Recently, Deb and Ron Simons did some exploring around the old Quincy Stamp Mill ruins near Mason, both to check out the remains of the buildings and the fall colors that were so vivid there. After checking out things around what is left of the old buildings, they made their way from the ruins for a short walk to the snowmobile/ATV trail behind the mill and found the old trestle walls that border the trail. Check out those colors overhanging the walls, kind of like a “covered trail”. Just beautiful!

We have a look at Autumn in Upper Michigan from brockit, inc and Adam Johnson who points out that he just realized that every scene is shot over open water. Life on a peninsula, enjoy.

Good stuff Deb and Ron!


“It’s so quiet in the ruins walking through the old town.” (Cat)

Thanks for showing our photos again, Mary.
We've honestly had so much fun this year
checking out the beauty of the Upper
Peninsula. We'd been wanting to go here for
a while and finally made time for it. We
have to go back, though, because we had
other places to be that day. I honestly
don't know how we ever found time to go to
work.

Another amazing video!

So beautiful! Wow!

Did you see Negaunee made Today's Third Hour? Holy
wha...they got snow!

Beautiful pics & video. Are you getting the white
stuff in the Keweenaw??

Donna, I saw that about Negaunee, wow is right! I
always heard that God created the world in 6 days
and on the seventh day he rested. Word has it, that
he actually didn't rest on the seventh day... I
heard he threw rocks at Negaunee on the seventh
day!!?? :=)) NMU back in the day with the
locals.lol

I love exploring the mining history of the Copper Country. Because it's so accessible, I think the dredge at Mason is the 2nd most photographed artifact. Did you know there's another dredge at the bottom of Torch Lake? The dredges are good example of the progression of technology. They were put into action after they realized they had dumped tons of copper into the lake while using older technology. Newer (chemical) technology allowed the reclamation of the copper but first they had to go get it from the bottom of the lake. Then the lake had to contend with not just all the nasty trace elements from earlier processing but also the chemicals. Could be one of the biggest EPA super-fund sites.

Deb,
Did you go inside that building next to the dredge? It's lacked any maintenance for so long the minerals are leaching out of the concrete and left untouched there is the creation of icicle looking formations. They are actually the same as the stalactites seen in caves.

Copper processing along Torch Lake was like a gargantuan scale version of the gold prospecting techniques you've seen on reality TV recently. The "sluice box", with its staircase steps, was created on a giant scale as can be imagined from this picture of the Tamarack processing plant (1 of 3 plants along the lake).

Until I started educating myself, I didn't understand what the "stamp" in stamp mill meant. The ones used here were basically giant hammers that crushed the conglomerate rock thus freeing the smaller pieces of copper. The copper could then be more easily separated. In this photo the building is gone but one of these hammers was left standing (at least in 2016 when I took this photo). Is it still there? I can't imagine how loud it must have been when dozens of these hammers were operating.

I enjoyed the history lesson and pictures,
D.A. Thanks for that.

We did not go inside the building, or any
building. We had a certain amount of time
and we wanted to do some hiking behind the
buildings. We just took it all in. It was a
gorgeous day and there was so much to see.

I did know, btw, that there's another dredge
down there. By what I understand, they just
got the lake cleaned up so the kids could
swim and adults could fish. Then, they moved
this dredge and the lake was dirty again.