Calumet Copper Mines, Michigan, 1905

Brave hard working men

Cool picture. Building probably made from old growth white pine. I have relatives in Calumet. Mustache seemed to be in fashion

Great interesting posts as always.

X2.

I always liked that song… “ I was born a copper miners daughter”

I think that was " coal" miners Daughter ^^^

i think that mine is still there and they give tours ,just a couple hours north

X3 hard working UNION men.

Cool picture! Those are real men! Compared to now days!!

Might have helped filter some dust so it didn't go up the nose, beard would have been to hot maybe

What he said. They pointed the ends of their 'stache and poked them in each nostril to filther out the rock-dust. They kept them curled up and out like handlebars when not underground or eating rutabaga heavy pasties. The first mustache wax was really just Yooper snot! That's a true story, or at least it should be.

Sorry guys, I'm in a goofy mood. I think it is all the pain Rx in me!

I worked at all three kinds of coal mines….drift, slope, and shaft. Drift mines…you ride horizontally into the seam from an outcrop or box cut ( a big hole in the ground that’s dug down to the coal seam. First mine I worked, I was a motorman, hauled twenty car trips of coal out of the mine to the surface to the tipple, and brought empty cars back to the working section, ten miles in. The picture in the post is basically a slope car. You had a big winch with a large cable ( 1+” ) and it would lower the car down the steep set of tracks. The slope car had automatic brakes that would engage if it went over 6 mph. A slope cut is made from the surface at a pretty steep angle through solid rock until it hits the coal seam. From there things go horizontal. I’ve sunk a few shafts also. What we did was drill a 12-18 inch hole into the existing mine works from the surface, then attach a big bit ( 18 foot across ) to the shaft of the drill and begin to cut a hole back to the surface. All the cuttings keep falling back down the hole as it is bored, and you haul them away as they fall. When the shaft was all one, you installed a head piece on the surface and had an elevator cage to go in and out with. Ours typically held 15 guys. One mine I worked had a 660 foot shaft. The worst job I ever had in the mine was riding on the outside top of the elevator car in the winter, chipping built up ice the length of the shaft.

I had the time of my life, those 37 years. Never a dull moment. If I was 18 again, I’d go underground again…it’s a way of life with the greatest guys you could ever ask to work with.