The Portage Lake Smelter Tour- The Lake Superior Smelting Company, Pt.2

Part 4 in our continuing series about the smelters of Portage Lake. Today, we travel to Dollar Bay to continue the story of the Lake Superior Smelting Company.

In Dollar Bay, the Lake Superior Smelting complex, which employed over 300 men around the turn of the century, included 11 reverberatory furnaces with mechanical ladling and casting capabilities. The casting machine used an endless belt system and a chain elevator to fill molds, dump them, and deliver cooled castings from the quenching pool to the docks on Portage Lake for shipment. The empty molds passed through a rosin fire to prevent new castings from sticking as they returned to the furnace for another charge. This highly automated process allowed a single machine to cast 34,700 pounds of copper in under an hour during a test run. [i]

To facilitate the movement of both raw mineral and refined copper, the LSSC works featured both rail and water connections. The Calumet and Hancock Railroad laid a 3,900 foot spur into the complex, which further branched into three main sidings serving individual furnaces and storehouses. On the shore of Portage Lake, meanwhile, the smelter boasted a huge coal and copper dock, one of the largest and most extensive dock systems in the Keweenaw and widely regarded as one of the best mooring locations by ship captains.[ii] These docks were used to both ship refined copper as well as to receive raw mineral. As one of the LSSC’s primary customers and owners, the Isle Royale Mining Company, was situated across Portage Lake from Dollar Bay, barges were used to transport raw copper rock from the company’s stamp mill directly to the smelter.[iii] Slag was disposed of locally, hauled by road to the northern shore of Dollar Bay, were the LSSC maintained a huge slag dump.[iv]

By the time of the 1913 strike which temporarily halted all copper production on the Keweenaw, the Dollar Bay smelter had undergone significant changes in both technology and ownership. In 1912 the Tamarack and Osceola Copper Manufacturing Company sold its property in Dollar Bay, and the LSSC was jointly bought by the Tamarack, Osceola Consolidated, and Isle Royale companies. Under these new but similarly-named owners, the Dollar Bay works smelted mineral for the Tamarack, Osceola, Isle Royale, Ahmeek, and Centennial mines.[v] This action was but one of several mergers and buyouts which gradually brought the LSSC under the broad aegis of Calumet and Hecla, which owned controlling interests in all of the smelter’s parent mines. While the titular Calumet and Hecla mines smelted their mineral in Lake Linden and Buffalo, New York, the subsidiary “consolidated” mines relied primarily upon the LSSC to treat their copper.[vi]

Control of the LSSC began to drift to C&H in 1905, when C&H financiers purchased large minority shares in the Osceola, Tamarack, Ahmeek, and Isle Royale mining companies. In 1907, C&H began a lengthy legal battle to win complete control of the Osceola Consolidated Mining Company, an action which lasted over two years and ultimately favored C&H. As such, C&H became the owner of the largest share of LSSC stock, passing the smelting works to yet another set of new owners.[vii] Despite these changes, the end of the First World War spelled the end for the LSSC, as the demand for copper abruptly fell off. The smelting works in Dollar Bay were closed in 1919, ending one of the longest smelting operations in the Keweenaw.[viii]

Lake Superior Smelting Company works in Dollar Bay

Ladling copper from a reverberatory furnace

Copper ready to be loaded for shipment at the smelter docks 

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[i] Stevens, Horace J. The Copper Handbook: A Manual of the Copper Industry of the World. Vol. 5, 1905, pg 508; Vol. 6, 1906, pg. 624-25; Vol. 8, 1908, pg. 863; Vol. 11, 1912-13, pg. 520; Vol. 12, 1916 Supplement, pg. 689-90.[ii] Monette, Clarence J. Dollar Bay, Michigan. Pg. 91-93.

[iii] “Former Smelter at Dollar Bay is Recalled.” Daily Mining Gazette. Sept. 14, 1957. 

[iv] “Sketch Showing Lake Superior Smelting Company, Tamarack’s Union Coal Dock, and Isle Royale Mill Properties.” Index of Company Property: Lake Superior Smelting Company and the Lake Mill, Smelting, and Refining Company. April 1, 1923.

[v] Stevens, Horace J. The Copper Handbook: A Manual of the Copper Industry of the World. Vol. 5, 1905, pg 508; Vol. 6, 1906, pg. 624-25; Vol. 8, 1908, pg. 863; Vol. 11, 1912-13, pg. 520; Vol. 12, 1916 Supplement, pg. 689-90.

[vi] Annual Report of the Calumet and Hecla Consolidated Copper Mining Company for the Year 1907. Pg. XXX

[vii] Stevens The Copper Handbook, Vol. 11, 1912/13, pg, 193.

