Joel Dinda's photos with the keyword: mining

Kaymoor One Mine , New River Gorge, West Virginia. The down stairway goes to Kaymoor Bottom. Eight hundred steps, we're told; we weren't up to it. The miners apparently scrambled up a trail every morning....

This waterfall's on the trail to Kaymoor One mine site in West Virginia's New River Valley. It's a tall thing; the photo shows less than half of the cascade. Just of bit of Joan showing on the bridge.... Photo taken with my Nikon N90s

Better large. Mountain Iron, Minnesota, has a viewing tower which overlooks the Mountain Iron, Minnesota Taconite (MinnTac), and Wacotah mines. Mountain Iron was the original Mesabi Range mine. MinnTac was perhaps the last great mine on The Range. Wacotah, as you can see, has become a rather pretty lake. And there's an amazing amount of gear in this picture. Shot August, 1992, with a panoramic point-n-shoot.

A small piece of LTV's taconite processing plant at Erie Mining Company, Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota. Polymet , a mining company with a fairly large northern Minnesota property, plans to use the plant for processing copper and other non-ferrous ores. Taken during the recent convention of the Missabe Railroad Historical Society.

Soudan Underground State Park, Tower, Minnesota, 1990.

This door's in a bunker-like building near Calumet & Hecla's Red Jacket shaft, once the world's deepest mine at 8000 feet. I presume the building originally held explosives. Now part of the Keweenaw National Historical Park in Calumet, Michigan; shot from the Coppertown USA museum.

One of the surviving structures at Kaymoor One mine in West Virginia. This was a thriving operation into the sixties; now part of the New River Gorge National Park. Accessible only by trail (or long stairway), now. Neat stonework.... Camera: Nikon N90s

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

Camera: Nikon N90s Another photo from our July, 2003, trip to the New River Gorge. Here's a different view of what still stands at the Kaymoor One mine site. The grill at the center of the photo protects a ventilation opening; the mine's entrance is behind the concrete building down the trail. This was a major mine, and during its prime this shelf on the canyon wall must have been a terribly busy place. Four decades after the operation closed, most of the mining structures are still standing but nature is reclaiming them and it certainly looks very different from what the miners must have known. Balancing preservation, safety, and natural decay is a challenge for the Parks Service, particularly in the parks in the National Heritage program areas. This location appears to test those efforts.

The New River Gorge has dozens of ghost towns.... Down below New River Bridge is a reasonably easy trail to the ruin of the Kaymoor mine. Properly speaking, this is not the Kaymoor ghost town; these are the buildings at the entrance to Kaymoor One. This mine closed in 1962, and the buildings have been neglected for four decades. The mine was about two thirds of the way up a thousand-foot hill. Most of the miners lived above the mine at Kaymoor Top, which is still inhabited, or below at Kaymoor Bottom. Besides housing for miners, Kaymoor Bottom had the rail connection to the outside world, and featured a battery of coke ovens for much of the mine's history. This town was abandoned more or less with the mine. There's a stair from the mine to Kaymoor Bottom, but Joan and I weren't up to the 800 steps.... The road below New River Bridge was once the sole roadway which crossed the gorge. It's a skinny, twisty, scenic path down the valley wall, across the bridge at Fayette Station, then back up the other side, crossing back and forth under the bridge in a series of switchbacks. Very scenic, but pretty intimidating.

Near Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota. From a Missabe Railroad Historical Society convention fan trip, in 2006.

I'm playing with Aperture, and with Connected Flow's FlickrExport add-in to the product.... Taken at Cliffs-Erie (Erie Mine), Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota, in August of 2006. Part of an excursion with the Missabe Railroad Historical Society. Explored! #417 on Sunday, July 29, 2007. Thanks!

At the Cliffs-Erie complex, Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota, during last month's convention of the Missabe Railroad Historical Society.

Explored! #184 on Friday, January 18, 2008. Thanks! Both the taconite processing plant and the F9 (Covered Wagon) are apparently functional, but unused, near Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota. This photo posted just to make my brother jealous.... We're back from vacation. More tomorrow.

I tend to vacation in mining areas.... Cliffs Shaft Mine, in Ishpeming, was perhaps the most important of all Michigan iron mines. There were a few mines which shipped more ore, but this was the first great Marquette Range mine, and it was an important producer for decades. Now a museum, and definitely worth the stop. Our guide was a retired Cleveland Cliffs engineer, and most informative. To me, the most interesting thing he said was that he doesn't believe the Negaunee/Ishpeming mines will ever reopen, despite significant remaining deep-underground deposits, because the economics seem unlikely ever to justify the effort. I've heard other opinions from apparently-knowledgable people, but this guy seemed to have impeccable credentials.

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.

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

What was once the office of the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company; it's now home to the Keweenaw National Historical Park. Calumet, Michigan.