The story
History
The mining engineer and geologist Henry H. Hindshaw, of New York City, started the analysis to establish the commercial value of limestone in Northern Lower Michigan in January 1909. He looked over and evaluated certain properties in the northeastern part of Michigan, between the small lumbering community of Rogers City and the nearby open pit mine of Crawford's Quarry. In February, Hindshaw first drilled samples for the Solvay Process Company of Syracuse, New York. The limestone samples were found to be of commercially usable quality, so the company took an option to purchase all the surrounding land by the Lake Huron shore south of Rogers City. Hindshaw then returned to New York City and got in contact with William F. White of the White Investing Company. The investor showed an interest in the commercial development of the limestone.
Hindshaw originally bought the land with the hope of using the Limestone directly as building material, i.e., stone facades. That aspiration was misplaced; and was displaced by the realization that this would be marketable as a commodity for its chemical composition.
Limestone is a raw material essential in the industry. Major uses are for various aggregates, road-base stone cement, manufacture flux for iron and steel production, railroad ballast, mine dusting, and lime manufacture. Hindshaw determined the value was high due to the unusually high grade and purity of the limestone deposit underground in the northeastern region of Lower Michigan along the shore of Lake Huron, near Alpena and south of Rogers City. The quality and size of the limestone deposit at Rogers City, and the availability of easy water transportation, led to the development of the quarry and a port. Both quarry and port are named "Calcite," after the principal ingredient of limestone.
Quarry
It is the largest limestone quarry in the world, measuring 4 miles (6.4 km) long by 1.5 miles (2.4 km) wide, amounting to 8,924 acres (3,611 ha). It features mega loader vehicles that haul up to 195 tonnes (192 long tons; 215 short tons), that is 390,000 pounds (180,000 kg), in single trucks that have tires measuring 13 feet (4.0 m) in height.
The quarry and plant are currently owned and operated by Carmeuse Lime and Stone, with 115 employees. It has been described as a "man made Grand Canyon," as it is more than 150 feet (46 m) deep.
This is one of several dozen limestone quarries that have been located in Michigan. The Michigan Basin encompasses large areas of limestone bedrock.
The quarry exploits limestone and dolomite strata, part of the "Michigan Basin" and the "Rogers City" geologic unit and strata. "As proposed, the name Rogers City is applied to limestone and dolomite strata formerly considered part of the Dundee, which is here restricted to lower 140 feet (43 m) of section. Lower 8 feet (2.4 m) to 9 ft of Rogers City is dolomite; the upper part is limestone. Rogers City fauna is distinctive from that of Dundee. Age is Middle Devonian."
This open pit mine, operating for 110 years since 1912, was at times called "the Calcite Quarry" "Calcite Plant and Mill" and "Carmeuse Lime and Stone", mines 350 million year old deposits, and has shipped well over 750,000,000 tonnes (740,000,000 long tons; 830,000,000 short tons) of product to customers. It is within the Rogers City limestone, a part of the Dundee Limestone. Of the 7,000 acres (2,800 ha) on the site, about 3,000 are actively mined. The company predicts the site has reserves that can last 100 years.
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The quarry is the subject of a well-known astronaut photo. It has been documented in an Emmy Award winning documentary film. As the director of the film notes: “Initially I thought, it’s (a documentary) about a quarry,” Belanger said. “But it’s a human story. The quarry of course is limestone, it’s rock, but it’s how this natural resource becomes a driving force for our nation. Much of this limestone was used to build the Mackinac Bridge, it helped build the interstate highway system throughout the nation, and it's used in everyday items."
The Detroit and Mackinac Railway opened its Rogers City Branch in 1911. Service inside the mine dates back to before 1926. Pictures indicate that the yard was originally serviced by company-owned switching engines. Trackage included switches and even two interlocks inside the plant which date back to 1926. The railroad for the quarry is currently serviced by Lake State Railway, successor to the D&M.
Rogers City donated land to create a landmark in celebration of the quarry's centennial. Part of the landmark is a 6 foot (1.8 m) X 6-foot mural made of outdoor tiles created by master potter Guy Adamec from the Flint Institute of Arts. Part of the design "represent[s] the history of the quarry by depicting layers of quarry strata ranging from the Devonian Period to the current day. This... [are depicted] in different colors of cement block to show the strata."
The United States Army and Air Force conduct simulated-fire phases within the Carmeuse Calcite Quarry area during Exercise Northern Strike.
According to the Oglebay Norton, this quarry is "producing high-calcium carbonate limestone... and shipping between 7 and 10.5 million net tons (NT) per year, depending on market demand." The operation "produces nine base product sizes, from 5-1/2 inches down to sand-sized particles. These products can be blended together to meet most sizing specifications."
