Iron Mountain, MI adventures, Aug 11-12, 2011

Beautiful skies were our usher today from Ishpeming to Iron Mountain.  Found a nice campground north of Iron Mountain, Summer Breeze. 

Here I am standing by the 40’ flywheel of the Cornish Pump.  This pump was used to dewater three of the local iron mines, one of which was the Chapin Mine, one of the wettest iron mines to be worked.

This pump is HUGE!!  It is hard to get a good photo showing how big is it.

 

A little Cornish Pump trivia:  could pump 3,000 gallons of water every minute through the 28” diameter pipeline.  Flywheel 40’ in diameter and weighs 160 tons, had a average normal speed of ten revolutions per minute.  The engine’s boilers required 11,000 tons of coat to operate annually.

 

Any idea of what this is?  This was in the museum that also housed the Cornish Pump.  Overall height was about 12”.   The lady at the desk did not know, only said it had been there over 10 years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have to wonder what other purpose the makers of this sign was referring to?  Hummmm….

We then visited the Menominee Range Historical Foundation Museum.  This neat museum had lots of items I had not seen before.

Fractional Currency.  These bills are shown in the bottom row.

Check out the link above for more info.

Match holders, before lighters were invented.

A Mosley fold up bathtub, same concept of a murphy bed. (1895)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was particularly interested in #22.  Do you know what it is?

It is a yoke to keep cattle from jumping a fence.

Edison’s replica of his  light bulb.

This was hanging in the old school class room.  Words we all could live by.

Now, here are strict  guidelines for teachers, don’t know the time frame, but would think in the late 1800’s.

Like I said earlier, this museum had so many unique items, I loved it.

We needed to get back to the coach today because a visitor was coming.  Fifty years ago we both attended a wedding, her sister and my brother.  My family was living in SE Ohio and Chris’ in NW Indiana, so when my brother and his new wife came to visit in SE Ohio, they would sometimes bring his wife’s kid sister.  So us ‘kid sisters’ had a great time exploring the farm we lived on.   It was through Facebook that we reconnected again and eventually were able to meet here in Iron Mountain where she lives.

Chris brought me these lovely white roses.  Thanks Chris for making the time in your busy schedule for a visit.