[viii] Monette, Clarence J. Dollar Bay, Michigan. Pg. 49.

The Portage Lake Smelter Tour- The Lake Superior Smelting Company, Pt.1

Continuing our tour of the Portage Lake smelters, we move on to the oldest complex, which is actually right next door to the Quincy Smelter. The Lake Superior Smelter is still around, but you probably drive right by on the road between Hancock and Dollar Bay without noticing it! Many of it’s buildings survive today as part of the Houghton County Road Commission.

The oldest of the Portage Lake smelters had one of the longest and most complex operational and business histories of any mining-related enterprise on the Keweenaw Peninsula. As small mines sprang up after the initial copper rush of the late 1840s, mining companies routinely shipped their mineral to smelters in Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and other developed urban centers for treatment. However, the limited shipping season and the high cost of transportation quickly revealed the need for a local smelter.

As such, the first smelter in the Keweenaw, the Portage Lake Smelting Works, was constructed in Hancock in 1860. The smelter featured four reverberatory furnaces, and was virtually identical in design to a smelter in Detroit.[i] As the only smelter in the region, the Portage Lake Smelting Works treated copper for virtually all of the local mines. In 1865/66, for example, the smelter held contracts with the Quincy, Pewabic, Franklin, Isle Royale, Huron, Grand Portage, Hancock, Arcadian, Concord, South Pewabic, and Hecla mines.[ii]In 1867, the Portage Lake Smelting Works merged with the Waterbury and Detroit Copper Company to form the Detroit and Lake Superior Copper Company.

For the next 20 years, most mines sent their copper to Hancock to be refined, and as such the smelter complex in Hancock grew exponentially.[iii] According to Sanborn fire insurance maps drawn in 1888 and 1893, the smelter featured 13 reverberatory furnaces in three buildings, as well as a cupola building with four furnaces. The surrounding support structures included a combined machine and blacksmith shop, a cooper shop, an icehouse, at least two smaller office buildings, a sand house, and several small charcoal storage sheds. On the Portage Lake shoreline, a large lime and charcoal storage yard surrounded a mineral warehouse and dock. On land, meanwhile, the smelter was served by the narrow gauge Hancock and Calumet Railroad. Several slag storage sheds lined the H&C tracks, suggesting that slag was shipped out by rail for disposal elsewhere. The entire complex was connected throughout with small hand-powered rail lines, primarily for moving cast products to the dock warehouse and slag to the storage sheds. Despite this expansive complex, by 1900 the Hancock works were in decline. Only six reverberatories remained, with one furnace building converted into the Palace Ice Rink.[iv]

Ironically, this dramatic decline was linked to business transactions which were a direct result of the smelter’s longstanding monopoly on copper smelting in the Keweenaw.By the late 1880s several companies began investing in small-scale smelting operations of their own. In Dollar Bay, a small smelter was added to the Tamarack and Osceola Copper Manufacturing Company wire and rolling mills to handle those companies’ mineral in 1889. Tamarack and Osceola consolidated their smelting operations with the Detroit and Lake Superior Company in 1891, forming the Lake Superior Smelting Company. [v] Initially capitalized for $1.2 million, shares in the LSSC sold for $25 each, and the company was controlled by and smelted for the Tamarack, Osceola, Isle Royale, and Ahmeek mines.

Throughout the 1890s the LSSC continued operating smelters in both Hancock and Dollar Bay, but the Dollar Bay works were continually improved and enlarged. By 1903 the Hancock plant remained operational, but was used only to meet auxiliary production needs. The Hancock smelter was ultimately abandoned and dismantled by 1908.

The Lake Superior Smelting Works, just to the right of the old swing bridge.

 

Today the Lake Superior Smelter in Hancock is still around, but largely changed from its original appearance. You’ve probably noticed the long, low poor rock buildings with an arched roof. These were some of the original furnace buildings, which are now used to store snowplows and other equipment.

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[i] Gates, William B. Michigan Copper and Boston Dollars: An Economic History of the Michigan Copper Mining Industry. Pg. 28, 42-43.

[ii] Letterbook of the Portage Lake Smelting Works. Letter of May 10, 1865, and “Engrossement of Mineral and Slag smelted with the production of Fine Copper at the Portage Lake Smelting Works in the year 1866.”

[iii] Gates, William B. Michigan Copper and Boston Dollars: An Economic History of the Michigan Copper Mining Industry. Pg. 73.

[iv] Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps. Hancock, Michigan. June 1888, No.5; August 1893, No.5; June 1900, No.3.

