Photo Courtesy of www.coppercountryexplorer.com
Growing up in the small town of Painesdale in Houghton County, I lived with a sight of a building that I grew very used to seeing but never knew exactly how rare it was. That would be the Champion Mine Shaft House #4.
It’s one of four left standing in the Keweenaw, and sometimes I feel like it’s forgotten, unlike the Quincy Shaft house on the hill in Hancock. If you ever find yourself in that part of the Upper Peninsula definitely check it out. Whenever I go home try to go look at Champion #4 at least once, because it’s part of another era that deserves to be respected.
But if you can’t get up that way, there’s a very fascinating site out there called Copper Country Explorer that documents Copper Country mines, mills, rails, and towns. There is a lot of pictures, and most of all, it tells a story of a different time. If you love our history being up here, you will like the site.
