Joel Dinda's photos with the keyword: cci

This is the "C" shaft at Cliffs Shaft Mine in Ishpeming. The guy in the lower left corner--I think his name's John--is a retired Cleveland Cliffs engineer who now volunteers at the museum. An interesting and informative guide, I must say. The tour's basically of the surface workings, which are better-preserved but less interesting than at Painesdale, and (far) more compact than those at Calumet. All the transportation periphernalia is gone, and much of the equipment went elsewhere when the mine closed. The main buildings remain. Joan and I were the entire tour group. Never took a mine tour with a group of two, before.

Part of the complex of buildings surviving at the Cliffs Shaft Mine, in Ishpeming; photographed in the early 1990s (my notes say 1992, but I don't fully trust them). This is the greatest and most interesting of the Upper Peninsula's iron mines. This remarkable (and decidedly photogenic --link from Michigan Tech) mine closed in 1967, but has recently reopened as a museum. Virtually the entire complex still stands.