The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1938-02-10

a nearby dugout early last Octob
Seadlund arranged payment of a
Range Railroad Co., between the Sou
dan Mine an Two Harbors on Lake Su.
perior, a distance of IS miles.
The date was July 80, 1884.
st remember that day as if if were
yesterday" said Thomas Owens, wher
interviewed recently in his home at two
Harbors.
81 was the engineer who drove the
iron horse on its first run. I was
scarcely less important in the eyes Of
the celebrating Chippewas than the
great white chief, who was Charlemagne
Tower, Jr., president of the railroad
and of the Minnesota Iron Company
for which the line was built. The en-
CINE and tender hauled ten 28-ft
wooden ore cars and a wooden caboose
81 ft. long. Eighteen people made the
trip on the train.
THE ore cars were loaded by wheel
barrow from a platform level with the
car tops. Capt. Elisha Morcom, who
was in charge of the Soudan Mine
wheeled the first barrow of ore into the
first ore car to be loaded.
Captain Morcom was a CorniShman
who had come to Soudan with number
of his countrymen from the mines OF
upper Michigan. They found operations
in the pioneer Minnesota mine quite
different from those in Michigan. The
ore was exceptionally hard and very
difficult to drill Hand drills were used
One man would hold the drill while two
men would drive it with sledge ham
merS. Usually the drill was either toe
hard or too soft and would have to be
replaced after a few strokes of the
hammers. A man with a horse and
wagon was kept busy hauling drills to
and from the blacksmith shop.
"All of the operations in those days
were on the surface. The first mine
opened was the Breitung pit. When the
hard ore was blasted, pieces of it would
sometimes fall a mile away from the
operations. The miners-and every one
else in the vicinity for that matter
surely had to run for cover.
well, a total of $4,000 tons of ore
was taken from the Breitung in 1884
and that was all the ore taken directly
from that pit. Later the Tower, Ely,
Stone and Stuntz pits were opned. The
ore formation was really like the five
fingers of one hand All five pits even
tually joined in a single ore deposit
underground OF course, as you know
all operations at Soudan are now below
the surface some two thousand feet
below, in fact"
But, Mr.. Owens" his interviewer
interposed, what happened to that first
trainload of ore?"
Nov that's good question: Mr.
Owens replied. you know it is so easy
to digress in reminiscing, and you car
be sure that I don't want to omit the
story about that trainload I shall
never forget my experience in moving
it back to Two Harbors.
you see, Captain Morcom measured
the ore by the wheelbarrow load, If
that way estimating the tonnage loaded
into each car. His guessing was no.
so good because the 20-ton cars wers
really loaded with about 80 tons Of ore
each. Now that was a lot of ore per cal
| for those days when you realize tina
the largest car then in use here
was a four wheeler with a capacity O.
about tons. With all that weight
had real task to control the train OF
downgrades. Remember, the cars has
no air brakes. Fortunately the sharpes
descent was the last IL miles of tn,
trip. The average grade for this stretcl
was about 2 per cent and that for tn
last three miles was per cent.
well, I stopped the train at the cres
of this descent and we then released
the handbrakes on the cars until tn
train got in motion again. I used tn
steam brake on the engine for emer
gencies only.
you can readily imagine how slow,
we moved. 1t was the only safe thin
| W w. ~ VIC AAoA 6oG So1A46 az ~ Alills
an hour on so sharp grade the brake
would have been of no use-the wheel
would have slid on the rails.
Luckily we made the trip withou
accident. We left Soudan at 3 p. n
and arrived at Two Harbors at II %. n
Besides moving at a snail's pace be
cause of the overlooking of the OF
cars, We stopped frequently to take o
water for the engine. There were n
pumps or tanks along the line and S
! when We reached stream or a pom
we would drop hose and syphon waite
!, into the tender tank. Incidentally, til
i water was fed from the tender to til
boiler by a pump on the side of til
engine, driven from the piston-thel
, were no injectors at that time.
Those were just some of the diff
) culties we had to overcome. But v
! made the trip safely and, what's NOR
| we made it two days ahead of tim
! 81 know that sounds as If we r,