Quincy Mining Company Stamp Mills Historic District

About this property

The Quincy Mining Company Stamp Mills Historic District is a historic stamp mill (used to crush copper-bearing rock, separating the copper ore from surrounding rock) located on M-26 near Torch Lake, just east of Mason in Osceola Township. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. The original Quincy Stamp Mill was built in 1860 on Portage Lake in Hancock, close to the Quincy Mine. This facility, however, dumped an enormous amount of sand tailings into the lake, and the sand soon threatened to encroach on the navigable channel of the lake. In the mid-1880s, the federal government set minimum harbor lines and stiff penalties for breaching them, and eventually filed suit against the Quincy Mine for dumping in Portage Lake. In addition, Quincy was in the process of acquiring the nearby Pewabic Mine, and management knew they would need to increase the company's stamping capacity. Stamp mills require a large amount of water to operate, and so are invariably located near a large body of water; this limited the range of sites in which a new mill could be placed. After some analysis, the Quincy management decided on Torch Lake as the site for the new mill and purchased 300 acres on the shore, some six miles east of the previous location. Work began on the new stamp mill in 1888. The first building constructed was a boarding house, followed by a dock, cistern, and foundations for other buildings. In 1889, six substantial frame buildings were constructed on site, as well as a railway connecting the stamp mill to the mine, and stamping equipment was installed. Mill number one was a wooden structure measuring 198 feet by 120 feet. The pump and boiler house were located on the south side of the roadway that is now M-26. It was a stone structure measuring 154 feet by 56 feet. An elevated conduit carried water and steam over the road to the mill, and handling facilities were built at the dock. The facility was completed and opened for milling in 1890. The site originally had two stamps; a third was added immediately after opening, and two more were added in 1892. More structures were added to the site over time, beginning with extensions to the dock in 1890 and 1891, an addition to the boiler house in 1891, and additions to the mill in 1891 and 1892. In all, the Quincy Mine spent $457,000 between 1888 and 1894 in constructing and equipping their new mill site, of which $182,000 went to the mill and its stamping equipment. However, as early as 1894, mine production outstripped the capacity of the mill, and a new mill was planned. The second stamp mill was built just north of the first; this mill was an iron-framed structure measuring 132 feet by 216 feet. It was constructed in 1899 by the Wisconsin Bridge and Iron Company at a cost of $22,450. The second mill opened in late 1900 with three mills. To service the additional capacity, new boiler and pump house buildings were also constructed. Over the next two decades, minor alterations were made to the structures of the complex (including the erection of a new 175-foot smokestack for the boilerhouse in 1916) while the milling process and machinery were continuously refined.

Location

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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