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Michigan » The Upper Peninsula » The Copper Country » Houghton County » Mine Shaft Number Two, Headframe

Mine Shaft Number Two, Headframe

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1907–1908. East side of U.S. 41
  • (Photograph by Roger Funk)
  • (Photograph by Balthazar Korab)
  • (Photograph by Balthazar Korab)

The headframe is a steel-framed structure covered with corrugated sheet metal that rises some 148 feet from the ground over the Number Two shaft, which eventually reached 9,000 inclined feet into the earth. The configuration of the roof, which is pitched in two distinct segments, reveals the accommodation to the inclined shaft that brought up the cars. The base of the erect portion of the headframe contains a round, riveted steel storage bin into which the skips dumped copper ore, and in turn, from which the ore was loaded into railroad cars that were pulled underneath the bin. Two skeletal steel stanchions supported the steel cables leading from the hoist house. The shaft served as “mission control” for the mining operation, carrying men, supplies, and ore in and out of the mine.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Kathryn Bishop Eckert

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