Mine: Colby Mine

Began → Colby Mine → Became

Operated for

From: 1884

Owned by: Puritan Mining Company, then Corrigan McKinney Steel Co.; then Republic Steel Corp.

Produced: Iron Ore

Method: Underground and open pit.

Railroad connection: C&NW and Soo Line to Port of Ashland

Until: 1923

Lifetime Production: 5,573,051 tons

Photo Info: An early view of the Colby Mine near Bessemer. [MINARC]

Notes

Includes Tilden Mine until 1891.

The Colby Mine was located at Bessemer in Gogebic County. It was an underground mine, owned by the Puritan Mining Company, and then Pickands Mather and Company. Includes the Tilden Mine until 1891.

Owned at one point by the McKinney Steel Company. [IOI]

Time Line

1892. As a load of 20 men was going down No. 7 shaft of the Colby mine, the cage when midway down 250 feet from the bottom dropped the entire distance. William Ryan, the brakeman, took charge of the drum as the cage shot into the shaft, and before he fully realized the distance the cage had run, it had dropped on to the heavy sollar (sic) with a crash. Ryan took to the woods, thinking he had killed every man on the cage.  The accident was a disastrous one, but fortunately no lives were lost. Fifteen of the occupants sustained eighteen broken arms or legs, scalp wounds and contusions. [INR2-18792-1022]