Paperwork litters the floors of the zinc mine offices.
history under ground
doors
The individual ovens are skinny to allow even and fast heating of the whole interior. Numbers are cut into signs because no paint could withstand the heat or corrosive emissions from the coking process.
Looking down into the lunch building of an Atlas D, near the motors for the retractable roof. In this design, the roof separates to allow the missile to be erected into launch position.
On the top floor of the former casket building is the finishing line for the coating section; on this section the final spray of plastic would hit the wood before a small furnace would seal the plastic permanently to the surface, making it more resilient, I assume.
Looking through the old brewhouse toward the Keg Wash House.
The Wheeler Rec Center was very nice and included gymnasiums and a pool.
This spiral staircase isn’t doing Lemp much good–maybe they’ll let me have it! I do love, though, that there is a door going to it–without walls–and it ascends to a second floor that doesn’t exactly exist anymore.
This dock goes between loading bays (see glass brick walls) and the railroad.
An employee lunchroom with every door and window covered in vented steel.
The top floor of the Meal Storage Elevator.
The machine shop today.
A few of the stalls in the older section of the roundhouse, the noon sky peeking in.
The arches of the Twohy building, before some of the signs and sills were painted in 2015.
A big door into the fire pump room.
A bunk room, minus the bunks.
Note the wood and rubber wheels on this powder cart.
Note the pit is filled in here.
Sunrise in the orphanage… between classrooms and whispers.
Heavy wood doors for keeping people in.
This is one of my favorite images of the year because of the color, light and textures. Someone told me once that the medium of photographers is not film or digital sensors, but rather shadows. This photo is evidence of that.
The piano must have been a nice distraction; there is very little to do in Roberts.
The Blacksmith Shop (right) was connected to the Bunk House (left) via this narrow walkway. This is likely due to the fire risk in each building. The left building had a cooking stove and furnace for heat and the right building had a small industrial furnace to repair mining equipment. A little walkway would mean that a fire on one side would be easier to fight from the other.
This ornamental stair is cast iron and used to connect all floors of the Administration building. Now it connects the first and second floor, then the third and fourth floors, with a strange cinder block and drywall barrier separating the new and old sections of the building. Note the insulation on the floor to seal heat into the lower floors that were used as offices until the hospital closed. On the corners of the staircase are lions, on the corners of the suspended section of stair are down-hanging pineapples. Set in the stairs themselves are shield motifs with slate tops.
This wide skyway connected two of the inner factory buildings, where parts would have to be transported to keep the operation moving, which is why it is much wider than other bridges in the plant.
This is one of my favorite doorways (yes, I have favorites) for a few reasons: 1.) You can see how the once-arched door has been squared-off for rectangular doors to fit; 2.) you can see one complete historic door and one ruined door, and the chain that used to hold them together before someone kicked-out the security, and; 3.) I like the texture of the bricks and design of the radiators in the room beyond–the blacksmith shop. Just do.
This is the former air compressor house–one of them, at least–which turned steam power into air power to drive machinery across the production line.
The stone chapel sits beside the main house and received a particularly heavy dose of gothic architectural touches.
One of the occupied buildings in Nevadaville.
A look at another “Belt-o-Vator”. I like the sign.
Beds line a basement room that is part way between the concepts of inside and outside. Boards and bricks were falling while I was photographing it—stay out.
The front door to the auditorium.
A sheik mustard-yellow paint scheme across the roofless engine house goes great with the industrial moss and rust.
This bedroom built for a tuberculosis patient has been converted into a safe room.
Here, the concentrated gold (and silver, and zinc, I would guess) would be loaded into trucks bound for the smelter.
The blacksmith shop is pretty rugged looking. Through the door you can see the collapsed walkway that might have once connected to a building covering the Santiago Tunnel adit.
A corner of the addition is lined with glass cabinets, formerly filled with beds.
The substation has definite structural issues. Pictured is the sidewalk that connected the plant to the company housing.
And I forget just why I taste / Oh yeah, I guess it makes me smile / I found it hard, it’s hard to find / Oh well, whatever, never mind (Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”)
A single metal emergency slide rusts away at sunrise.
