Mine: Empire Mine, Palmer, MI (New)

Empire Mine (old) → Empire Mine (New) → closed

Operated for 52 years.

From: 1964.

Location: SW-NW Sec 7 of T47N-R26W, south of the Jackson Mine location.

Owned by: Owned by Inland Steel Co. (40%), McLouth Steel (25%), International Harvester (15%) and CCI (20%). Cleveland Cliffs Iron Co, then Cliffs Natural Resources is the operator.

Produced: Iron Ore, hard, red, siliceous, crushed.

Method: Open pit

Railroad connection: LS&I to Presque Isle. C&NW to Escanaba. Soo Line does not handle pellets.

Ore improvement: Taconite plant on site.

Until: 2016

Lifetime Production:

Photo info: The railroad load out at Empire Mine in 1993. [Mark Andersen collection]. 2nd photo, Wisconsin Central 7504 loads a train at Empire Mine in 2005. [Mark Andersen collection]

Notes

LS&I switched the plant for C&NW and delivered cars to them.

Perhaps the largest open pit mine in Michigan. 

Time Line

1962. The Empire Mining Company was anxious to begin construction of the beneficiation plant at the mine by May. Three railroads had claims to serve the mine and any of the three could have delayed construction. Therefore, the four-party agreement (see 1964 below) was a means to settle the claims and get construction underway. It was also noted that the Soo's trackage at Palmer lied on the ore body at the Empire mine. [EDP-1964-0321]

1964. A DSS&A subsidiary was the railroad which originally served the site at Palmer where the Empire Mine was built and neither the C&NW nor the LS&I had access to the new mine. There is now a four-party agreement for railroad service to the Empire Mine, between Empire, the LS&I, the North Western and the Soo Line, successor to the DSS&A.

The owners of the Empire Mining Co. insisted that the economy of their operation required the ability to move pellets through Escanaba for loading into vessels of Lake Michigan. This was because two of the owners of the mine (Inland Steel Co. and International Harvester Corp.) operate steel mills in Chicago.

In testimony before the ICC, it was noted that in exchange for giving the LS&I and C&NW access to the Empire Mine in Palmer, the Soo asked for and secured from the LS&I the right to operate over the Marquette-Eben line. The Soo noted that with the LS&I serving the plant with its dock in Marquette, the Soo Line is almost precluded from moving pellets from the Empire. The Cleveland-Cliffs company owns 75 percent of the LS&I and is manager and a stockholder in the Empire mine and beneficiation plant. Other stockholders in the Empire Mine are Inland Steel, International Harvester and McClouth steel. [EDP-1964-0321]

1965. An active open pit mine producing iron concentrates. Owned by Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company. [DMP]

2016. The mine is closed but the facilities are maintained. The C&NW mothballed their Escanaba ore dock when this mine was closed.