More Tunnels

The surface plant of a mine is like any other industrial complex in its need for utilities. Besides the usual suspects such as electricity and water, a typical copper mine also required two additional industry-specific resources: steam and compressed air. Steam was used to power the various steam engines scattered about the plant, and compressed air was primarily needed to run the drills underground. Both of these resources were carried throughout the surface plant in pipes that ran along along shallow utility trenches. In some cases these trenches were covered, and became utility tunnels instead. It was fellow explorer and reader Jay Wrix that had first clued me in to the existence of these tunnels here at Baltic, and it was his quickly scratched map that sent me back to Baltic in search of them.

The first of these tunnels to catch our eye was this beauty shown above. Roughly 8 feet in width, it presented itself on the surface as a moss-covered concrete slab that ran straight and true from the shaft-rock house to the hoist building. Every few dozen feet there was an opening in the slab - that in most cases was covered in poor rock (as you can see in the photo). There was, however, one of these holes that was still open…

The hole revealed that this concrete slab was in fact the roof for a shallow tunnel that sat just below the surface. Jay had wondered if this dropped directly into the shaft and I’m not sure if it did or not. I do know that the compressed air hoses had to get underground somehow, and perhaps this tunnel was used to get them there.

near the hoist building part of this tunnel had been destroyed to make way for a road which accessed the nearby rock pile. You can see its remains still imbedded in the road here, as well as some concrete slabs from its roof sitting out in the woods. Just behind this picture would be the hoist building which we explored last time.

After leaving that hoist building we made out way outside to find the spot where the steam once entered the building. What we discovered was this concrete shack attached to the side of the hoist house. It seemed to have been built to cover the steam pipe inlet, but doesn’t appear to have been original to the building.

Peering into the shack through the open front door, we found ourselves looking down into a very deep concrete-lined trench. The steam inlet to the building sits above and to the left of this photo. To the right the trench continues underground towards the south-east. Most likely the steam pipe came down the tunnel then made came straight up the left hand wall before making another right turn out into the building. Not brave enough to go exploring down the tunnel (although I doubt I could fit), we instead attempted to follow it on the surface.

It turns out it wasn’t that hard to follow it on the surface, since remains of its trench could be found on the surface. Here you can make out the top of the tunnel as it crosses an ATV trail. Making a straight line from here to the south-east it wasn’t long until we came across another set of ruins - this time belonging to the old compressor and boiler house.

This is where we found are most mysterious find yet. Sitting between the two buildings was this wide trench. To the south end the trench butted up against the outer wall of the boiler house where a large opening provided access to the building. On the north end - the end this photo shows - the trench turned into a tunnel which made its way under the compressor house foundations. It looked to have been purposely blocked on this end by a series of rough barricades.

Someone didn’t want me to go down there - so of course that meant I had to drop down into the trench to have a closer look. The first barricade was a series of wood beams and iron sheathing, but half of it had been removed. Behind it was yet another barricade, this one made of layers of bricks laid up against planks. But this one had been compromised as well, resulting in a man sized opening to the left.

Peering around this second barricade I found myself looking at yet another barricade, this one consisting of a half-wrecked wall of sandstone. By this point it had become painfully obvious that I wasn’t suppose to go in there, so I backed off. I was also beginning to pick up that unmistakable “underground” smell and became slightly concerned.

After returning home I used my notes to sketch this rather crude surface map of the No. 2 plant. (Keep in mind that I don’t have a Sanborn map of this mine, so my map might be slightly inaccurate) Marked on the map is the locations for all the photos in this post (marked with letters) along with the identities of the various ruins we found. As you can see, these tunnels connect all the various surface structures together. I believe that the mystery tunnel between the compressor and boiler houses was used for a steam pipe, and the tunnel between the Compressor and Hoist buildings was used for both steam and compressed air. The tunnel to the Shaft house was most likely used just for compressed air.

We have come across the utility tunnels before. The first time was at Mohawk No. 6, where part of the tunnel had collapsed allowing us to drop down inside for a look. (unfortunately for some reason I didn’t include a picture here on CCE). The second time was at Baltic’s neighbor to the south - Trimountain. There the tunnel protruded out of the side of a hill. (Check it out HERE)

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