[v] Gates, William B. Michigan Copper and Boston Dollars: An Economic History of the Michigan Copper Mining Industry. 

Quincy Smelter History, Pt.2

Part 2 in our continuing series about the history of Quincy and the other Portage Lake smelters. Today we wrap up our look at the Quincy Smelter. Our next post will look at the oldest smelter on Portage Lake, the Lake Superior Smelting Company.

      During this period of rapid growth (1898-1910), the Quincy Smelter handled copper produced in the Quincy Mine as well as the products of several other local mines. Between its construction in 1898 and 1908, no less than 13 mines (Arcadian, Michigan, Franklin tribute, Mass Consolidated, Champion, Adventure Consolidated, Winona, Phoenix Consolidated, Rhode Island, Victoria, Franklin, Centennial, and Allouez) sent their copper to Ripley to be smelted by Quincy.[i] Due to the somewhat variable nature of copper smelting, the Quincy Smelter employed different numbers of men at different times, ranging from 16 men (working on a Sunday, when the works were typically closed) to 80 to 90 men. After the cupola was put out of blast, the cupola workers were no longer needed, returning to work when the furnace was restarted.

            After this initial period of prosperity and expansion, the Quincy Smelter experienced the first of many difficult times which reflected the increasingly precarious position of the Keweenaw copper mines in general. In 1913 the labor unrest and general strike emanating from the Calumet and Hecla mines spread to Quincy, which closed its mines for 10 days in August. Although workers slowly returned to the underground and surface plants, the smelter was closed for over two months, reopening with one furnace lit on October 19. Additionally, as World War One broke out in 1914, the demand for copper fell off, leaving the smelter with little work. As the war dragged on, custom orders increased, but high operating costs meant that little more than maintenance work was performed at the smelter. Then, in another flurry of construction in 1919, a new 16 by 32 foot furnace was added. In an effort to reduce costs and increase efficiency, the new furnace was capable of refining 130,000 pounds of copper per charge, more than double the capacity of the older furnaces. The new furnace was charged with a 12 ½ ton overhead crane, and tapped into a 22 foot diameter Walker casting wheel. The casting room was equipped with a 6 ton crane, and cooled castings from the Walker machine were automatically transported via an elevated trolley to the dockside warehouse.[ii]

            Despite these improvements, 1920 marked the first time in 50 years that the Quincy Mining Company failed to pay dividends to its stockholders, beginning a long, slow slide towards closure. The smelter closed in 1931, followed by the Quincy Mine in 1932. While the mine reopened for business in 1937, the smelter remained closed but in a state of readiness, maintained on a yearly budget of $6,000. Even while closed, the smelter did generate some small profit for Quincy, as in 1940, when cleanup of the site yielded a small amount of recoverable copper. The Quincy Mine permanently closed on September 1, 1945; however, the smelter would soon see an upswing in activity.[iii]

            Although the Quincy Mine closed for good in 1945, the Quincy Smelter actually reopened in 1948. Reactivated to smelt small amounts of Calumet and Hecla mineral on a toll basis, a small furnace was built at the smelter to handle rock reclaimed from Torch Lake, marking the first smelting activity at the site since 1931. To cope with the increased workload, the No.5 furnace was rebuilt and reconfigured to use pulverized coal fuel.[iv]  The smelter continued to operate through the 1950s and 1960s, slowly shifting from the treatment of reclaimed stamp sands to scrap copper. Faced with increasing environmental regulations, the smelter closed permanently in 1971.

The smelter and Houghton, as seen from Quincy Hill ca. 1910. The railroad trestle that leads in from the left goes into the mineral house, where mineral from the stamp mill was unloaded.

The steamer North Sea docked at the smelter, post-1920.

              Interested in learning more about the Quincy Smelter? Several resources are available online. Visit the Quincy Mining Company records of the Historic American Engineering Record, run by the U.S. Department of the Interior to document historic industrial sites. Simply search for “Quincy Mine” to see a complete set of measured drawing, black and white photos, and hundreds of data pages relating to the Quincy mine, smelter, and stamp mills. Another great resource is the Keweenaw Digital Archive, run by the Michigan Tech Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections. The Digital Archive contains thousands of images of the Copper Country, including all of the pictures above. This online collection is just a fraction of the Archives’ collection (so be sure to visit the Archives in person if possible!) but is easily accessible from your computer. 

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[i] Record Book of the Quincy Smelting Works, 1898-1908.

[ii] QMC Annual Reports, 1910-1920.