The city has taken steps to prevent the curious and the desperate from going into the elevators, including piling rocks against the doors and windows.
Looking toward Mitchell from its last building.
Before each warhead was crated, it was inspected.
Looking to the chapel addition from the Chateau.
A storage vault for guns and other weapons to protect the base from attack.
This skyway, built to help seal off two parts of the complex during an out of control fire, was probably too rotten to burn by the time I saw it.
Typical bunk rooms in MS-20.
This picture shows all three areas of the substation. In the foreground is the transformer room, the tallest space. The darker room in the middle is the motor generator room. The room at the end through the door is the control room and office area.
Inside the main entrance to the depot. Through the ‘To Station’ door, you can see some of the news stands. Look at the floor!
There’s a roof problem above the surgical suite.
Old boathouses near the dock.
The bathtub fell into the basement, ala The Miller’s Tale. That’s right. Chaucer.
The end of the new elevator. Line of bird droppings follow the fire sprinkler pipes and wires in the room.
Different doors for different vehicles, I would guess. White Pine Mine used tire-based vehicles, rather than track-based, making it pretty different than other mines I’ve been to.
The roof compromised, rain water rolls down the main stairway.
The cold air collided with the sun-warmed water on the floor, filling the ground floor of the Keg House with thick fog…
The side of the maintenance shops, still home to several disassembled electric carts.
A facade that tells the story of demolition and neglect. The sign on the garage door indicates that if one finds themselves there, that they enter the buildings at their own risk. If only property owners in the US took this philosophy!
An unintentional skylight makes the inside of the office glow, showing the inside of the front door and its strange lock.
Watching the comings and goings of doctors, nurses and new patients was a mainstay of asylum routine; one can find it easy to imagine pale faces pressed against the block glass windows, staring out at the world moving past them.
2016. A section of the third floor that has changed a lot over the years. Compare to 2006 shot.
On the second floor of the kettle building where corn mash was boiled, holes where tanks once sat were everywhere.
This door used to open at river level, but it has since been built up and sealed with a steel grate. Still, the original doors (with original paint?) stand in the same place. Once they opened to the fresh air, now they are permanently sealed in the tunnels. This is the official entrance for inspecting the mine, hence fiber optic and ladder. Shortly after the plant was demolished, this entire area was resealed and alarmed.
The large domed rooms were surreal.
This building would store and maintain warheads. It was right next to the launch pad, but the two were separated by a high mound.
The west portal of the tunnel is open, and if it wasn’t for the rough track, I would think by looking at it that a train could be coasting up behind me any moment. Mamiya 6/Portra 160
A broken window looking through the First Aid Room and into the Control Room in charge of directing grain into ships. You can see one of the large conveyors on the right, clad in green. Chutes and staircases intertwine seemingly randomly through the big empty spaces.
Dominion was acquired by UGG, which designated the elevator ‘M’. Their offices still have safety signage.
The floor IS the machine…
A blue chair in a blue room
A typical narrow hallway at Birtle.
Books in nooks and not getting a look… about the crook with hooks that cooks.
This “pit” would allow workers to crawl below locomotives to service them.
Shag carpet is fabulous, and I hope it makes a comeback.
A bumper sticker with the usual tagline. Note the detail on the radiator!
Before the gold could be extracted, the rock was turned to powder. Depending on the size of the steel balls inside the mill, the rock would be reduced to a certain size. So, multiple mills were usually used in stages.
Looking from the ‘crack’ that shows a collapsed tunnel into the dry house, in the direction miners returning home would walk. Note smoke lines above door.
My favorite time to be in the brewery was sunrise. That’s the kind of light that made the brewhouse glow.
The shaft house, where hydraulic steel doors allowed or denied entry into the mine shaft. Overhead is a light and alarm. If it sounds, the mine is being evacuated, and you best not go in and best stay the hell out of the way. Locals dump tires here, now.
Note the severed skyway–that led to a set of grain elevators that have since been demolished.
Office manners dictate that one must tip their file drawer back upright once it is knocked through the wall.
A warped mirror in the rock crusher at the rear of the complex.
