I thought I'd see whatever happened to the old Mather A Shaft in Ishpeming this weekend. I used to have my dry there in 1979... Gee that was a long time ago. A dry, for those who haven't been around miners, is a locker room and shower so miners could get changed out of their work clothes and back into their street clothes when the shift ended. It's called a dry because mining is messy, dirty damp work and what we had at the Mather A shaft was a basket for our loose gear, with hooks on it to hang your work clothes. The basket was reeled up into the ceiling zone of the locker room where the air was hot, and overnight those wet iron ore covered jeans and work shirts would dry out - hence the locker room was always known as the dry.
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| The Mather A Shaft in the late 40's |
This is pretty much how I remembered the place back in '79. The Mather B was still an active operation and the A Shaft was kept as an emergency exit for the Mather B miners. Today, things a re a bit diffrent!
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| The old Mather A shops, dry and warehouse |
The headframe is gone and the front office is boarded up. This got me to thinking about another place I used to work at during the summer. The old 'Brown Stone.'
Here are a few then and now pics of the skilled trades and engineering buildings.
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| My father worked in the machine shop |
The ivy was a part of the view back then!
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| The men are gone, the lathes are gone, the ivy remains... |
I remember the miners and tradesmen who worked here. What a fine group they were.
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| My father is probably in there somewhere... |
I remember walking through this door with hardhat and safety glasses on!
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| The Motor Pool door |
Before I left Ishpeming I thought I'd capture the 'Old Ish' statue for your viewing enjoyment
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| Something most don't know about Old Ish read below... |
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One waterfall this time...
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| Tioga Falls |
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