It operated for more than a century in various forms, but there’s something timeless about the giant headframe standing silent in a field.
history under ground
Mines
Centennial Copper Mine
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?
Ford’s Twin Cities Plant & Sand Mines
Saint Paul, MN
On December 16th, 2011, the last Ford Ranger standard truck left the assembly line and paint shop and not long afterward the doors were chained and locked. Then it was my turn.
Gilman, Colorado:
Zinc Mountain Ghost Town
Under the star trails at our rooftop camp it was hard to believe that I was still living in a time when ghost towns–real ghost towns–were still engraved onto the sides of mountains. Below its cracked city streets courses the treasure that built the town and the poison that killed it. Cup your ears against the walls, be very still, and listen to the memory of a place called home.
Hasard Cheratte
(Cheratte Mine)
Belgium
For 130 years, the coal beneath Cheratte, Belgium was unearthed by its intrepid miners. Here’s what it was like for me to visit where they worked.
Mather Mine
Negaunee, MI
“It’s just across the parking lot,” the kids might say, “Let’s GO!” Into the dark/into the damp/into old Mather Mine.
Osceola Mine
Osceola, MI
“Sunlight scorched what man could not, / Deep where tunnels met. / Though mine they could, / With steel and wood, / And those men that bled.” A poetic homage to an abandoned copper mine.
Rogers Mine
Iron River, MI
Miners and their bosses watched helplessly as the mine flooded with water over and over again. When all was said and done, they had probably mined more quicksand than iron. Rogers Mine was started in 1910 but was allowed to flood in 1937, though its shops were used well into the 1950s.
Snowstorm Gold Dredge Fairplay, CO
The Colorado Rockies are hiding a mountaintop shipwreck, The Snowstorm. All around us were snow-capped peaks… Bald Hill (11,500 feet), Palmer Peak (12,500 feet) and Pennsylvania Mountain (13,000 feet). We were going to do a […]
Sunday Lake Mine
Wakefield, MI
Mines are strange things that never appear as they are, at least not on the surface. They are powerful enough to found cities and feed families when they are young, but are very often left to be forgotten in plain sight when they retire.
The Eagle Zinc Mine
Gilman, CO
Left hand, grip the left rail. Right hand, grip that other one. Feet, for God’s sake remember how to crabwalk; we have a cliff to descend. Come with me into the tunnels under a Coloradan ghost town to see what was once the world’s largest zinc mine.