Perhaps this office was for a film studio or music producer.
In the many-windowed metal building, the lumberyard buildings and the abandoned starch works buildings are separated by a thick wall of pallets.
In the ward for the criminally insane, this door was the most-worn. Nail scratches mark the area around the peep hole, the wood is gouged everywhere from thrown chairs and hard kicks, and a ominous blood-colored stain is visible where it dripped in the second inset from the bottom. Aside from the damage, the coloring in this section was very vibrant, though it was probably little reprieve for those who had to work here.
Tunnels interconnected all of the complex, carrying power, steam, laundry and food throughout the hospital. This is a typical causeway that would have been very busy when the hospital was operating. In some places, signs still point to defunct areas of the hospital.
The lower door is where the rocket exhaust would flow into the blast pit during initial launch. The upper doors would vent the rocket so the erector and other equipment in the building would not be (as) damaged.
The entrance to the area where staff could sleep.
Behind one of the kitchens is one of the few pieces of furniture remaining. Beside it, a small electric space heater–small by 1970s standards.
Taken on a short trip where the whole floor of the roundhouse and engine shop was covered in fresh snow–thanks to the holes in the roof and open windows.
A portrait of the second school of McConnell, built in 1937.
Taken several years before the tornado story when the weather, and the condition of the buildings, were nice.
A comrade lights-up where so many workers apparently congregated to do the same.
The back wall of the ballroom, showing water-warped floors.
Looking across the catwalk attache to the elevated control room, in charge of the train dumping part of the operation.
You can tell from the marks on the wall that there used to be pipes running the length of this square hallway, which connected a loading dock with explosive mixers.
Miscellaneous math and strange instructions remain all across the shipment section walls. Sadly, this section likely fell into disrepair before the others.
These racks lined many of the floors, although I couldn’t decipher their purpose. Tastes like duotone…
The side of Stelco and its scrubber-stacks. This is demolished now.
In most places, it may seem off for there to be a tunnel door on the top floor of a building, but Ford was that kind of place. This door from the steam plant led into a skyway and tunnel that connected to the main assembly floor.
In this section of the Men’s Ward, sealed by brick from lower floors, the room doors had messages painted in their inside–some motivational, some not. I would be interested to hear if anyone knows the backstory of this section. Lighting is natural; it was just after sunset.
The sidewalks are littered with rocks.
In the back of the warehouse is the old incinerator, probably used to destroy kegs that could not be reused.
I believe this is the push car, meaning it would push the charge in the oven out the opposite side into the train car.
An insurance office.
Originally, this part of the dock was reserved for the weather station.
Many of the higher floors were more or less demolished–usually more. These would have been condos had ‘The Arcade’ project come to fruition. Now there are simply wide open floors punctuated only by pillars and meaningless hallways.
The new steel door of the diesel car shops, built in 1948 and used through the 1960s, as seen from the service pit. On the top of the photograph you can see the exhaust vent.
Looking from the main shop into the boiler shop, one of three attached buildings that specialized in certain repairs. One thing that architectural photographers have to work with is an elongated “magic hour” with ideal shadowing and coloring–this photo is a result of that lighting.
These houses was built by hard rock miners in the early 1900s.
This train shed was later converted to load trucks with concrete from the silos.
An unplanned skylight. It’s unclear why some parts of the building had wooden roofing, while others were highly reinforced with brick.
Lost words over the auditorium entrance.
This corner of the building was the coal room, used to feed the two big boilers inside. The steam equipment has been replaced with electric, so this section may not have changed much in the past decades.
The top floor’s old-fashioned hospital ways were too much to pass without a photo or two… with the paint falling off the walls it was as if the building was shedding its skin in an effort to become rejuvenated or useful.
A Merrill Piano from Boston, in the Recreation Room of the Front Dorm.
Easier-to-demolish parts of the power plant were torched apart. Catwalks to nowhere meant lots of dead ends.
The gauges on left of frame are the steam pressure indicators for the various steam-powered components around the ship, like the steering engine and windlass motors. Below the gauges are a case of tiny wooden parts drawers… note the ancient oiling can on the locker near the upper-right corner of the frame.
