• Friday-What'sUP June 22 - 03:39 pm

The Nonesuch Mine, is located in the southeast corner of the Porcupine Mountains State Park, where Carla TePaske snapped these photos of the remains that are left to be viewed.

Carla wasn't sure what the circular hole in the third photo was from and said it was lined with wood and a steel band on top. According to Wikepedia, those holes are the remains of the equipment used in the chemical leaching process used to separate the copper from the rock. Interesting. Also taken from the Wikepedia page about this mine, is the following history:

Copper expert Horace Stevens commented in 1902:

Discovered in 1865, the mine was first opened in 1867, since which time it has swallowed several large fortunes and has yielded the insignificant amount of 180 tons, 1,072 pounds of refined copper from one of the richest beds of copper-bearing rock ever opened.

The copper is there - millions and millions of pounds of it, not worth a penny a ton in the mine. Some day the problem will be solved and a new crop of millionaires made from the Nonesuch."
Total recorded production of the mine was 390 thousand pounds of copper.

In 1955, the Copper Range Company opened the White Pine Mine, solved the problems of mining and treating the ore and successfully mined copper from the Nonesuch Shale for the next 40 years.

What seemed to be a failure at Nonesuch, actually paved the way into history. The White Pine Mine would go on to be Michigan's most productive copper mine, recording more than 4,000,000,000 pounds of copper extracted during its last 43 years of operation.

This is a great hike with scenic views and interesting history! Thanks for the great pictures!

One of these days I WILL get there to take these hikes. My hubby and I both love walking, especially while viewing things like this. Thanks for sharing. Very interesting!

I just visited Nonesuch for the first time recently. The ruins are
amazing!

Does anyone have some information about the second photo? That
"tunnel" is located right by the river, and there's no obvious
smokestack base (for a flue), and it seems to point the wrong way
for a mine entrance. Any clue what it is?

More information about the Nonesuch from the Mindat.org.

As far as I know, Nonesuch themselves never used chemical leaching to recover copper. As it states in the Mindat.org article, the copper was in flake-form and mining technology had not yet discovered a way to recover this type of copper using chemicals. The barrel is likely from when C&H was there very briefly in 1912 when they experimented with chemicals but were unsuccessful.

Interesting photos, however for me, that sign on the second one is unnecessary. :O

My Grandfather worked in the C&H Hubbell smelter while C&H was trying to figure out how to extract copper from the Nonesuch lode at White Pine and Nonesuch. He described the concentrate as "a foul black muck" undoubtedly from that early chemical process. He and his fellow smelter workers were not happy when Nonesuch concentrate was charged. C&H failed at that early date. As we know, Copper Range in a surprise move, bought White Pine out from under C&H at a sheriff's sale and eventually solved the problem some 40 years after my Grandfather saw the stuff. That's one of the big "what-ifs" in Copper Country history. What if the C&H agents at that sale had not been tied to procedure and were empowered to raise the bid. What would have happened when C&H solved the Nonesuch shales?

Great pictures today! I've never been there before. Will have to check that out when I'm UP there next month.

This morning, I was catching up on pics for this week. Shirley, I was sad to hear about your two maple trees. We have a disease down here in Florida called laurel wilt that is spread by a tiny ambrosia beetle and has killed redbay, swamp bay, and other laurel family trees. Threatening avocado groves in south FL, too.

A piece of Keweenaw history revisited.

A bit off subject, Lisa it is sad to lose a beautiful tree for any reason but the trees lost in my area are due to lack of government enforcement of import laws! Then the US Dept. of Agri. comes onto your property and cuts down your infested tree which is due to their failure to inforce, and there's no compensation! Go figure!

sorry...."enforce"

Very interesting photos. When I lived in White Pine- there was a little newspaper called the "Nonesuch News". It was soooooo cute-just a home published little thing full of very local new and gossip!

What I found so amazing with this adventure, was looking at the field where the town was located. The apple trees and some lilies are still growing where the homes were located. You can see some of the foundations of the homes.
And they had a baseball team!
How cool, all that UP in the Porkies!

Thank you for posting our photos!
Have a great weekend. Carla

Several years ago my wife and I and our two dogs toured the
Nonesuch area with a historian that was working on an
archeological dig there. It was really interesting to have him
explain about how they could tell where the homes were by the fruit
trees and non native flowers. They were getting ready to dig up
one of the old privy holes, as he said that is where all the broken
pottery and worn out things were disposed of by the families.