Crossing the Gorge (p3)
Our last bridge to cross the Hungarian Gorge belonged to not one, but two separate railroads. When the Ahmeek Mine built it’s mill here at Tamarack City it was served by the Hancock & Calumet Railroad. The H&C RR brought rock down from the mine via its Calumet-Lake Linden Branch (the first trestle we featured in this series) which then turned back north to the mill crossing the gorge a second time . Then the Ahmeek Mine was bought up by C&H, those duties were transferred to the newly formed Traprock Valley line of the C&H RR. The old H&C line was transferred to C&H and this bridge welcomed its second owner. This bridge is the top most trestle seen in the photo above (thanks Gordy for the pic!)
This bridge was the most modern of the three, supported on a steel truss instead of concrete pillars like Copper Range. The bridge itself was removed sometime in the 60’s, leaving behind a scattering of scant reminders of its presence. Here is the first clue - sitting along the north/east side of the gorge. This concrete abutment served the same purpose - be it more simply - as the more elaborate and massive poor rock / sandstone monstrosity constructed for the H&C line up the hill.
At the opposite side of the gorge we see the other abutment. After crossing the gorge here, the Traprock Valley line would merge up with the H&C line which had just made it down the hill from Calumet. The two would then continue as one down the hill towards the Tamarack Mills just beyond. In this photo you can make out the Copper Range bridge in the background, demonstrating how close these two bridges were to each other.
We make our way down into the gorge, scaling the steep sides by using the old bridge supports for balance. Here are a few samples of those supports. The concrete footings remain, but the steel girders that supported the bridge have been cut off a few feet above them.
At the very bottom of the gorge and along the river you find these secondary concrete footings. These have no steel beams protruding from their tops, so I’m not sure if they were part of the most recent steel trestle, or perhaps were part of an earlier bridge that crossed here first.
What’s interesting to me about this bridge, and the other two that joined it here along the Hungarian Creek was their symbolic representation of the Copper Country’s technological development. Each bridge is a perfect example of a specific period of development in the area, what I call the three ages of the Copper Country. First is the stone age, when the area was in its infancy. The building material of choice was poor rock and sandstone, which is exactly was we find at the remains of the H&C crossing. Then came the Concrete Age, when the building material of choice was concrete. This is seen in the Copper Range crossing. Finally comes the Iron Age, when costs were soaring and mines had to operate as cheap as possible. Now everything is built from steel and very minimally a that. The result is the bridge we feature today - the C&H crossing. Three bridges and three eras of the Copper Country.
I did take a walk to the old bridge ruins while in da UP. I don’t think this was the original bridge over the Hungarian. The north abutment has a date of 1928 stamped into it. When I looked at the south abutment, it looks as if 18 inches or so were added to the top as a separate pour. The type of concrete looked different even along with how they used the wood planks for the forms. So this bridge may have been a replacement when the track reconfigurations were completed. They could have used the mill while the bridge was redone by using the north leg of the wye.
So all traces of what may have been there could have been destroyed when the new was built. So who knows, some of those photos out there of the H&C train on top of the wood trestle may have been this one.
I also took a few photos of what I think was a water tower, although now I am not so sure, but I do think whatever it was, was built by the H&C, as it has that same sandstone type material and poor rock as the bridge over Hungarian has
Gordy Schmitt | January 8, 2008
Gordy…
Looking at your photos I now know what you’re talking about. I took some photos of it as well, but decided not to include it here. It does seem to be of the same era as the H&C line, but I’m not sure what it is. Its a very long and narrow foundation - my guess would be perhaps a section house or storage shed of some type. There might as well as been a water tower as well - I don’t know either. I never really took that close of a look at it.
explorer | January 10, 2008