The mining of copper in the 1880's became even more of anindustrial enterprise when the conglomerate lodes and amygdaloidal rocks weremined. Even though these were of lower grades, efficiency improvements in miningmade the recovery of copper from these rocks economic. The Quincy mine was beingworked before this period and was the first mine to be successful in mining theselower grade ores. These rocks provided a more predictable source of copper ore than were available in the fissure mines.Around 1900, advances in mining technology, and the professionalism of the minemanagement had made the job of mining into one that could be handled byrelatively inexperienced laborers.

     The history of copper mining in the area isintimately tied into the Calumet and Hecla company (C&H). This was the largest miningcompany in the area and produced the bulk of the copper mined. If the dividendspaid by the Calumet and Hecla were not included in the totals, the investors inmines in the district would have just broken even. In the early part of the1900's, production in the district was controlled by four groups of investorsfrom the eastern United States. Calumet and Hecla was run by Shawand Agassiz which controlled 40% of production. Paine and Stanton ran CopperRange with 30%, Bigelow ran a number of mines which produced 20%, Mason was theprimary stockholder in the Quincy Mine which produced 10% of the total districtproduction.

     Prior to 1880, all the drilling was done by doublejacking. This required a team of two men, one holding and turning the drill toolwhile the other hit it with a six pound sledge hammer. The short holes ( usuallythree feet or less) were loaded with black powder. The transition from handdrilling to the use of compressed air drills went smoother in the Keweenaw thanin many other mining districts. The mine owners made it economicallyadvantageous for the miners to use the air drills and phased them in over a period of twentyyears. Oftentimes in the more economically marginal areas of the mines, the costof running compressed air lines exceeded the costs of hand mining, so mining wasstill done by hand drilling. There alsowas less of a problem with silicosis in the miners than in many other districts.The use of cooling water incorporated into the drills lessened the dust problemthat was experienced when the drills were first used. The mines initiallyconverted to some Rand drills which required two men to operate. When the ownersconverted to one man drills from Ingersoll-Rand, the miners did not want to usethis technology.

     The Cornish miners were the first major group ofimmigrants to come to the mines and their experience in mining soon led them tocontrol much of the mining operations. In Cornwall in the 1700's, there had beenmuch advancement in the art of mining as deeper workings led to greater use ofsteam power for hoisting and pumping. The advent of black powder for blastingthe rock also changed the nature of mining. The Cornish industry had relied onthe miners as independent contractors. On the day of the "set", minemanagers put the work out for contract bidding. There were two types of mining"tutwork" - which was the sinking of shafts and drifting throughunproductive rock, and the mining tributors - who mined the ore from stopes.Success in mining required that the miners be able to do up to six months ofwork and decide how much they were able to bid to get the work done and make aprofit. The adventurers had to be able to get a rough idea on the tenor of theore, how much it would cost to mine and sort the ore, and what the ore wouldbring in profit since they were paid a percentage of the value of the ore. Thiscreated a group of highly skilled miners who understood a broad range of topicson the issue of mining. During the mid 1850's there was a severe depression inthe mining industry in Cornwall, so many miners emigrated to Canada and theUnited States. The miners typically had to pay for the supplies used in the miningprocess; candles, powder, fuse, and drill steel.

     Hoisting rock from the mines usually began as a manpowered operation. Two men could lift 1-2 tons of rock from a depth of 100 feet perdays work. When the mine grew to a larger size, horse powered whims were used toraise the rock from the mine. Most mines eventually converted to ( and ones withbig plans started out with) a steam powered hoist to raise the rock to thesurface. 

      Initially, there was a lot of handling/sorting of rockin the combination shaft/rock house. Over a period of time, this operationbecame more efficient as gravity was used to replace muscle power. As the ore was brought to the surface, waste rock couldbe dumped in an area where it was taken directly to the waste rock dump. Orewould be dumped over two grizzlies ( grates made with iron rail). The largestrocks ( which would not fall through the grate) would be fed into a large Blake jaw crusher.The output from this crusher plus the rejects (oversized pieces of rock) from the second grizzly would be fed into a smaller Blake crusher. The materialfrom this crusher and the material that went directly through the two grizzlieswould go into an ore bin. Ore was gravity fed from the ore bin into railroadcars for the trip to the stamp mill. Any large pieces of native copper would berun through a large drop hammer to remove any country rock and was sent directly tothe smelter. As time went on, the miners tried to keep from having to hoistwaste rock and tried to dispose of it within previously mined areas (stopes) underground( it also helped to support the mine openings).

    The first trains in the area were constructed in the 1860's toconnect the mines with the stamp mills and supply docks. In the mid 1880's the first trains fromthe Midwest were connected with the local tracks and the isolation in the winterwas lessened.

