THE IRON MINES THAT PUT IRONWOOD ON THE MAP

In a report on the geological survey of Michigan, early in the 1870s, attention was first directed toward the locality known as "The Great Gogebic Range", a continuous chain of forest-grown, rock ribbed hills, almost mountainess in size , running a distance of fifty miles --- from Lake Gogebic in Michigan, on the east, to the Bad River in Wisconsin on the west.

On October 6, 1871, Raphael Pumpelly, who would later be a professor of geology at Harvard, sat on Newport Hill and discovered that the rock he picked up was iron ore. Later geological surveys confirmed that rich deposits of iron ore were only awaiting development.  Profiteers quickly came to this country where the opinion was that the climate was "...too cold and the country too bleak and barren for habitable land."

In late1884, the Milwaukee, Lake Shore & Western Railway came to Ironwood, a community of only a few tents and bars.  Soon, however, a flood of immigrants from England, Italy, Sweden, Finland and other countries came to make their fortunes in  the mines.  Within ten years, Ironwood had a population of 15,000, and its growth was phenomenal.

In 1924, progress and prosperity were abundant in the USA. Calvin Coolidge was comfortable in the White House, and people had finally come to believe that the Great War was the Last War. Mah Jong was out and the crossword puzzle was in. Radio sets were now a staple item in most homes. Women were drinking and smoking in public, and skirts had risen to 20 percent of a woman's height. Flesh colored rayon stockings, spiked heels, rouge and lipstick became the standard. Young girls, with bobbed haircuts, partied and petted with their boyfriends in cars, bars and bedrooms.  Ironwood had grown to nearly 30,000 people.

Ironwood had its individual settlements, called "locations", a primary means of geographical identification located in the shadow of a mining company headframe. It was more meaningful to identify one's home as being in the Ashland, Aurora, Bonnie, Jessieville, Newport, Norrie, Pabst or Puritan location, for example, than in Ironwood. Each of these small settlements had a few family-owned grocery stores, and sometimes, company-owned stores and homes. Many homes in the locations housed a family plus a dozen or more boarders who had come to the area to work in the mines. They worked in shifts, and when one gang of workers went to work, the miners who worked the shift before came home to sleep in the beds that had just been emptied.

A GROUP OF MINERS READY TO WORK AT THE NORRIE MINE

Transportation to the neighboring mines was a major problem, especially with winter snows measuring 200 inches and more. The living quarters of the miners had been built as close to the mines as possible.

Although only a short distance apart, the mining locations were physically separated by "stockpiles", vast areas of waste and non-usable ore piled high on the horizon. Depressions, called "caves", where unproductive underground mines had been deliberately blasted for safety, caused a transportation barrier between locations. Shortcuts over the stockpiles and caves were made up of footpaths and rail grades which criss-crossed the mining company land. An electric streetcar ran from Iron Belt, Wisconsin, through the downtown areas of Hurley and Ironwood, to Jessieville Location in Michigan, a distance of about 12 miles.

At Ironwood, the Oliver Mining Company's properties comprised the "Big Norrie", East Norrie", the "Aurora", the "Pabst" mines while the "Newport" was owned by The Newport Mining Company.

The photo above is that of the Big Norrie mine and the photo on the right is that of the Newport Mine

"A" SHAFT, EAST NORRIE               

EAST NORRIE MINE

             READY AT THE CAGE              

Old Depot Museum
150 North Lowell
PO Box 45
Ironwood, MI.  49938
906/932-1122 (phone)
906/932-2756 (fax)
email: chamber@ironwoodmi.org

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