The Smokestack
They stand tall and proud across the copper country landscape. Seemingly constructed as impressive monuments to an industrialized time, their gray columns rise high above the surrounding forests and towns. Once these pillars coughed out over the land, spewing black smoke into the air in a continuous stream of filth. They are smokestacks and they once marked the houses and buildings around it with a coat of black soot and turned the blue sky into a gray haze. No longer however.
Where Stamp Mills Roam
Getting the copper out from the underground is only the first step in the copper production process. The copper that leaves the mine is encased in a tomb of igneous rock, which needs to be removed. This process is carried out at the stamp mill. Copper rock removed from mines was shipped to numerous stamp mills scattered across the Keweenaw. Each mine would have it’s own stamp mill, such as the Mohawk Mill at Gay.
The First Level
The monolithic Gay stack that stood impressively above our heads seemed to be on its own. Besides a cement “flu” that arched down from the stack to the ground, no other buildings or ruins could be seen around it. Stamp Mills relied on steam power to drive the stamps, and that steam was supplied by coal fed boilers – to which the smokestack should have been connected. But we couldn’t see anything.
The Pump House
It was the ruin that sat at the far end of this level that was most intriguing. At first we thought it was a wall about waist high with a circular opening in its face. When we stepped up to it we saw that while a few feet high on our side, the opposite side dropped a good twelve feet into a building. The ceiling had collapsed at one point, or had been foreably removed. A frame of twisted and tangled rebar ran the inside edge of the walls. Noticing a doorway on the opposite side, we climbed down off the level to take a look.
Stamps, Jigs, and Wifleys
The purpose of the Mohawk Mill – as with any stamp mill – was to separate the copper from the rock that incased it. The process relied on the differing physical properties of the two substances, specifically the weight and hardness. Copper was of a greater density then the igneous rock that surrounded it, resulting in a heavier and tougher substance. This made it much easier to separate the two