Deadly Genius: The Engineering of the Quincy Copper Mine | Quincy Mine #1

[@Corporis]

Glad to Cu upload a video about copper.

[@AlexisDahl]

Heheheheheh. This is great, thank you.

[@VisitKeweenaw]

🤣⛏️

[@katieandkevinsears7724]

That pun is periodically funny! It has an element of humor.

[@user-tz5kd2mr9b]

Hey Ms Alexis. You are such a smart young woman. You light up my room. As a service-connected disabled veteran I find your shows appreciated. Good job. (A military term not giving easily)

[@KrazyKobold]

I was fortunate enough to be a tour guide at the Quincy Mine for 3 summers and I'm really glad you're doing this video -- it's very well done!

[@AlexisDahl]

Thank you so much! That's so encouraging. Also, that sounds like a great way to spend a summer!

[@nanabarb7066]

My great grandpa George Jose worked in the Quincy Mine. He was born in Cornwall and came over to work in the mines. Our family was lucky enough to get to tour the Quincy Mine a few years ago and visit the area and see the other areas where old mines use to be. Thank you for sharing your this documentary with us.

[@AlexisDahl]

That's amazing! As I was researching this project, I heard nothing but good things about the Cornish miners. I'm glad you were able to visit the area and take a tour!

[@Engineer1980]

Alexis’s enthusiasm is wonderful to experience!

[@albertripley4969]

Your youthful enthusiasm is a breath of fresh air to historical narratives. I have fast become "addicted" to your history blogs.

[@sweetspotendurance]

I went to Michigan Tech and was always fascinated by the Quincy mine. I've been all around the grounds and seen all of the exteriors but never got to see how it was actually done. Definitely looking forward to this series!

[@AlexisDahl]

Ah, awesome! I'm excited for you to learn more about it. The history is something else.

[@Danger_mouse]

@AlexisDahl Nice video on the history of the industry. I'm in Australia and have worked for our biggest underground hard rock contractor here for years. They've moved me around lots of our different projects and most of them have been copper mines. The latest one is helping install a 1300m deep haulage shaft as the mine is approaching the limits of viable truck haulage via the 1:7 decline. Our shaft should give them another 10-15 years of mine life 👍

[@neolexington]

"Red Metal" is a short documentary about the labor fight (quite literally) in the Keweenaw. This mine and others in the Keweenaw brought my family from Cornwall to Michigan. Fascinating stuff!

[@AlexisDahl]

Fascinating! (Also, I am not surprised there's a whole film on the labor disputes.) I'll have to check that out sometime! That aspect of the history isn't something I went into much detail on in this series, but I'm interested in circling back to it someday.

[@retropipes8863]

Look at you Alexis, having fun exploring the mine!

[@kimberlyheslep7036]

Awesome video! My grandmothers grandfather was killed in a mine accident at the Quincy mine (Captain O’Neill). I believe there are still some photos of him there. There was a mining museum in Calumet that was pretty good, I don’t know if it’s still there, it’s been 30 years since I was up there.

[@LadyYoop]

Is this fascinating....Cannot wait for more. They can tell Michigan Copper anywhere in the world!

[@billgund4532]

Worked at Copper Range (White Pine, MI). A very sad day when we closed our doors in '95.

[@sparkywirenut]

Where did you work there ? I worked underground and surface electric depts .

[@billgund4532]

@@sparkywirenut I worked; n the Ad building (purchasing). After CRC closed, went to Morton Salt in NE Ohio and retired from there in '16. Was storeroom supervisor, surface/shaft maintenance foreman and process foreman.

[@sparkywirenut]

@@billgund4532 You worked with Lido and Lisa W ?

[@billgund4532]

@@sparkywirenut I sure did work with them. Along with Bob T, Bob R & Andy B

[@hoppend]

Well, you have my interrest! Worked on this for a year… Can’t wait for the next video! Very cool

[@michaelimbesi2314]

This is an incredibly high quality video. How on earth does it still only have 53k views?

[@jimcurtis569]

Again, great job. Waiting for the next one in the series.

[@lianebisanz7500]

My grandfather immigrated from Italy worked at Quincy mine had a crush injury to his leg experimental surgery saved his leg. Toured the mine a couple times so fascinating and terrifying.

[@AlexisDahl]

Oh, wow. Thanks for sharing about your grandfather! "Fascinating and terrifying" really does sum up so much about this mine, and Michigan copper mining from this era as a whole.

