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| specular hematite |
2,008 miles
Apr 11 –
This community established a post office in 1869, and took its name from the
nearby Champion Iron Mine. I thought
that I had left the Iron Range mining region of the western U.P. behind, since
all I’ve seen for a while is forest & park land. But the Champion mine produced high quality
ore until the 1950s. It was a very hard
hematite, much of which was of the "lump" variety. The lump ore is desirable because it can be
used directly as feed into the open hearth furnace, thus bypassing reduction in
the blast furnace.
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| magnetite |
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| quartz with tourmaline threads |
According to
rockhounds, a number of minerals can be found on the old rock piles of the
mines, including specular hematite, dark red garnet crystals partially embedded
in lumps of magnetite, quartz crystals with slender prisms of tourmaline, and
siderite. At the Champion Mine, it is
possible to find sapphire and sericite.
At the
Athens mine near Champion, there are rusty red and dark brown heaps of iron ore
minerals, as you might expect from an old iron mine. Its color is in striking contrast to the
yellow and buff surface clays once deposited on the bed of an old glacial lake.
Some hematite is soft, and you will find
when your clothing is soiled if you are not careful how you handle the powdery
ore.
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| Champion railroad station, photo by Greg Bunce |
This depot
served the Duluth, South Shore, & Atlantic Railroad through Champion. Also, the Milwaukee Road and its passenger
trains used the South Shore route for a time to reach Calumet.
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| house on Swedetown Road |
I noticed a “Swedetown
Road” on the map, and I’m guessing that this is where Swedish mine workers (or
mis-identified Finns) lived in a mining camp community. I used Google Street Views to explore along
this road, but did not find anything clearly identifiable as Swedish or
Finnish, except a 1970s Lutheran church.
I did find houses that speak of the lives of hard workers.
station
photo & info by Greg Bunce:
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