Cog Railway
This cog railway is a fairly recent addition to the Quincy Mine site, having been built in the 1990s along an old Quincy & Torch Lake right-of-way to take tourists down to the adit entrance of the mine's 7th level. The tourists also get a good view looking down into the valley of the Keweenaw Waterway, where the twin towns of Houghton and Hancock sit.
I keep mentioning this hill, but I kind of jumbled the order of things while posting and haven't shown it yet. If you look at a map of the Keweenaw Peninsula, you'll notice the whole thing is cut in half by a waterway. So technically, I guess, the upper half of the peninsula is an island. Parts of this waterway are artificial, former marshland dug out by dredges to provide a route across the peninsula for lake freighters wanting a shortcut. The waterway and the towns of Houghton and Hancock sit roughly at lake level, with an elevation of about 600 feet above sea level. But hills lining the waterway on either side quickly climb several hundred feet. The Quincy Mine sits atop the hill only three-quarters of a mile away from the waterway, but 550 feet above it.
Cog Railway
This cog railway is a fairly recent addition to the Quincy Mine site, having been built in the 1990s along an old Quincy & Torch Lake right-of-way to take tourists down to the adit entrance of the mine's 7th level. The tourists also get a good view looking down into the valley of the Keweenaw Waterway, where the twin towns of Houghton and Hancock sit.
I keep mentioning this hill, but I kind of jumbled the order of things while posting and haven't shown it yet. If you look at a map of the Keweenaw Peninsula, you'll notice the whole thing is cut in half by a waterway. So technically, I guess, the upper half of the peninsula is an island. Parts of this waterway are artificial, former marshland dug out by dredges to provide a route across the peninsula for lake freighters wanting a shortcut. The waterway and the towns of Houghton and Hancock sit roughly at lake level, with an elevation of about 600 feet above sea level. But hills lining the waterway on either side quickly climb several hundred feet. The Quincy Mine sits atop the hill only three-quarters of a mile away from the waterway, but 550 feet above it.