[@Rabblewitz]

In my time in Houghton, the Quincy Mine building was a rust brown building on the skyline across the Portage. So strange seeing it in it's current color. Thanks for the refreshing the fond memories of my time there..

[@lildabz]

Back in the 80's we had kegger parties up behind the mine hoist. We called it the "Pines" Was such a great time to be a teenager! LOL

[@jharback]

Really enjoy your video's, Alexis. I'm a former Michigander currently retired in Italy. Keep up the great work. You're a natural!

[@kbriley8349]

i have toured this mine and visited the area many many times ....... there is a rode just down the hill towards town called Cowsitslats ....... Finnlander humor ........ the surrounding hillside and landscape is some of the prettiest country any where

[@ConciseDharmata]

The craziest thing I remember on my tour was that they dug close to a mile deep, constantly having to pump ground water so it wouldn’t flood, but to this day you can only descend about 500ft. Meaning the remainder of all those chambers, tools, and artifacts are still down there almost a mile deep.

[@jovanweismiller7114]

I'm surprised they didn't get another bump in production during the Korean & Vietnam Wars since copper is the major component of brass shell casings both for small arms & heavy artillery. In fact, I remember, during the Korean War, seeing railroad gondola cars full of brass artillery shell casings going through my little hometown in Kansas on their way to be filled with powder.

[@randallwoodruff8591]

I am so excited for this series!! All your videos are great but due to the type of nerd I am, the ones with old industry are my favorites! These may replace the toxic dredge as my number 1.

[@IstasPumaNevada]

I'd also recommend the Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour and Anthracite Heritage Museum near Scranton, PA. Great tour down into the mines, and a great and interesting selection of things at the museum on the same grounds.

[@AlexisDahl]

Thanks for the recommendation! I appreciate it!

[@canadiangemstones7636]

Great work, love your enthusiasm!

[@btbenedi]

If you get a chance, you should head down to Adventure Mining Company near Ontonagon, they have two longer tours that are very interesting, one that includes rappelling down to the 2nd level of the mine, as well as an even longer one with no rappelling, but get to see a lot more of the 2nd level, a lot of the original materials/tools have been left exactly where they were when it closed. Worked as a tour guide there for a summer many years ago when that 2nd level was still underwater, we worked to start pumping the water out so we could get down there.

[@timb4569]

You sure make these fun to watch Alexis. Thank You

[@rails-n-things]

Thanks for this video! I really enjoyed it.

[@seldoon_nemar]

you mentioned Cornish workers. they are responsible for a lot of the language used in mines because of the mining history of Cornwall tin. They would have been specifically sought after, and sometimes directly imported. Some examples of mining terms with Cornish roots; winze, windlass, stope, addit, stull Part of the controversy with early pneumatic drills was that they were making a lot of extra dust that the miners had to breath. they earned the nickname "widowmakers" because you could die of silicosis using one. this was aliviated by adding a water line into the drill that runs down the center of the drill into the cutting head. this also had the effect of cooling the cutter and flushing the waste from the hole, allowing the drills to be even faster, while being safer. Dills today are mostly unchanged from those original design, and are worked hard the world over. If you're interested in seeing some small scale, relatable mining being done, check out a series called "Bringing an abandoned gold mine back to life" by TVR Exploring. They are restoring a mine to operations that was last productive around 100 years ago. they actually just got a core drill team in there pretty recently, fascinating stuff!

[@UlstadDbq]

So I was searching on MIT for open courseware and guess what, who came up? You and The Engineering of the Quincy Mine! Congratulations! Now, by following you, I'm really feeling smarter!

[@rustedoutwrench]

I live just down the hill, my great grandfather died in that mine in a blasting accident. Thanks for the information!

[@AlexisDahl]

I'm so sorry to hear about your grandfather. I didn't realize just how dangerous this place was until I was working on this series, and have been thinking about the casualty rate ever since. (I've included more on that part of the history in the third video.) So much sacrifice went into making that place run, and I'm sorry your family had to be part of that legacy.

[@rustedoutwrench]

@@AlexisDahl yeah it's definitely sad how many people sacrificed their lives to make this country's infrastructure but I suppose someone's gotta do it.

[@brucesz2334]

Over 60 years ago this old guy (me), had a deep interest in Geology. Unfortunately due to the monotone teachers of the time nothing they tried to teach sank in. If we had had teachers like you then, I might have gone somewhere with my interest. I have learned more about Geology, mining, etc. in the last couple of hours than I would have learned in a full semester of school. Now all I can do is sit back, listen, and learn from you. Not much I can do with it now but it never hurts to gain knowledge. Thank you!

