Pictorial of The 30th State

Hurleyis is tame today, 1920s and 1930s when Hurley was one of the most notorious places in the country.

taken from Wisconsin Historical Society:
"tucked away up in the wild lumber and iron section of northern Wisconsin, right on the Michigan State line, has the distinction of being the worst community in the State. Conditions in Hurley are not unlike those of settlements like Dawson City, Cripple Creek, El Dorado, Borger, and other boom communities. Gambling, prostitution, bootlegging, and dope are about the chief occupations of the place. Saloons there function with barmaids who serve the dual capacity of soda dispenser and prostitute."

has nearly 30 bars, a rather unusual number for a town of 2,000.


This area offers you hundreds of miles of dirt trails
​

Plummer Mine shaft
Opened in 1904
angles downward from the headframe following a vein of ore into the earth
to a depth of 2,367 feet.

The Plummer Mine closed in 1924
the last such headframe standing in Wisconsin.

From an engine house, cables ran up over the wheels at the top of the headframe
and were attached to elevator cars, lowering miners and equipment underground
and pulling ore cars back to the surface.

State Road 77
Pence, WI​

This is the mud hole
that Rustoleum Paint
gets all of its Iron Oxide Primer


Of the six principal iron ranges in the United States,
three are located primarily in Michigan

the Marquette Range, all of which is found within the state,
the Menominee and Gogebic ranges which are located in both Michigan and Wisconsin.

The Gogebic Range lies partly in Michigan and partly in Wisconsin divided by the Montreal River

This range extends almost 80 miles between Atkins Lake in Wisconsin and slightly west of Lake Gogebic in Michigan; the Michigan section is approximately 30 miles long


The Gogebic Range

a trapper and hunter, who seen red ore outcropping from the roots of an overturned tree near Bessemer in 1879. By 1884, this ore location, known as the Colby Mine, began to produce commercial iron ore.

In 1882, iron was discovered near Wakefield, the discovery became the famous Sunday Lake Mine. During that same year Norrie Mine in the city of Ironwood started.

Soon the Railroad had begun a line that was run from Milwaukee into Michigan new mining district during the summer of 1884

By 1910, three separate railway lines served the Gogebic Range, and approximately four million tons of iron ore were being shipped annually.

The range became the frenzied "Gold Rush" speculation during the late 1880s, and the total capitalization for the companies formed in the year 1886 reached a total of over one billion dollars.

production rose steadily from 1884, reaching a high water mark in 1892

From 1893 through the first decade of the twentieth century, production levels ranged from approximately 3-4 million tons of ore shipped,



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Saxon Harbor
located on Lake Superior's Oronto Bay in Iron County, Wisconsin,

Historically, this was near the beginning of an ancient Native American trade route known as the Flambeau Trail

was the site of a fur trading post operated by John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company from 1808 to 1830​

Gogebic County Courthouse
The courthouse was constructed in 1888
upheritage.org​

HISTORY OF THE KEYSTONE BRIDGE
The Keystone Bridge was constructed in 1891 by Chicago and Northwest Railroad at a cost of $48,322.

Similar to old Roman architecture, the bridge was built without mortar on a solid rock foundation.

The bridge consists of a series of arches, with each arch having a center keystone at the top to lock in the entire structure.

The 5 foot thick blocks used to construct the bridge are limestone, which was brought from Kaukauna, Wisconsin.

The bridge is 45 feet long, 44 feet wide, 57 feet high, with 50 foot walls. This

Historic Keystone Bridge
bridge carried mining and logging materials across the Black River.

Although millions of tons of freight shipped by rail passed over the arch bridge, the bridge is structurally sound.

The bridge is a stop along the
Upper Michigan Heritage Trail Network
​

The Ramsay Bridge (bridge in the background)
is an impressive example of a concrete girder bridge
To a bridge lover, the bridge in the background is as significant as the Keystone Bridge
Go figure
​