[iii] QMC Annual Reports, 1928-1929, 1937, 1939-1940, 1945

[iv] QMC Annual Reports, 1948-1950.

Quincy Smelter History, Pt.1

To better understand why the Quincy Smelter is so important today, we’ll look at a detailed history of the site, followed by a discussion of the four other smelters which once operated on Portage Lake.

Like all of the early mines on the Keweenaw Peninsula, the Quincy Mining Company originally relied upon smelters beyond the Lake Superior region to smelt the copper extracted from its underground workings. As mentioned above, by the mid-1860s Quincy sent its copper to the Portage Lake Smelting Works for treatment, an arrangement that apparently continued for several years. However, as the underground workings at Quincy rapidly expanded through the 1890s, the need for a company-owned smelter became clear. After constructing a railroad, a new stamp mill complex, and expanding its surface works, Quincy began construction on a new smelter in Ripley in 1898.

            Work began on the Ripley smelter in May 1898. Continuing through the summer and autumn months, the smelter was “practically completed” by December 1, the day smelting began. Company reports for 1898 assured stockholders that the smelter was “of the most modern design, and it cannot fail to be a profitable investment, as well as a source of much gratification to the Company.”[i] The smelter was designed and built under the direction of Superintendent James R. Cooper, who quickly moved into a “commodious dwelling” constructed for him in 1900.[ii] As initially constructed, the smelter featured a furnace building 84 feet by 144 feet, constructed of redstone finished ashlar. Inside were four reverberatory furnaces vented by 75 foot tall smokestacks. To service the furnaces, the smelter also featured an older warehouse, a newer 50 by 100 foot warehouse (constructed in 1900), a stone casting house, a coal shed, cooper shop, and an engine house. In the first two years of operation, it was reported that the new smelter saved the Quincy Mining Company approximately $100,000 in costs previously devoted to shipping copper under contract to other smelters.[iii]

            In the early years of the Quincy Smelting Works, the smelting complex was almost continually expanded and upgraded. In 1902 another warehouse, designed for storing refined copper previous to shipment, was constructed. In 1904 a number of significant improvements were made to the smelter. A large sandstone mineral warehouse was constructed to house copper rock as it arrived from the stamp mills on Torch Lake. To economize movement from the mineral storage building to the furnaces, tram track were laid to deliver mineral directly above the charging doors of all four furnaces, thus eliminating the hand ladling previously required to charge the furnaces. In the same year Quincy also took on an increasing amount of custom smelting work for other area mines, so a fifth reverbratory furnace was constructed, housed in a 50 by 78 foot steel building. This new furnace processed 40,000 pounds of refined copper every 24 hours.[iv] 

            Over the next several years similarly significant additions were made to the smelter. In 1905 an elevated trolley system was installed to transport slag from the cupola furnace building to the vacant lot behind the smelter. A 150-horspower Cook boiler was installed in a new boilerhouse to power parts of the complex, and a belt conveyor was added to the No. 5 furnace (constructed in 1904) for rapid charging. In 1906 a briquetting plant was added to handle low-grade mineral, and electric trolleys were added to move slag pots, a task previously carried out by hand. Support structures such as a machine shop and mineral scales were added in 1907, while a testing laboratory was constructed in 1908. Using electrolytic testing, the lab routinely checked copper samples for conductivity and chemical composition, and further tested the quality of slag, iron, oxide, and lime drawn every half hour from the cupola. By 1909 the smelter was producing round billets for use in seamless tube construction, and in 1910 yet another new reverberatory furnace was added to replace the No. 5. To deal with the ever-increasing production demands, over a mile of railroad track was laid throughout the complex to connect the buildings, and the lakeshore near the warehouse dock was dredged to allow better access for shipping.[v]

Quincy Smelter ca. 1898. The cupola building is at left, while the reverberatory is at right. 

Reverberatory furnace

[i] Annual Report of the Quincy Mining Company for the Year 1898. Pg. 12. 

[ii] QMC Annual Report, 1900.

[iii] Stevens The Copper Handbook, Vol. 3, 1903, pg, XXX.

[iv] QMC Annual Reports, 1902, 1904.

[v] QMC Annual Reports, 1905-1910.

Underwater Archaeology at the Smelter

Before we continue our exploration of the historic copper smelters of the Keweenaw, we’ll take a brief detour to examine some of the modern research that’s being done at the Quincy Smelter. In September 2009, we had the pleasure of riding along with a number of other interested parties as they used new sonar technology to look at the smelter from a new angle.

