Aetna Mine Traditional Cache

Standard blue-top peanutbutter jar

Take the Burma Rd, turn south onto Aetna Mine Rd, and you can drive easily to mine.

Container is located next to one of the shafts. Exploring the area, we never found the second shaft. We did find a trench dug between the rock pile and the road. (trench to the SW of shaft) No signs of any foundations were found.

The Aetna Mining Company was incorporated in 1846 with sporadic exploration work conducted on the property until 1863 when mining operations began. The company worked the Sullivan and Junction veins where several masses of copper were pulled. By 1866, the mine was worked to a 3rd level where an 80 ton mass of copper was recovered. Between 1863 and 1873, the mine produced 140,881 pounds of copper from the two shafts that were drilled. However, the amount of copper (and the company) started to decline because of mismanagement and operations ceased in 1873. In 1879, the company was reorganized and by 1905, it was taken over by the Keweenaw Copper Company which never re-opened the mine. Today, little remains of the mine except for some small rock piles where copper can be found