[@Userhfdryjjgddf]

I'm 51. In last 5 years learned more about finance than ever could have imagined. Sadly also realizing how little most my friends know and how uninterested they are in actually investing or even remotely being financially responsible. Oh well, me I'm going to retire just fine

[@skwrk]

Awsome as usual!

[@greenturtle3333]

So cool! Can't wait to see the rest of the series!

[@AlexisDahl]

Thanks, Hannah!! ☺

[@curtisblake261]

Alexis, your digging into the details is exemplary. This adds a lot to my family lore. Thank you.

[@alexmacdonald395]

Great video as always! I grew up in the area and took a few tours throughout the years but still learned a ton from this part 1 miniseries video. Quick grammar note from the captions- at 6:01 you say "mines" and the captions say "minds". Looking forward to the rest of the series! Keep on rocking

[@AlexisDahl]

Thanks, Alex! I'm glad to hear that! 🙂 (Also, thanks for catching the captions typo! I will get that updated.)

[@psineil]

Any plans to tour Gay? It would be awesome if you could show the giant pile of stamp sand in Lake Superior. Love your videos!

[@AlexisDahl]

Thanks so much! The Gay stamp sands are on my list of things to look into. There's so much to talk about with the stamp sands that I may end up needing an expert's help to make sure I'm not completely misrepresenting things, ha ha.

[@okanut]

I wish I'd had videos like this back in school, you make anything sound so fascinating!

[@AlexisDahl]

Aw, shucks, thank you! (I think the secret is that I find most things at least vaguely interesting, ha ha.)

[@JoshuaJohnsonOutdoors]

Great effort Alexis Dahl - excellent content.

[@AlexisDahl]

Thanks so much! I appreciate that.

[@F8HAUS]

I'm on a copper deep dive and this is a very welcome addition. Thank you!

[@kennethwilson8633]

Sweet tour.

[@vincentfontana7915]

Very nice job on your video just subscribed. I love the Copper Country my family mining history goes back generations. Keep them coming.

[@richardmourdock2719]

Love it! I've definitely put the Quincy Mine on the "to visit" list for the Fall of 2024!

[@donald4624]

Thank you, that was fun to watch, I look forward to the next instalment.

[@richardlassin7130]

This is very well done.

[@kevinforth7618]

New subscriber here - nice work, Alexis. I enjoy the topics and videos you've shared. Love Michigan history, and as a metal detectorist, I strive to find relics that tell our state's history before they are lost forever.

[@muttomaki1]

The MTU link to the treaty of LaPointe uses incorrect maps showing the incorrect line for the 1842 Treaty. The line or the east edge is from the head waters of the Chocolay river (Chocolate River). The headwaters is regarded as the point on the Chocolay where the two branches meet. Then, per the Treaty language, the line goes from the aforementioned Chocolay headwaters southeasterly to the big island at the mouth of the Escanaba River.

[@calebmanger]

this is the most wholesome place on youtube , your so amazing 🤩

[@johnjankowiak3335]

Great vid, I love your time and effort to educate us all.I love michigan history. God bless you!

[@fartraveler3345]

My brother and I are planning a trip to check that out. Thank you for all your great work

[@YTirish]

You'll never catch me copper!

[@uprebel5150]

My wife and I took our kids when they where 10 and 12 in 2012. They still talk about it. The train outside the mine on the hill was exceptionally cool.

[@richardlassin7130]

One correction. The copper produced was never smelted. Being pure copper. it only needed to be melted.

[@AlexisDahl]

Thanks, Richard! I go more into this in the last video in this series (and say something very similar to your note here), but since there was some waste/slag produced through the work at the Quincy Smelter, I did intentionally go with "smelt" in this video. Thanks for keeping an eye on the details!

[@huf67]

We didn't get to take the tour but ran across the mine on a trip to Copper Harbor. Even just walking the property was pretty interesting.

[@poke_cactushobby3780]

There is a lot of cool videos on YT of people exploring old mines and finding parts of those drills. Often the water lines to. Cool stuff!

[@gunlineswabby]

Ha played all among these ruins growing up on the hill, climbed all around the hoist and the shaft house we even had a hand car we would run down the tracks.

[@TheCadman069]

Thank you, Alexis! This was awesome!