The office was redder than the rest of the building.
From the 1909 addition, it’s obvious how much water it takes to carry a single wall to, into and through the cracks between the floor tiles: exactly one roof’s worth.
A damaged roof channeled rain onto the adobe walls, cutting them in half. In the distance, a preserved house and the ruins of the Colmor School.
Gloves hang in the basement of the former quality assurance labs.
Miners would sit in this room before going into the mine. The boards on the right indicated whether every single miner was “in” or “out”.
Sleeping bags mark this former courtyard as a crash pad for the local homeless.
A big sliding fire door opens onto a train dock.
A skyway 100 feet above this office crumbled one day. This is what happened when those two met. High-impact love.
The tallest dock structure is an equipment elevator that connects the many dock levels.
Beautiful doors separated the boiler room and the sugar mill. Can you imagine the gracefully curving steps in a power plant today?
“Man has set for himself the goal of conquering the world but in the processes loses his soul.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer and historian.
Upper Prize Street in Nevadaville earned the nickname ‘dogtown’ when a pack of dogs took over the abandoned houses.
A series of interconnected offices that look like they hadn’t been painted in 40 years.
An ajar car elevator car afar, technically.
Expanding foam provides some textural contrast to the wood floors, worn smooth over a century. This building dates to the 1890s and was built as the coffin plant.
Part of the unremodeled hospital, above the Service Building, where employees would stay sometimes.
Part of an ongoing series on found American flags in shuttered factories.
A typical room in Birtle.
One of the few doors.
An elevator to bring big somethings into the basement, it seemed. Nearby were the plant firetrucks, still ready to go. I hope they were saved.
This miner locker room has probably never been so clean.
2006. A section of the third floor that has changed a lot over the years. Compare to 2015 shot.
Jef throws open the back door of an alley for the trailing photographers and historians.
This used to be one of the office doors, but it’s been removed (apparently without malcontent) and placed in the shop area.
One of my favorite photos of the ADM-Delmar #1 skyway, when it stood. Taken at sunset, with the reflection of the overcast sky in the remaining windows.
No ambiguity here… miners, check in at this office.
These were some of the most attractive shops of all the mines in the area. It’s no wonder Hanna Mining wanted to use them as their center of operations in the Iron River district.
At noon, the lower skylights around the shops glow yellow-green, thanks to the flora blooming on the roof above.
The elevator tower seems to have been built with expansion of the dock in mind.
A window for light and air pokes above the big arch in the hallway. Most of the interior ceilings were broad brick archways.
A small bunker and blast wall between shell-loading buildings would have provided shelter during disasters, such as tornados, accidental explosions, and perhaps even enemy attacks.
Prize Mine has been the victim of erosion. Its north wall is pushed in by rockfall and its south side is far from ground level.
The portal facing Taconite Harbor (at a healthy distance) is mostly closed. Some kids put bullet holes in it. Shooting down a long tunnel is extremely dangerous, and you should not do it, obviously. Mamiya 6/Portra 160
The roof could be vented when locomotives were running inside.
What I make out to be the dining room or great hall of the castle, as seen through of the side rooms, which appeared to be a very ruined library. Teenager graffiti looks cooler in French.
This building cleaned the barrels that transported ingredients through the plant.
An old nurse’s station (you can tell because of the half-door with table) with torn-up tiles. Notice through the curved doorway that even the ceiling has a curvature.
The old way to get to the elevator from the mill.
There were a few large houses on the Old Crow property where employees would live. The glen had little housing.
Sawdust is the most classic of insulation materials.
The only door into a large windowless concrete room, probably a storage bin. Kodak Portra 160/Mamiya 6.
Behind the grand staircase is this beautifully preserved hallway with medieval-style arches and vivid paint.
In the nurses’ dormitories, beds, couches and chairs still sit. It’s unclear whether these are remnants of the homeless shelter in the 80s or the actual nurses.
In the ward for the criminally insane, this door was the most-worn. Nail scratches mark the area around the peep hole, the wood is gouged everywhere from thrown chairs and hard kicks, and a ominous blood-colored stain is visible where it dripped in the second inset from the bottom. Aside from the damage, the coloring in this section was very vibrant, though it was probably little reprieve for those who had to work here.
