Joel Dinda's photos with the keyword: iron

Sculpture by James Oleson. Hastings, Michigan

Sculpture by James Oleson. Hastings, Michigan

Sculpture by James Oleson. Hastings, Michigan

Near Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota. Looks like they could easily put the mine back into production, but that's likely an oversimplification. Taken on an excursion with the Missabe Railroad Historical Society.

Continuing our Soudan Mine tour. As you can see, the mine commanded the local high ground; that's Tower Soudan, Minnesota, down below. Terrific view. Soudan Underground State Park; 1990. Shot with my Minolta Freedom camera.

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.

Hopewell, Pennsylvania. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100

At Bridge View Park, St. Ignace.

Ironworld Museum, Chisholm, Minnesota, 1990.

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.

Fayette State Park , Garden Peninsula, Michigan. Fayette's at the north end of Lake Michigan, across Big Bay de Noc from Escanaba and really not far from Green Bay. That's Snail Shell Harbor in the foreground. I've labelled some of the buildings with notes. Taken from the trail atop the limestone cliffs . Camera: Nikon N90s. June, 1998.

I was trespassing. I admit it. Palmer, Michigan; the edge of an open pit iron mining operation run by Cleveland Cliffs. Sometime in the late 1980s. This plant processes taconite ore (rock) into pellets for shipping to steel plants "down the lakes." Nowadays you can take guided tours of the Tilden Mine, which is adjacent to this property. I've not yet done so, but I shall. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100. Scanned from a print.

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.

Interlake's Elton Hoyt, 2nd, at Marquette's Presque Isle dock, sometime in the late 1980s. (The original Elton Hoyt, 2nd, was boss of the Pickands Mather [Interlake] fleet.) This ship is now sailing as Michipicoten. An old scan; we'll find the negative some day and rescan. Until that time, I rather like this picture. Shot with my Minolta Freedom 100.

Here's a better illustration of the layout of the Marquette upper harbor coal dock. The ship Presque Isle is snugged up against the ore dock, and has run its unloader to the coal dock. The whole thing's conveyors and similar transport mechanisms. The really neat thing about the Marquette upper harbor is how close you can get to the boats. This photo shows that well.

August 1990: The ship named Presque Isle beside the ore dock called Presque Isle in Marquette, Michigan. Beyond the dock is Marquette's Presque Isle Park, which may explain something. But the ship's probably named after Erie's Presque Isle. I posted another photo of this ship some time ago, with a comment on the mixed paint job the ship would be sporting a couple years hence. This photo shows the original paint scheme. The ship is unloading coal into the conveyor system known as the Presque Isle Coal Dock. A piece of that facility clips the upper right corner of the photo. The conveyor moves the coal to piles around Wisconsin Electric Power's generating plant (still another facility named Presque Isle). Strangely, the (ship) Presque Isle is too wide for the ore dock to reach the hold's center, so she'll head elsewhere for an ore load. Properly speaking, Presque Isle is not a ship at all; she's a barge with a tug boat built into her stern. If you study the details in this photo, you'll see how they fit together.

Marquette has two ore docks; the long-abandoned downtown dock and the Upper Harbor (commonly called Presque Isle, or LS&I) dock pictured here. This is a grainy picture, but it shows good detail about the operation of this old gravity dock. As you can see, there are excellent vantages for watching that labor at this dock. The photo dates from around 1990. When the Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railroad built the Presque Isle dock in 1912, this was a state-of-the-art structure. It's now well past its prime, but it's a great place to watch ships. And trains. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100