Lockers

This picture is perhaps the most appropriate in its visual depiction of how unstable the mill was. 1. Note the lack of stairs on the spiral staircase; they’re rusted and twisted apart, not simply cut off. 2. Notice the cracked concrete on the lower left corner; that was cracking as I was standing on it taking this photo, and don’t think there’s anything under that to begin to stop one’s fall. 3. You’re looking into an open elevator shaft; its safety cage is sliced away and wide open.

The basements of the barracks were often stone and brick, and many of them were connected by short tunnels.

The top of the headframe, and in a sense, the mine itself. This pulley carried the life line of the mine and the men in it.

Next to the generator room is the pump room, which moved steam around the complex.

“What’s that diamond thingy on the Pilot House?” you ask? It’s a 1920s-era radio transmission direction finder, a pre-radar navigation aid. Lit with diffused flash.

An old handcart sits next to a rotting elevator.

A tunnel connecting the two larger caves in the hill; those that Jacob vented in the rear. The vents are still extant!

Installed in 1904 at the center of the plant, this is one of two batteries of boilers. Being in Oshkosh, heat was very important to keeping labor moving in the cold months.

The curving corridors flanking the Administration Tower are especially ornate, though the prison-like door betrays the real purpose of the building.