Joel Dinda's photos with the keyword: champion mine

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

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.