[@TearyEyesAnderson]

I like the ski jump type building. I hope when it snowed one year, someone got the chance to climb up the side and use the slop as a ski jump. :) When I lived in Colorado, we got to visit marble, and redstone mines. There was always lots of abandoned equipment laying around. I'm looking forward to seeing what you found.

[@AntonWongVideo]

this seems like an interesting series! looking forward to the other eps!

[@YTirish]

^

[@AlexisDahl]

Thanks so much! It's encouraging to hear that!

[@citymoto3921]

Great videos, it’s so nice to not only have entertaining videos, but informational videos as well. Alway look forward to your next video. I took a trip to Munising a few summers ago and stumbled on grand island. Seems like such a good place for one or many possible videos. You should totally check out the north lighthouse on grand island, it seems to have a very interesting past.

[@AlexisDahl]

Shucks, thanks! I'm glad you've been enjoying these. Also, thanks for the suggestion! I've been meaning to visit Grand Island for a bit now and might have to just commit to it!

[@C.Schmidt]

10 hours of hard manual labor... alone... in the dark... Yeah that's terrifying. But!!! I'm excited for this series. I've always loved copper.

[@AlexisDahl]

RIGHT? And that's really just the tip of the iceberg. I have gained so much respect for the folks who worked in the Keweenaw copper mines while working on this project.

[@C.Schmidt]

@@AlexisDahl braver men than me... and I'm not afraid to admit that. Though the candle on a helmet is kinda genius...

[@kelseyrobert]

THANK YOU

[@rebeccaanderson6956]

I absolutely love your videos

[@AlexisDahl]

Thanks, Rebecca! I appreciate it! 🙂

[@matthewcombs5387]

Awesome as always, thank you

[@TimeShrike]

Awesome

[@sdhmasonryandservices9488]

My great grampa worked in the Quincy mine

[@emj159753]

Thanks for this awesome video! I'm looking forward to the rest of this miniseries! My great grandfather immigrated from Finland and worked in the Quincy mine. Our family had a Quincy copper ingot from the early 1900s which was donated to the Keweenaw historical society in 2014. The one-man drill was called the "widowmaker" because of all of the accidents they contributed to underground. "Widowmaker" is also the name of an excellent beer at Keweenaw Brewing Company! Two Michigan Tech alumni created a really fun (and historically accurate) board game about mining Keweenaw copper in the 1800s and 1900s! It's called "Copper Country" by David Lankton and Scott Diehl. Check it out if you have a chance!

[@AlexisDahl]

Thanks, Erica! 🙂 Also, your great-grandfather sounds like such a legend. I have so much respect for the kind of work he did! And re: the widowmaker: Oof, goodness. I realized as I was finalizing this video that the story of those drills in particular is one I might have to circle back to someday. There's really so much to tell there, a lot of it heartbreaking!

[@dagordon1]

Keweenaw’s Widowmaker is fantastic, especially on tap

[@xavierfranco5800]

You do realize that Keweenaw sounds exactly like QAnon, right?

[@finlayfraser9952]

Hi Alexis, It is not clear to me how the cables for the hoist were wrapped around the drum, what if anything prevented the cable from moving from the large diameter to the smaller diameter of the drum, and I have not been able to find any photos from its time in operation. Can you enlighten me? Thankyou.

[@raindrop5533]

I just love Michigan! More lore.

[@61wanderer61]

Yeah, that is a very beautiful area. . 👍

[@charlesdoornbos7063]

New project. Check out the dynamite factory in Sentor Michigan

[@AlexisDahl]

Thanks, Charles! Could you tell me roughly where Sentor is? When I try to search for it, Google thinks I'm looking for information about Michigan's senators, ha ha.

[@mrwaterschoot5617]

itv is odd that vermont has some copper mines. rhe ely xopper mine is in the town called vershire and the copper mine has a similar story only a milr deep. it is now being remediated as a superfund site. very similar history . i will have to learn more of your quincy copper mine. tand the alaskan anaconda copper mine. lots of interesting history.

[@larrylankton8114]

A couple of historical gaffes, but generally nicely done.

[@llantup]

Any chance you could go to the Iron Mountain Iron Mine? My uncle lived in Iron Mountain and took me on a tour there back in the early 1970s.

[@AlexisDahl]

Ooh! I can at least add it to my list of places to look into. 🙂 I'd like to do some research into UP iron mining (and geology) at some point, for sure!

[@llantup]

@@AlexisDahl Cool! Thanks!

[@andreroy55]

I grew up in a copper mining town, not this one, so, cool!