Thanks to the efforts of a variety of individuals and organizations, some basic underwater archaeology has taken place at the Quincy Smelter. We tagged along with Brian Abbott, of Nautilus Marine Group, and Ken Vrana, director of the Isle Royale Institute, for some sonar imaging of the smelter shoreline. Using Michigan Tech’s research vessel, the Agassiz, and Brian’s imaging equipment, we were able to get a good look at some of the underwater features associated with the smelter. Thanks to the high-resolution sonar, we were able to quickly spot and identify features such as the Quincy dock and some remains of the old Franklin stamp mill which occupied the site before the smelter was built. This is a great step towards better understanding the smelter, and should also help guide future redevelopment plans.

 

The sonar imager

Getting the rig ready to go underwater

Sonar scan of the shoreline at the west end of the smelter, with dock pilings at the top

Smelter from the pilothouse of the R/V Agassiz

 

What is Smelting? Some Explanations

Since we’ll be talking about the Quincy Smelting Works for a while now, it might be helpful to first get some idea as to what happened at the smelter historically. So, the next few posts will be about copper smelting, smelters on the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan, and the Quincy Smelter specifically. So…

 What is smelting exactly? Smelting is actually a very simple process used to separate valuable minerals from surrounding rock. In the case of the Quincy and other Keweenaw smelters, the mineral was copper. Unlike other copper deposits around the world, Keweenaw copper is exceptionally pure, with only a few traces of other elements in it. However, the copper still has to be liberated from the rock surrounding it to produce a useable product. 

Liberating the copper actually began underground, in the copper mine. There, miners used drills and explosives to blast out chunks of copper-bearing rock. This rock was then hauled up to the surface through shaft-rockhouses, like the No.2 structure which still stands at the Quincy Mine. Although the copper was no longer underground, it was still surrounded by rock, so it had to be shipped to another mine facility, the stamp mill.

The stamp mill operated on the basic principle of a mortar and pestle. Heavy weights crushed and pulverized the copper rock into a fine sand. This mostly separated the small copper bits from the rock, but a variety of chemical and gravity separation technologies removed almost all of the rock from around the copper (you can still see evidence of this process nearly everywhere in the Keweenaw; large patches of course brown stamp sand cover beaches, clearings, creek beds, and even roads in the winter). So the copper was now free from rock, but was in thousands of tiny sand-like grains. Something had to be done to consolidate and fully refine the copper to make it useable.

After all that, the smelter FINALLY took the fine copper sand and refined it. To make to copper sand a whole and to remove impurities, a smelter used heat. At the smelter, the copper sand was loaded into a reverberatory furnace, which was basically just a big box with two chambers inside, divided by a low wall. The copper went on one side of the wall, a fire burned on the other. This way there was enough heat to melt the copper and rock, but not to burn it. After about 16 hours of heating, the copper and rock were totally molten, and ready fo refining. First, the molten rock (which was less dense and floated on top of the copper) was skimmed off and removed, creating a waste product called slag. The remaining copper was then rabbled, or mixed up, with a jet of air. This created more slag, which was also removed. Next, during the poling  process, large wooden poles were inserted into the furnace. As they burned, they removed more impurities. Finally, only 99.5% pure copper was left in the furnace. The furnace was tapped, and the pure copper cast into useable shapes and shipped off for sale.

But wait there’s more! Remember the slag that was removed from the reverberatory? It contained 15-20% copper, and the smelter didn’t allow it to go to waste. Slag was retreated in a cupola furnace, basically another form of blast furnace. By forcing oxygen through a mixture of molten slag and fuel, the cupola created high temperatures (think about using a bellows on a fire) which released more copper. This lower quality copper was also cast into useable shapes, and the slag was removed as waste.

 So there’s the copper smelting process from start to finish. Workers performed these tasks at smelters all over the Keweenaw, including the Quincy. Next time we’ll look at some of those other smelters, and see why the Quincy Smelter is so important today.

For more information, see: Thomas A. Rickard, The Copper Mines of Lake Superior, 1905.

Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to Quincy Miner’s blog! This blog isn’t so much about any one particular topic as it is about my various explorations of industrial history, museums, archaeology, and historic interpretation. We’ll start out with a series about the Quincy Smelting Works, a historic copper smelter located in Hancock, Michigan. The site is perhaps the only preserved copper smelter in the U.S., and one of a very few such sites in the world. As such, there’s a widespread effort underway right now to preserve and reuse the smelter. This preservation work includes the National Park Service, federal/state/local governments, historic preservation groups, academics, and people simply interested in saving an important historic landmark. We’ll talk more about the smelter in depth soon, but for now here’s a great image of the site, as seen across Portage Lake betweenthe cities of Houghton and Hancock, Michigan.