In Constant Flux…

Copper Country railroads are always changing, almost on a yearly basis. The boom and bust cycle of copper mining meant that railroads were built and abandoned almost as quickly. Large distances of harsh and unforgiving terrain made distance trains had to travel great, and their loads small. Populations shifted from town to town following the copper trail, and railroads had to move to accommodate. As a result railroads came and went with regularity, often changing names and owners just as much. This all makes for an nearly impossible job of reassembling all the pieces back together over a century later - as I have been attempting to accomplish during this series. Unfortunately no place along the Torch Lake corridor seems to have changed so much and so often as Tamarack Mills.

It was here at this hillside overlooking the deep waters of Torch Lake that the interests behind the Osceola and Tamarack Mines elected to build their stamp mills - 3 in total. The first mill was the Osceola, which you see pictures under construction above. Soon she was joined by the Tamarack Mills (seen in the background), 2 large installations that deposit most of the sands you see along the lake today. The mines did not have their own railroads, so they relied on independent firms to transport their copper to and from these mills. This job went to the Hancock and Calumet RR which built a dedicated branch down from the mines at Calumet to these mills.

Now for the fun part. In about 1923 the great C&H gobbled up the Tamarack and Osceola Mines during their consolidation. Around the same time the mine expanded their own rail operations (the Hecla & Torch Lake), using it for all copper transportation along its empire. With no mills or mines to serve, the Hancock & Calumet RR (now owned by the Mineral Range) abandoned its branch between Calumet and Tamarack City. C&H sold off two of the mills and demolished one of them to make room for a new reclamation plant to work the Tamarack tailings. They also opened their own Traprock Valley railroad, which ran down from Mohawk and used part of the H&C RR’s old right-of-way. The result of all this is the map you see above.

By 1930 there were three railroads crossing past this area. The first was the Mineral Range mainline, which ran from here out to a lumber mill at Bootjack. The second was the newly added Copper Range line, which runs atop the hill above the mills. The picture above is shown looking down that old right-of-way, now a snowmobile trail.

The third line - and the line I’m going to spend the most time on today - is that service line behind the mills. Original the Hancock & Calumet RR, it later became the Calumet & Hecla RR. No matter its name, the line’s primary purpose was to deliver copper and coal to the three mills located here. The line branches off of the Mineral Range main line at Lake Jct, a good mile down the hill from here. The line then came up the hill along what is now the dirt road you see above. From there it passes behind the mills, spinning off various spurs for coal and copper delivery.

The unique thing about this line was that it sat along the edge of a steep bluff; the result of which was the need of a variety of large trestles to carry the track to the mills and boiler houses. At its peak it must of all been quite a site, but today only footings remain - like the one above. This was a newer addition, built by C&H to feed its newly built reclamation plant.

Here’s another one, this time used as part of the rather long trestle used to deliver copper to the Osceola and Tamarack Mills. (I know it’s hard to see, and I apologize. Unfortunately this entire hillside is clearly marked as private so I couldn’t get any closer to investigate. This photo and all the rest were taken from the old rail grade.)

Heres a few more footings from the same trestle. As you can see the steel trestle supports were cut off a few feet up from the concrete. I think these are the same footings as you can see in the archive photo of the Osceola Mill at the start of this post.

These guys are very interesting. I’m not sure if their simply falling over or they were designed to be at an odd angle. I think these were supported the coal trestle to the Tamarack Mill.

Yet another bad photo, but you can make out another trestle foundation. This one I believe is for the coal trestle feeding the Osceola mill.

This little guy sits down in a gorge sitting between the Osceola and Tamarack mills. Not sure what it was for. It might not even be related to the railroad. Interesting thing about this gorge is that you can’t even tell its there while driving on the old road, since its been filled in. But if you take a walk on the old Copper Range line just behind the road you’ll notice a deep and dark gorge seemingly appear out of nowhere on the side of the trail. Its a beautiful site and a little bit of a shame that they filled so much of it in to run these rail lines.

Moving on from here these two lines (the Copper Range and the C&H) would face their biggest challenge yet - the Hungarian Gorge. We’ll climb down into the ravine to take a closer look, next time…

I would like to thank two of my loyal readers Gordy and Charles for their excellent help in getting my railroads and facts straight. Thanks to Gordy to providing the history and background I was lacking, and thanks to Charles for once again saving my butt by providing some much needed maps of the area. Thanks to both of you!

Random Posts

• Three House Town
• Keweenaw Sands (p3)