Company
Michigan Limestone and Chemical Company was founded in 1910 by White and a few of his investor capitalist colleagues, who purchased a 5,000-acre (2,000 ha) parcel of land of prime limestone deposits from the Rogers City Land Company. It was the lumber industry that had brought the first settlers to the northern area of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, around the time of the Civil War. The first pioneer settlers arrived in the Rogers City vicinity in 1869, and they started the Rogers-Molitor Lumber Company. The lumber industry was the backbone of the economy in Rogers City, and Presque Isle County, until the second decade of the 20th century. By that time, most of the forests had been cut down, and the major lumber companies were moving their camps to fresh forests in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (and into the nearby states of Wisconsin and Minnesota). Around this time Michigan Limestone and Chemical Company began construction of facilities for mining limestone.
White, whose residence was in New York City, served as president of Michigan Limestone and Chemical Company when he filed Articles of Association in the Presque Isle County Clerk's office at Rogers City making the company official on May 26, 1910. The Calcite port and quarry plant started operations in June 1910 and maintained offices in New York City and Rogers City. Hindshaw was the first general manager and was paid $3,500 per year. He was replaced in October by Joseph Jenkins of Alpena, Michigan, who was paid $3,000 a year. Carl D. Bradley of Chicago replaced Jenkins on October 12, 1911.
Bradley managed the construction of the limestone processing factory, which included a powerhouse, stone crusher, screen-house, conveyor power distribution system, a harbor with loading slip, ship loader, repair shop, and executive office building. Steam shovels were purchased for use in mining, and steam locomotives and dump cars were used to move the stone from the quarry to the crusher. A steam locomotive was purchased to haul the limestone from the quarry.
There was a 14-mile (23 km) spur track built by the company that led into the Calcite operations from the Detroit & Mackinac Railroad main line just west of Posen, Michigan. Production at the quarry began in early 1912 and the first cargoes of stone were shipped by steamer freighters in June of that year. The company received orders for limestone that far exceeded the most optimistic expectations.
Most of the stone mined at the Rogers City quarry was shipped on lake freighters to steel mills located along the lower Great Lakes at places like Detroit, Cleveland, Gary, and South Chicago. For most of the plant's history, its biggest customer was United States Steel (also known as U.S. Steel), the world's largest producer of steel products. Eventually, additional markets were found for the limestone in the agricultural, construction, chemical, and cement industries. The Rogers City area continued to develop and grow as the Calcite plant facilities grew. Within 20 years, the quarry at Rogers was the world's largest producer of limestone.
U.S. Steel
United States Steel Corporation was the first customer of the company. White and his partners were in contact with potential major consumers of limestone even before the company was officially formed. They were in negotiations with several steel companies and other companies that used quantities of limestone and concluded that if they built a massive quarry they would have potential consumers immediately. US Steel signed a contract within months of when the company was officially formed and a year before limestone was actually produced. Iroquois Iron Company of Chicago signed a contract with Michigan Limestone for the purchase of 50,000 tons of limestone. The limestone company was created, at least in part, with the idea that there was a waiting market for their product.
US Steel later purchased a controlling interest in Michigan Limestone in 1920 when the company was producing 1,000 tons of crushed limestone a day.
Bradley was promoted from general manager to president of Michigan Limestone. He also served as president of Michigan Limestone's fleet of self-unloading ships used to deliver the stone. Those ships were operated as the Bradley Transportation Company. Michigan Limestone and Bradley Transportation came under the full ownership of U.S. Steel upon Bradley's death in 1928. At that time U.S. Steel purchased all of the stock of both Michigan Limestone and the associated shipping concern, Bradley Transportation, and made both these companies subsidiaries of U.S. Steel. The company became a division in 1951 when the operations at Rogers City became U.S. Steel's "Northern District", since the main offices were moved to Detroit. The operation is still a major employer in northern Michigan. Its ownership has changed several times in recent years.
Michigan historical marker
The company conducts yearly tours of the quarry. Typically the event is conjoined with Rogers City's annual Nautical City Festival. Then the public is permitted "to see some of the giant equipment" up close and personal that the plant uses. The experience highlights the grand scale of the operation and the equipment. The Alpena News has detailed the numbers, which may be of interest, but are too extensive to repeat here. "The Calcite Operation is one of 28 production facilities Carmeuse owns in North America and one of 94 production facilities the company owns around the world. The plant mines, processes and ships limestone via freighters on the Great Lakes, which haul the raw materials to the next location." As of 2019, 915,931,719 tons have been shipped from the Quarry. 1953 was the high water mark for production at 16.6 million tons. In prior days, the tailings were dumped into the lake, but that has ceased and they are now beneficially used. It would take 4,000 wheelbarrows full to fill the largest truck in the facility, and 12 hours to fill a freighter.
It is surrounded by vantage points.
This site should be considered as part of an effort to mine limestone in other parts of Michigan. For example, the Mill Creek Quarry opened near Mackinaw City, Michigan in 1912. That site is now part of the Michigan state parks system.
There is a Michigan State Historic Site historical marker at a viewing point over Michigan Limestone and Chemical Company facilities.
From Wikipedia’s article on Michigan Limestone and Chemical Company, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3