This is what I believe to be the Masonic Cottage, where infected Freemasons would be treated together and enjoy some simple luxuries because of their social connections. Freemasonry is still popular in North Dakota.
Heavy steel doors to isolate the underground magnetic separation mill from Eagle Mine’s main tunnel.
These tubes would bring cement to the top of the plant for storage in the silos.
An interesting crane in the back of the machine shop. It seems very light duty, so I am not certain what it was used for.
This was a living space for the keepers during storms, when it was too dangerous to return to the houses on the point.
The factory’s first aid room and laboratory. Sure makes me wonder how safe the lab was!
The shed in the front was full of worker supplies–namely goggles and heavy leather gloves. Molten copper isn’t a friendly thing to handle.
While the maps name this the compressor house, I believe, based on its size and number of heavy machine mounts, that it also housed the pumps to drain the mine.
2015. Water damage hastens the decay of the annex and its stage. Every time I visit this room, the chairs are in different places. Kodak Portra 400 in a Voigtlander Bessa.
What you see is not a crack in the floor, but a long vine extending ten feet onto the shop floor, as if reaching in to escape the wind and rain.
When Nopeming was affiliated with local farms, it often slaughtered its own livestock. This is the part of the hospital where food would be prepped, below the stage in the Service Building.
Looking into the main workhouse from the skyway into the annex elevator. But who care? Look at the colors!
Raab
The small door leads to the offices, the large door leads to the shop. My back at this time is to the corrugated steel wall. At the time I wondered why there was just one steel wall, not knowing that 40 years before there was another spot for an engine here. This section of the roundhouse has become a sort of town dump–car seats, cans of paint and tires are piled into its corners.
Redlining is the practice of shutting certain races out of neighborhoods, and it is still a big problem today. Such behaviors were a big factor in creating the need for these projects.
The truck scale is closed at Lena, MB.
One of the cupola air intakes, rattled loose by the demolition downstairs, hangs stranded on the second floor. You can see that the floor I’m standing on in this picture used to extend all the way to the right wall. The blue paint on the wall made the climb absolutely worth it.
It was a strange choice, although I appreciate it, for the firm reusing the shops to brick up the doorways while leaving the doors.
This old ward, not a victim of remodeling, still has metal screens over the open windows of the doors. It should be obvious why glass were not used.
A common room with a big bay window that overlooked the main entrance of the hospital.
It’s pretty unusual to find a fireplace like this in the midst of a factory.
The nurse’s station on this floor, a ward still in its original design, featured a half-door where patients could get their medicine. Portra 160.
The steam plant at Nopeming is an iconic (and crooked) smokestack. Kodak Pro 400 on a Fuji GX680.
Hip bump girl.
Hunter and the Hoist House.
S&X seen in the background through the fog.
The stonework was done by a local handyman of sorts, who was also a guard at a nearby insane asylum. He did a great job, it seems to me.
The curving corridors flanking the Administration Tower are especially ornate, though the prison-like door betrays the real purpose of the building.
Inside the main entrance is a whiteboard and mirror, then it branches into discrete spaces.
The top floor of the Chateau was the original surgical suite. Later, hydrotherapy took place here. When Nopeming was converted to a nursing home, it was a place where residents watched movies. Portra 400 on Voigtlander Bessa.
Looking through a launcher doorway at an outbuilding… the fire truck garage, if I recall correctly. Fomapan medium format in Pentax 67.
Almost all of the doors and windows on the ground floor have been boarded, leaving the ground level very dark.
Glowing observation windows–and someone forgot to lock a patient’s door…
The beacon was installed in 1938 and removed in the mid-2000s.
Unloading boats had the option to take on fuel at Taconite Harbor. This building, among other things, pumped fuel to the dock.
Looking into the engine works from the concrete addition.
Rocket propellant and coolant were stored underground adjacent to the missile silo. This is the hallway that connects the missile area to the propellant area. Walking in this area was nice because the floor was dry.
A door covered in pen graffiti.