Cramer Tunnel connected LTV Steel’s taconite mine and concentrator with its ore dock at Taconite Harbor. It served from 1957 to 2001, when LTV declared bankruptcy for the last time.
SUBSTREET
history under ground
Cramer Tunnel
Daisy & The East End Mills
Superior, WI
Daisy Rolling Mill was one of many flour mills built in the 1890s in an area then known as the East End Milling District, but it alone survived a devastating fire in 1914. It was the last of its kind in the Twin Ports when Peavey closed it in the 1970s.
Der Sinteranlage
Germany
This Duisburg sintering plant is world famous as an industrial ruin; I couldn’t pass it by.
Detroit Harbor Terminal Warehouse
Detroit, MI
Where I come from, the word “warehouse” is usually preceded by “just another,” but Detroit is a place where you can find anything, even the status quo, neglected on a street corner…
DMIR Dock Five
Duluth, MN
On your left you see Dock 6, retrofitted with conveyor belts, swarming with hard men and cold trains, bathed in orange light and smelling of taconite, oil, and sweat. On the right is a stripped, dark, empty, motionless chunk of steel jutting into Lake Superior, an island in so many ways. Read on to find out where the good days went.
DMIR Roundhouse and Railworks
Two Harbors, MN
Climbing that ladder let me see through the steam, by the orange light of the sunset dumping through the sooted skylights like the shop lights on the dead crane. It had been a while since it lifted a locomotive off its chasis, but the smell of grease was still strong enough to lubricate my sinuses
Draining Zenith City
Duluth, MN
The underground history of some of Duluth’s most notable sewers, drains, and substreet creeks.
Dry Dock Engine Works
Detroit, MI
What do steam engines, Henry Ford, and shipbuilding have in common? Sure, Detroit, but let’s be specific–I give you the Dry Dock Engine Works, a Detroit relic about to go through yet another overhaul…
Duluth & Iron Range Dock Six
Two Harbors, MN
A Poem
In nineteen-oh-nine when the winds blew colder,
Nine-hundred and twenty feet long…
Duluth Armory
Duluth, MN
This armory was built in 1915 for the 3rd Regiment of the Minnesota National Guard. During the World Wars, it was a place where troops would train and muster, and where equipment was stored. Occasionally, […]
Duluth’s Lost Silver Mine
Duluth, MN
In mid-1880s, a few men began tunneling under downtown Duluth looking for a fortune. Now there’s no trace of their labor under the Point of Rocks, is there?