Republic Mine

Republic Mine, from the overlook platform in Republic, Michigan, 'round about 1990. Andy Larsen's website has a very similar photo dated July, 1992. (I have dozens of versions of this photograph, taken mostly in the late 80s and early 90s. I suspect that Andy has hundreds.)

Republic Mine was originally opened in 1872 as an underground operation, and continued to operate as a shaft mine until 1926. Cleveland Cliffs'* open pit operation began in the late 1950s; they stopped the mining in 1982. For a decade and a half the pit looked more or less like this--as though they'd blown the supper whistle one evening and never came back. At the time this photo was taken, Cliffs* was claiming that the Republic still contained enough ore for another fifty years' mining effort, which they were holding in reserve until another day. I presume that to still be true.

As Terraserver's 1998 aeriel photo of the mine shows, the pit was only a few yards from the Michigamme River. In the late 1990s, CCI* stopped whatever was keeping the flood away from the pit and the mine began to fill. Andy has a wonderful sequence of photos showing this occurring.

Andy's Republic Mine pages are wonderful. I particularly like this set of photographs.

*CCI, Cleveland Cliffs, Cliffs--all the same....