     The mills primarily used stamps for crushing the oreand separating the copper from the rock. They did try to use roller mills tobreak the ore and although they were more efficient at breaking the rock, theywere also more prone to breakdowns. Initially, Cornish stamps (basically a largemortar and pestle) were used. Thesefeatured cams to lift the stamp head and used gravity for the drop force. Latersteam stamps were developed which directly connected a steam driven piston withthe stamp head. This allowed steam to power both the lifting and the dropping ofthe stamp. Where the first stamps could process 1-2 tons of rock per day, thesteam powered stamps eventually could break up to 750 tons of rock per day.

    Over the winter of 1913, the Quincy mine converted to oneman drills. During the winter there was less union agitation. When summer came,there was a massive strike as the mine owners attempted to introduce the newtechnology and fire workers. There had been relative labor peace in thedistrict, but these developments led to an increase in membership in the WesternFederation of Miners. From a start in November, 1908 the union membership hadgrown to 7,000 members by the summer of 1913. The strike started on July 23, 1913, but by themiddle of August some mines were back in operation. On December 24, at a partygiven for the children at the Italian Hall in Calumet, someone yelled out"fire", causing a stampede and the deaths of 74; 60 of them children. The strike was over by April1914. Many of the miners left the area and moved to Detroit to work for Ford inthe automotive industry.

    Like many other occupations such as cowboys with rodeosand lumberjacks with logrolling and sawing contests, miners also competed in contests of their skills. The primary contests were for rock drilling, eithersingle jacking (one man) or double jacking (two man teams). The judges imported Vermont granite and timedthe drilling to a particular depth. Muckers (men who shoveled the broken piecesof ore into mine cars for transport to the shaft) also competed in contests(they would shovel a couple of tons of rock from a 6x3x2 foot bin). The town'ssocial life revolved around a number of fraternal organizations, fire companies, and ethnic religiousgroups.

Hammer and drill contest in 1909 at the corner of Elm & 6th in Calumet. Twoteams of two men are competing in a drilling contest. One man is sledging whilethe other  holds and turns the drill and cleans out the hole. Note thegraduated lengths of drill steel between the competitors and the judges. Thesecontests often used an imported granite (Vermont was popular) to provide a fairand uniform drilling medium. Photo courtesy Michigan Technological Universityarchives and Copper Country Historical Collections Reeder negative 26174.

A mine near Hancock.

Red Jacket shaft house, Calumet. This shaft was unusual in that it was verticalinstead of inclined (these followed the dip of the ore bearings beds). This mineshaft was sunk to mine an area of the Calumet mines and keep it separate fromtheir other mines in the area. Fires had closed the main C&H mines for significantperiods of time, and this shaft was an insurance policy against completeproduction loss due to fire. Therewere specialized skips for removing rock from the mine, taking men into and outof the mine, taking supplies and equipment into the mine, and for dewatering themine ( some mines did use pumps for this purpose, but the drier mines could usea skip for water removal). Some of the original and smaller mines used horsepowered whims for hoisting, but most operations relied on steam to power thisequipment.

Man engine from the Quincy Mine ca. 1890. There were two sets of platforms whichreciprocated up and down (ladder is to far left). To ascend or descend, one would stepfrom side to side and ride the platforms to the surface or down to the workinglevels. Mine captain is to theright in the white clothes and the miners can be seen carrying their lunchbuckets. Photo courtesy Michigan Technological Universityarchives and Copper Country Historical Collections. Haer MI-2-112.

Miners on mancar just up from the Quincy mine. The shafts were inclined so that amancar rather than a cage ( like an elevator - used in vertical shafts) were used to take miners down into the mine. Minersused candles or oil lamps to provide light underground during this period (later, they used carbide or electric lamps). Time was transition from"soft" hardhats to more rigid ones. The candles were often attached tothe hats with clay. 

This is a drift in the mine. Note the large size of the timbers supportingthe roof of the mine. The mines reached a vertical depth of 6000 feet and largetimbers were necessary to support the large pressures wanting to close theopenings. The angle of the back (roof) follows the dip of the ore bodies in the mines.Trammers would push ore carts along the rails between the stopes where the orewas being mined and the shaft (it was cheaper to hire men to push the ore cartsrather than using mules or locomotives).

Quincy mine location looking north from the #2 shaft ca. 1922-28. Nob shaft isin the background. Shaft and rock house is to the left and the boiler house andhoist are in the center ( cooling pond to the right - city of Houghton is off theright side of the photograph). Photo courtesy MichiganTechnological University archives and Copper Country Historical Collections.Nils Eilertsen neg. 03369.

Quincy mine ore cars 1926. Massive ore from 77th level north on East Branch No.6 shaft. Pieces marked x1 and x2 were one piece that weighed 6.5 tons. Eachpiece  was 7 or 8 feet by 4 feet with maximum thickness of 20 inches. Themining companies often set up their own short line railroads to transport theore from the mines to the stamp mills and smelters. These were usually along theshores of lakes to provide easy access to water for cooling, disposing of thestamp sands, and transportation to the outside markets. Photocourtesy Michigan Technological University archives and Copper CountryHistorical Collections. Nils Eilertsen neg. 03402.