[@AlexisDahl]

I'm glad I could introduce you to another one! 🙂

[@ethanburghardt931]

The one man drill was unaffectionately called the widow maker for many years - miners feared being hurt by falling rock without someone to call for help

[@FreeManFreeThought]

Copper has been mined in the western great lakes for literally thousands of years. Fun fact: completely coincidentally, copper working and mining was first done at nearly the same time in North America as in Eurasia.

[@Ranrow-h1g]

never realized how much copper actually came out of the ground, thanks

[@samfrancisco8095]

My Grandfather was one of the hoist operators at the Quincy Mine in the 30's and 40's.

[@stephenbrown7924]

I would like to see your take the Isle Royale copper mines, which some claim supported the Bronze Age in Europe.

[@ralphday4842]

I'm glad all the equipment was left in place. The Chinese are glad too.

[@lamegoldfish6736]

My Grandfather came from Cornwall, and settled in the UP. 😃

[@hillwalker8741]

interesting that so much wealth is under this scrub land (at least for farming) - interesting too that all that wealth did not generally benefit those in the UP - an impoverished part of the USA (through the 1950's outhouses were common) - but also perhaps happier people lived their lives here - mine came from Quebec

[@neil5280]

Me: Listening on 1.5x as I do everything: Alexis: Keweenaw Me: Did she just say QAnon?! 😅 Me: Rewinds. Listens at normal speed. Clicks the like button as always.

[@AlexisDahl]

Oh, my gosh, that would be QUITE the twist. 😅

[@VisitKeweenaw]

This is our problem when using voice to text 🤣

[@josephknowlton7246]

Liked, shared and commented 🍻

[@ShepStevVidEOs]

One man-drill vs one mandrill. Rifiki wins.

[@ASMRPeople]

Dam, did you talk to Larry Lankton? If you understand this reference then you did some scholarly research on the subject. He was the world's expert on copper mining up there. I say "was" because given my age & his age when I took his class I suspect he's deceased.

[@kayneF1251]

So did they find much gold around the copper ?

[@jvin248]

look for a book 'cradle to grave' that was written about the copper country.

[@SylviaRustyFae]

I misheard the intro as "runs on power" bcuz youtube has this weird quirk it does where on the TV it just forgets i have captions on by default 9,9 But regardless, i thowt of the thing that has the most copper in it in my room; my window air conditioner which is chock full of copper even before we get into the electrical wiring side of things

[@RattyFlyer]

Would be interesting to see You and Mark Rober collaborate.

[@AlexisDahl]

Ha, that would be one adventure of a collaboration. I'm not sure what we'd work on together, but it sounds like it'd be a blast! 🙂

[@CarrieClark-Urmanski]

This girl is a star.

[@brendenboeglin5517]

It was a ride .

[@davidhomer78]

I've been there, but they were closed for the day.

[@Iknowtoomuchable]

Every time you say "Keweenaw", it momentarily sounds like this is a completely different video about conspiracy theories.

[@o.k.productions5202]

My internet came over the internet for a long time.

[@IstasPumaNevada]

Yeah, mining conditions "back in the day" were pretty horrible. Many places wouldn't hesitate to put boys, ten years old or younger, down in a mine for 12 hours a day. And poor/immigrant families would have no choice but to let it happen, because there were no laws to prevent it and few options for survival. And then some places would even only pay workers in their own special money, that could only be spent at company-owned stores and on shoddy company-owned residences, for huge markups, leaving workers perpetually broke or in debt. Thankfully there's a law against that too now, though we're having other problems.

[@wntu4]

I like your videos overall but you make a habit of pointing out that land was 'taken' from 'natives' by settlers, like it was wrong and there should be white guilt. Wrong. First of all, the Ojibwe willingly traded land via treaty for various compensations. Secondly and more importantly who did the Ojibwe take it from? That information is lost to history but there is a very strong chance they did. Tribes did not live some kind of Disneyesque Pocahontas existence. Like every other culture on the planet through history they competed for resources with others. They fought savage wars, evolved and sometimes died if they were found wanting in defending their right to exist. This process has existed worldwide and throughout history to this very day (Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, etc) and will continue in the future. So, please, stop with the 'white guilt' thing. Who occupied the land 200 years ago is utterly immaterial unless it is pertinent to your video thesis.

[@davidc1961utube]

Am I the only one that had to listen twice to not hear the QAnon visitor’s Center?

[@logdog8920]

Wundava