Mine: Youngs Mine, Gaastra, MI

Began → Youngs Mine → Newman Mine

Operated for 24 years.

From: 1904.

Location: E 1/2-E 1/2 Sec. 12 of T42N-R35W

Owned by: Newman Ore Co., Marquette Ore Co. agent

Produced: Iron Ore, hard, brown, high phosphorus.

Method: Underground by back and sub-stoing. Depth of 518 feet.

Until: 1928

Lifetime Production: 802,751 tons between 1905 and 1928.

Notes

From the Baltic mine the Vulcan formation enters the Youngs location swinging in a curving northwesterly course across the northeast corner of the NE 1/4 of the NE 1/4 of Section 12, T42N, R35W, entering northward, the Fogarty property of the Verona Mining company and thence swinging NE into the SW 1/4 of the SW 1/4 of Section 6, T42N, R35W. In the Youngs mine the Vulcan formation is underlain by black and gray slates and dips northeast at angles of from 45° to 65°. Through the courtesy of the management a section is reproduced in figure 5. In this section the main or south ore body lies on a foot wall of black slate which grades downward into gray slates, the probable equivalents of the sericitic schists exposed in outcrop a short distance NW of the shaft, extending thence NW to the Iron River. The south ore body grades irregularly upward into ferruginous chert and lean ore which is overlain by a thick bed of slates carrying thin iron formation layers locally altered to ore. These rocks are succeeded by a second or north ore body, some 40 to 60 feet thick, with black slate foot and hanging walls. This ore body dips northeast into the workings of the Fogarty mine. Thus in the Youngs mine the Vulcan formation occurs in two separate main lenses, the southern or lower having a thickness of about 140 to 150 feet, the northern or higher a thickness of 40 to 50 feet, the two being separated by about 150 to 175 feet of slate interbedded with layers of the Vulcan. [IRI]

Time Line

1911. The Youngs Mine is located in the E. ½ of Section 12, 42-35 in the Iron River district and adjoins the Baltic Mine on the west and the Fogarty on the south. The property was opened in 1905 by G. W. Youngs and 11,000 tons were shipped that year. In 1907 it was sold to the Huron Iron Mining Company, the present operators. It has one working shaft 425 feet deep, through which a four-ton skip is operated. The equipment consists of three 150 H. P. horizontal boilers, one 15”x20” Lake Shore Engine Works geared hoist with 6 foot drums, one Ingersoll Rand 15 drill compressor and one No. 7½ Gates crusher. F. W. Youngs is superintendent.

1911. Fire at the Youngs Mine: Early in 1911 fire started in the pyritic and carbonaceous black-slate footwall, just below the third level, of the Youngs mine, near Palatka, Mich. There had been a squeeze affecting a comparatively large area of the footwall, and a quantity of the rock had broken out and collected in a pile. The place was wet and some timber was mixed with the rock. At a time when no one was working in that part of the mine fumes were seen issuing from this pile of rock. The fire was supposedly of spontaneous origin. The sulphurous fumes soon filled the workings of the second and third levels, and it was decided to seal the fire by the use of bulkheads. After a great deal of difficulty this was accomplished on the second level. The men could work only a few minutes at a time, as they had no protection against the fumes except steam sprays. It was not until the footwall parts of the second, third, fourth, and fifth levels had been bulk headed off that the fumes were prevented from filling the entire mine workings.

1913. The bulkheads were removed early in January, 1913, and although the fumes hung in the workings for two or three months, constantly growing less noticeable, the fire had seemingly been extinguished.