Mine: Keel Ridge Mine, Norway, MI

McKenna mine → Keel Ridge Mine → Closed after cave in

Operate for 3 years.

From: 1880.

Owned by: 

Produced: Iron Ore

Method: 

Railroad connection: C&NW to Escanaba Dock.

Until: 1883

Lifetime Production: 

Notes

Keel Ridge Mine was an iron ore mine located near Iron Mountain, MI in Dickenson County.

Formally the McKenna Mine.

SE 1/4 of SW 1/4 and S 1/2 of SE 1/4 of Section 32, T40N-R29W.

Time Line

1880. Mine opened

1883. April 10. An accident, the most disastrous to human life that ever occurred in any of the Lake Superior mines, happened at the Keelridge mine, Menomenes Range, Michigan Iron District, this afternoon, when about ninety feet of ground between the main engine house and Number One shaft caved in. The engine house, in which were nine men and all the mine machinery and four large boilers, went down a distance of from 1,000 to 2,000 feet. All the men were either killed out-right or buried alive, except ( ) Wicks, who went one hundred feet and then remained on top of the debris, with his leg broken at the thigh and one of his ribs fractured. His recovery is doubtful. A pump and boiler must be put in before the other bodies are recovered. It will take a week or more. The mine was about to be abandoned, as the ore body was exhausted. All the men were on the surface hoisting the steam pipes out of the shaft--Cherokee Advocate, Tahlequah Cherokee Nation 04-20-1883