24/365 - Quincy Boiler and Shaft

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Following on my theme from yesterday, here's a black-and-white view from a totally different mine site: the Quincy Mine. In the foreground are the ruins of the old #2/#4 double boiler house -- once filled with huge steam boilers, providing steam power to the mine. Behind it is the #2 shafthouse, a modern steel structure from a different era of the mine's development.

The Quincy Mine is a very different mine from the Central Mine, featured yesterday. Although both started in the 1840s, the Central was a "fissure" mine -- mining primarily huge, pure chunks of copper. The Quincy, on the other hand, was an "amygdaloid" mine -- mining rock with tiny bits of copper infused through it. As it turns out, Quincy's model was better, and all of the truly successful mines in the Copper Country were amygdaloid mines. Quincy paid dividends for more than 50 years straight, earning it the name "Old Reliable". But, just like the Central and all other Copper Country mines, the Quincy is now nothing more than a collection of shafts and ruins.