This cache will bring you to a parking lot by a lake. This lake is called Strawberry Lake and now is a city park. It has a walking trail, park, ice skating rink, baseball field, and fishing piers. But did you know that the town of Norway used to sit right where that lake is. The upper peninsula of Michigan is well known for its mining of some of the richest and purest iron ore in the world. This area is called the Menominee Iron Range. Many towns sprang up around all the mines that dot the land. Some of these towns were the biggest in Upper Michigan and today are nothing but a sign or a ghost town. Common to many mines in the area, they would mine a vertical shaft and then every hundred feet or so start mining horizontally. These tunnels sideways were called drifts. When the vein or area of iron ore would be between the drifts they would mine out huge holes or caverns called stopes to mine out all the ore they could. These stopes or caverns they mined out could be hundreds of feet across and deep. You can see an example of these stopes at a place just east of Norway on US2 called the Iron Mountain Iron Mine (also known as the Vulcan Mine or Big John). This is an underground mine tour that brings you to one of these stopes. Sometimes they took out too much too close to the surface and would cause a cave in or sink hole. Some of the old timers around the area say that the entire area from Iron Mountain to far on the other side of Norway is hollow. I can remember growing up seeing logging still done with horses because they were afraid heavy equipment would fall though the ground into one of these stopes.
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Back to moving a town. This lake that you parked in front of you is one of those stopes that caved in. The mine was called the Aragon Mine. You can still see part of the rock crusher standing (crumbling) to your southeast. Through the mining years there eventually 9 shaft sunk in the area by various company's. The Arogon mine opened in 1889 and ran until 1929. 10,898,641 tons of ore were taken out of the ground here. The town of Norway used to sit right out in front of you. In the very late 1890's they noticed that the ground around town was settling or starting to sink. Buy 1902 it was sinking so fast that it had become a concern and in some places it had sunk 2ft. So people started voluntarily moving to the new town south of the railroad tracks. The mining company offered land with sidewalks and modern amenities to business at a reduced rate. In February,1908 the city council started plans to move city hall and the entire city south to where it sits now. After city hall moved pretty much the rest of the town followed. After the mine caved in it filled with water. This happened because the mine was basically under a swamp. As of 2020 and beyond, there is still a pump in the mine shaft and it regulates the level of the lake. The water that is pumped out creates a small creek that runs through town. The Aragon mine was one the first mines in the area to use liquid nitrogen to freeze the swampland to be able to dig a shaft.
Found this the other day(11/27/2024) and thought it would be interesting to add:
STREETS ARE SINKING
RESIDENTS OF NORWAY, MICH., VERY MUCH ALARMED
IRON MOUNTAIN, Mich., Jan. 28--Residents of Norway, seven miles from this place, are becoming genuinely alarmed over the sinking of the streets and buildings at that place.
The Nelson block, on the principal street of the town, is gradually settling, and all of the tenants are moving, as it is becoming unsafe. There are several large cracks in the side and the structure is about ready to collapse.
The postoffice is also gradually sink, so that it is necessary to go downhill to get the mail. It is thought that the cause for sinking of the ground is the Aragon mine, which is directly under the city.
--Aberdeen Daily News, SD, January 28, 1903
From the time of the cave in till the 1990's nothing was ever done with the land around this man caused lake, mostly because it was taboo to play around an old mine cave in. In 1992/93 the city decided to use the land around the lake for a park and began to construct the walking trail, which is pavement all the way around the lake. Through the years the city has improved and added to the park. Now there is fishing piers, a playground, a baseball field, and an ice rink/warming shack during the winter. So bring the kids or have a picnic by the playground. If you want just go for a little stroll around the lake.
To log the cache you need to email me the answers to these four questions:
How long is the walking trail around the lake?
And what is the name of the playground to the east?
What color are most of the rocks around here?
Why do you think they are that color?
And if you would like, post a picture of you or your crew and GPS in front of the sign at the entrance to the trail or at the playground just down the gravel road to the east. This is optional. Thanks again for visiting!
References
Dickinson County from the Earliest Years Thru the 1920’s - Published by the Dickinson County Board of Commissioners, in 1991 and the info was compiled and edited by William John Cummings,
Pioneer Family History Section Editor, Hazel de Gayner Dault.
Jake Menghini Museum and Local Historians, Norway, Michigan
Mark Worrall Collection with Information from Greg Bunce
Norway Current newspaper issue Jan. 7, 2010 article: Recalling Yesterdays, By: Bill Van Wolvelaere