Iron Range and Huron Bay Railroad
Encyclopedia
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
's Upper Peninsula during the 1890s. Financial and engineering problems prevented the railroad's operation; it remains an unusual example of a railroad which was completed but never used.
Background
Rich iron ore deposits were first discovered in the Upper Peninsula in the 1840s, and remain a significant source of wealth for the state. By the 1890s Michigan was the largest supplier of iron ore in the United States. Railroads would haul ore from the mines to great ore dockOre dock
An ore dock is a large structure used for loading ore onto ships which then carry the ore to steelworks or to transshipment points. Most known ore docks were constructed near iron mines on the upper Great Lakes and served the lower Great Lakes. Ore docks still in existence are typically about ...
s on the Great Lakes
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
in places such as Escanaba
Escanaba, Michigan
Escanaba is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan, located in the banana belt on the state's Upper Peninsula. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 13,140, making it the third-largest city in the Upper Peninsula after Marquette and Sault Ste. Marie...
and Marquette
Marquette, Michigan
Marquette is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Marquette County. The population was 21,355 at the 2010 census, making it the most populated city of the Upper Peninsula. Marquette is a major port on Lake Superior, primarily for shipping iron ore and is the home of Northern...
, where it would be loaded on ore freighters
Lake freighter
Lake freighters, or Lakers, are bulk carrier vessels that ply the Great Lakes. The best known was the , the most recent and largest major vessel to be wrecked on the Lakes. These vessels are traditionally called boats, although classified as ships. In the mid-20th century, 300 lakers worked the...
and transported to the rest of the country. The Huron Mountains
Huron Mountains
The Huron Mountains are located in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan, mostly in Marquette and Baraga counties, overlooking Lake Superior. Their highest peak is Mount Arvon which, at above sea level, is the highest point in the state of Michigan. Nearby Mt...
west of Marquette were known to be rich in ore deposits, particularly around Lake Michigamme
Lake Michigamme
Lake Michigamme, one of Michigan's largest lakes, reaches a depth of over .. It covers in Marquette and Baraga County, Michigan. Van Riper State Park provides public access. The vast majority of the lake lies in Marquette County, with only its westernmost part extending into Baraga County.The...
(near Michigamme, Michigan
Michigamme, Michigan
Michigamme is an unincorporated community in Marquette County of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a census-designated place for statistical purposes and without any legal status as a municipality. As of the 2000 census, the CDP population was 287....
), and were believed to contain marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
, granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
, silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
, gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
, lead
Lead
Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...
, graphite
Graphite
The mineral graphite is one of the allotropes of carbon. It was named by Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1789 from the Ancient Greek γράφω , "to draw/write", for its use in pencils, where it is commonly called lead . Unlike diamond , graphite is an electrical conductor, a semimetal...
, asbestos
Asbestos
Asbestos is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals used commercially for their desirable physical properties. They all have in common their eponymous, asbestiform habit: long, thin fibrous crystals...
, and silica.
History
The IR&HB was formed on June 27, 1890 by seven businessmen, all from Michigan's Lower Peninsula and all but one from DetroitDetroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
. Milo H. Davis, also of Detroit, was engaged as chief engineer. The company proposed to construct a line from Champion, near the Lake Michigamme ore fields, to a new ore dock on Huron Bay (in Arvon Township
Arvon Township, Michigan
Arvon Township is a civil township of Baraga County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the township population was 482.Arvon Township's name is derived from that of the district of Carnarvon in Wales, famous for its slate industry, because of the deposits of slate in the area...
), which connected to Lake Superior
Lake Superior
Lake Superior is the largest of the five traditionally-demarcated Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded to the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Minnesota, and to the south by the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Michigan. It is the largest freshwater lake in the...
. From there the ore would be shipped by freighter through the Soo Locks
Soo Locks
The Soo Locks are a set of parallel locks which enable ships to travel between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes. They are located on the St. Marys River between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, between the Upper Peninsula of the US state of Michigan and the Canadian province of Ontario...
.
Construction
The terrain for the line proved forbidding. The country was hilly and broken; grading the roadbed proved an expensive and intensive activity. By June 1891 an initial workforce of 500 men had swelled to 1,500, which strained the local transportation network. The builder, Wallace Dingman of Battle Creek, MichiganBattle Creek, Michigan
Battle Creek is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan, in northwest Calhoun County, at the confluence of the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek Rivers. It is the principal city of the Battle Creek, Michigan Metropolitan Statistical Area , which encompasses all of Calhoun county...
