Champion Mine

Champion Mine, Painesdale, Michigan.

Champion Mine #4 Rockhouse, Painesdale, Michigan. Being preserved by Painesdale Mine & Shaft . Best viewed as a potential museum.... Explored! #369 on Flickr [August 2, 2013] Thanks!

Another picture from Painesdale's Champion Mine on a beautiful autumn day in 1990. Since I was there with a railfan group, the Copper Range boxcars naturally drew some comment, and some speculation about the efforts which might be required to preserve them. There should have been some follow-through, as the cars were eventually sold for scrap. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100

Northern Michigan's mining districts: Heavy industry in the wilderness. Now largely gone to ruin. Champion Mine's Rock (Shaft) House #4 in Painesdale on a gorgeous fall day in 1990--another pic from our DSS&A excursion. Like Cliffs Shaft Mine and the Quincy Smelter, this facility closed in 1967. That coincidence of dates is not really a coincidence. About half the Champion Mine complex still stands and is in reasonably good shape, partly because the mine serves as Adams township's main water source. The shaft house and other structures at the location now belong to a local preservation/historical group, called Painesdale Mine & Shaft, who are turning the place into a museum. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100

Champion Mine, Painesdale, Michigan, 1991; this is the entrance to the headframe. The last copper mine to close on the Keweenaw Peninsula. Functioning as a water works at the time; I suspect it still is, but that's not clear at the site. Taken during a tour with the Soo Line Historical and Technical Society's DSS&A Special Interest Group. Now a restoration project, and a potential museum.

Champion Mine, Painesdale, Michigan, 1990. The structure's in better repair , now.

Champion Mine, Painesdale, Michigan; scanned from a slide taken in September of 1990.

Shaft 4's rockhouse in the foreground, with the machine shop back behind. An abandoned (since 1967) underground copper operation at Painesdale, Michigan, later the local waterworks. Quite well preserved, considering, but in constant danger of deterioration. Anyone know whether they're still trying to turn the site into a museum? The PM&S website doesn't exactly look dead, but there's been no recent maintenance.

Built in 1829 at Port Huron, Michigan. This is Michigan's oldest surviving navigation light, and the second oldest on the Great Lakes.