediately next to each other.
Just how close together were the #1 and #2 shafts? Here is a photo from the aforementioned Michigan Geological Survey, showing the shaft houses as they appeared in 1911 or so; the now-demolished #1 shaft is the one on the right, actually:
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| Photo via Google Books |
In 1923 the Centennial Copper Co. was bought up by the corporate giant Calumet & Hecla, and as fate would have it the #2 shaft would go on to become one of C&H's most productive shafts for many years. Which is really saying something, because C&H owned a lot of shafts, and a lot of them were highly productive. Mike Forgrave even writes that the Centennial #2 actually helped keep the famous C&H Goliath afloat when its other producers were struggling.
The Centennial #2 was shut down once in its lifespan however, during the Great Depression, but I'd wager this probably had little to do with finding copper and much to do with the economics of the surface world. This mine was reactivated for duty by 1944 to help satisfy the Arsenal of Democracy's ravenous hunger for copper during World War II.
After that it remained in continuous production for 22 more years, when it finally closed for good in 1966, almost making it to the end of the Red Metal Empire's reign over the Keweenaw Peninsula, which was heralded by the Strike of 1968-1969. Ironically, the less productive Centennial #6 shaft somehow managed to stay in operation longer than the #2–right until the bitter end in 1968.
Some time after the mine closed, Calumet Township acquired this property and used it for a garbage dump (Mike Forgrave speculates that it operated in the 1970s and 1980s before it was capped). You can see the grass-covered cap over the landfill in this next photo, which also shows the foundation of the rockhouse, with the old hoist house in the distance:
By looking at Mr. Forgrave's atlas, The Copper Empire, I can see that several buildings (the boiler house, one of the compressor houses, and the #1 shaft's hoist house) were demolished when the landfill was put in.
He also wrote on coppercountryexplorer.com that the #2 shaft house was somewhat unique among shaft houses, "a relic of post-war efficiencies mines adopted to cut costs." This next photo shows the face of the building that has been subsequently covered up where the skip road used to angle down into it to enter the shaft mouth, from the now-demolished rockhouse that used to tower immediately next to it:
In this view you get a better perspective, showing the foundation of the former rockhouse at right:
The rockhouse foundation is made of poor rock from the mine on one side, and concrete on the other side–a rather unlikely coincidence of necessity, no doubt:
A view inside the foundation reveals what looks to be a petrified lump of old road salt, which seems to indicate that the Houghton County Road Commission most likely put the "roof" over this foundation and used it as a makeshift salt dome at one time.
I think it's safe to assume that the Centennial #1 itself was also making a reappearance nearby, based on this creepy sinkhole where its shaft house used to be:
This next photo shows the dry house, but as Mike notes it was built from cement blocks and probably dates to the WWII period of operation, meaning that it most likely replaced a much older structure:
And now for the blazing red Jacobsville sandstone structure that once housed the mine's blacksmith shop and machine shop:
There isn't much in this world that is more awe-inspiring than evening sun beams lighting up Lake Superior sandstone, even if the building is a little jacked up.
Hmmm...no way in here:
Judging by this rear entrance the original bay door was widened later, and buttressed with modern poured-concrete piers:
The inside was not super interesting; just more accumulated junk:
Apparently, judging from all the piles of refuse laying everywhere, this place was still used as something of a garbage dump? Off in the distance, the rockhouse of the Centennial Mine #6 can be seen poking up from the horizon:
An entry on the geology hobbyist website mindat.org observes that the old rock piles of the Centennial #1 and #2 offered good pickings, and contained interesting minerals such as copper crystals, silver, datolite, "and incredible quartz/epidote crystals." However it was also said that Houghton County used the rock piles for their own uses (this usually means road building or something along those lines), which might explain why there are no more rock piles to be found here at the #1 and #2.
I decided to make the trek across the grassy (and likely tick-filled) field to the old #2 hoist house:
There wasn't much left of this building that once housed the massive hoist engine of the Centennial Mine #2, but it was nothing if not picturesque in its state of ruin.
Mike Forgrave posited in his entries that even though it survived demolition when the landfill was put right on its doorstep, the front of this building was unceremoniously taken off when the power company brought a new run of powerlines almost right over it.
I have covered mine hoist structures in older posts, but to refresh your memory these beefy foundations once supported the mighty engine that would have driven the cables that pulled men and ore up out of the mine's depths.
The only difference here is that the foundations are usually made of poor rock or concrete, not fancy Jacobsville sandstone and brick like you see here.
This was a sign that the Centennial Copper Co. was highly optimistic about their chances of profiting off of these mines–a move that usually results in disappointment and bankruptcy, but which leaves behind a very handsome corpse.
The #2 Centennial however was one of the rare ones that justified this lavish expenditure, by remaining one of the richest mines in Michigan for decades.
On the other side of the wall stands the mine’s compressor house, attached to the back side of the hoist building in lean-to fashion...
It was clearly another structure that was added-on in more modern times, being that it is made of cement block and steel trusses, while the structure it adjoins is stone and bears the architectural hallmarks of the late 1800s:
There used to be a pair of electric-powered Ingersoll-Rand air compressors sitting on the pedestals in here, which Mike Forgrave luckily documented before they were pulled out for scrap. Click the following link to see his awesome panoramic photo of this room in 2007: coppercountryexplorer.com/wp-content/panoramics/centennialhoist.html
It is unusual to see a compressor plant conjoined with the hoist house, since usually the engine house that supplied the hoist with its massive power needs was the closest structure. The point, by the way, of a compressor house at a mine was mainly to provide pneumatic service lines to the underground where the miners were using drills and other machines that ran on compressed air, since it would be hazardous to use anything combustion-powered in a poorly ventilated space.
From this perspective you can see the hoist house's relative position to both the shaft house, and the powerline easement that lately cut between the two:
That space used to be spanned by the hoist cables, which ran between the hoist house and the shaft house, supported by a series of pulley stands that ran along the ground that the landfill now occupies.
One last look at the hoist in the evening light, before it was time for me to walk back to the house for dinner:
The shaft house too was glowing a decidedly copper hue in the autumn sunset:
Just the end of another halcyon day in the Copper Country.
References:
The Copper Empire, Vol. 1, by Mike Forgrave, p. 36
A Guide to Michigan's Historic Keweenaw Copper District, by Lawrence J. Molloy, p. 62
Michigan Geological and Biological Survey, Publication 8, Geological Series 6 (1912), by R.C. Allen, p. 73-74
http://www.mindat.org/loc-3844.html
http://www.coppercountryexplorer.com/explorations/mines/centennial-mine/
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