, ran out of money in August and abandoned work, leaving the IR&HB with unpaid bills and swamping Marquette County
Marquette County, Michigan
-National protected areas:* Hiawatha National Forest * Huron National Wildlife Refuge* Ottawa National Forest -University:Northern Michigan University is a four-year university, established in 1899, located in Marquette, Michigan, on Michigan's Upper Peninsula...
's limited poor relief resources. New contractors were hired and the grading was finally finished in the summer of 1892, reportedly at the cost of $400,000–well above the $265,000 budgeted for the project. One major obstacle was a 1000 feet (304.8 m) cut
Cut
Cut may refer to:* The act of cutting, the separation of an object into two through acutely directed force-Mathematics:* Cut * Branch cut, a concept in complex analysis* Dedekind cut, a partition of rational numbers* Cut-elimination theorem...
near Mount Arvon
Mount Arvon
Mount Arvon, elevation 1,979 feet , located in L'Anse Township, Baraga County, is the highest natural point in the U.S. state of Michigan. Like nearby Arvon Township, Michigan, Mt. Arvon takes its name from the deposits of slate in the area which were reminiscent of those around Caernarfon in...
, from which 40000 cubic yards (30,582.2 m³) of rock were removed. The rails were laid between July and November 1892.
The ore dock was built on the shores of Huron Bay for $170,000 under the supervision of John Munro, Jr. It measured 1000 feet (304.8 m) in length and required 2000000 board feet (4,719.5 m³) of lumber. A sawmill
Sawmill
A sawmill is a facility where logs are cut into boards.-Sawmill process:A sawmill's basic operation is much like those of hundreds of years ago; a log enters on one end and dimensional lumber exits on the other end....
was constructed to process the vast amounts of timber necessary for the project.
Failure
Although the IR&HB completed the 42 miles (67.6 km) line between Champion and Huron Bay and purchased two 4-8-04-8-0
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 4-8-0 represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles , eight powered and coupled driving wheels on four axles, and no trailing wheels. The type was nicknamed the Mastodon or Twelve-wheeler in North America....
"Mastodon" steam locomotives from the Brooks Locomotive Works
Brooks Locomotive Works
The Brooks Locomotive Works manufactured steam railroad locomotives and freight cars from 1869 through its merger into the American Locomotive Company until 1934.-History:...
, no trains were ever operated. The completion of the line coincided with the Panic of 1893
Panic of 1893
The Panic of 1893 was a serious economic depression in the United States that began in 1893. Similar to the Panic of 1873, this panic was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures...
, which reduced the demand for iron ore. Additionally, the ore mines around Lake Michigamme–which the IR&HB had intended to serve–began to play out. There were richer mines in Ishpeming
Ishpeming, Michigan
Ishpeming is a city in Marquette County in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 6,686 at the 2000 census. This is down from a higher population in the 1950s and 1960s when the economically supportive iron ore mines had a much higher employment level...
to the east, but the IR&HB lacked the wherewithal to construct such a line, which would have spanned 15 to 20 miles (32.2 km). In places the IR&HB line exceeded a grade of 5%, which would have made the haulage of freight difficult.
By 1893 the IR&HB found itself in serious financial difficulties. In 1890 it had begun with $1,400,000 in capital through an initial stock issue coupled with the sale of bonds. Additional bonds worth $600,000 were sold to cover construction overruns and keep the railroad afloat, but its debts mounted. Finally, in 1900, the company's owners sold it outright to the Detroit Construction Company for $110,000.
Legacy
Following the sale the Detroit Construction Company dismantled the entire line. The rails were re-used in various interurbanInterurban
An interurban, also called a radial railway in parts of Canada, is a type of electric passenger railroad; in short a hybrid between tram and train. Interurbans enjoyed widespread popularity in the first three decades of the twentieth century in North America. Until the early 1920s, most roads were...
schemes in the Lower Peninsula, including the Grand Rapids, Holland and Lake Michigan Rapid Railway and the Detroit, Lake Orion and Flint Railway. The two locomotives were sold to the Algoma Central Railway
Algoma Central Railway
The Algoma Central Railway is a railway in Northern Ontario that operates between Sault Ste. Marie and Hearst, with a branch line to Michipicoten. The area served by the railway is sparsely populated, with few roads...
. The great ore dock was dismantled and shipped to Detroit.
Davis, the chief engineer, fled to Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
to escape allegations of fraud. According to the New York Times, the state took possession of the right-of-way and other property as compensation for unpaid taxes; Marquette County purchased the section within its borders in 1902 for $1,600 and converted it into a roadway. In 1905 the Lake Superior Southern Railway proposed to construct a new line from Huron Bay to Madison, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....
; the company failed to attract financing and dissolved in 1908.