Towns and Nature: May 2026

Monday, May 4, 2026

Michigamme, MI: Lost/(C&NW and DSS&A) Depots, Museum and Henry Ford Camp

DSS&A = Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic

Greg bunce posted two images with the comment: "The Chicago and North Western depot is at the center and the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic depot is at the right in this photo at Michigamme, Michigan. Michigamme was at the end of the C&NW branch from Ishpeming. Photo from the David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography in the William L. Clement Library at the University of Michigan."

Paul Hillmer: Boom town

The photo shows the C&NW depot is closer to town than the DSS&A depot. So the C&NW tracks would have been south of the DSS&A tracks. But the 2005 SPV Map shows the C&NW was north of the DSS&A tracks. The C&NW was gone so much before 1956 that this map doesn't even mark an old railroad grade. It does look like CN uses the C&NW route instead of the DSS&A route through town.

1956 Michigamme Quad @ 24,000

The building on the left looks like the old fire house. The building beyond it is labeled as the museum.

Street View, Jun 2025

Dawn K. Aug 2023

This is why Henry Ford was familiar with the Upper Peninsula.

Dawn K., Aug 2023

Mt. Airy, NC: 1743,1889-2025 World's Largest Open Faced Quarry Closed, It Provided Granite

(Satellite)

polycor_blog

"This quarry was first operated in 1743, well before the Revolutionary War, by the Brothers of the Moravian Church who came to this region from Germany. Operations were limited in those days because of the lack of equipment and technology. The ownership of the quarry site passed through many hands over the next hundred years until 1889, when the Cape Fear and Yadkin Valley Railroad was built from Greensboro to Mount Airy. Mr. Thomas Woodroffe was selected to build the railway stations along the new rail line, and he decided to use the stone from the Mount Airy Quarry. He organized the North Carolina Granite Company May 14, 1889, and purchased the quarry site. The quarry has been in continuous operation ever since. [until 2025, see below]" [polycor]

Granite from this quarry replaced the marble sheets on the Aon Center in Chicago. (The marble sheets warped and cracked in the Chicago weather and started to fall off the building.)

polycor_aon

Marble was chosen because the architect wanted a white surface. The marble product "flamed" was close to white.

polycor_stones_flamed
Flamed

"In the late 1980s, this instantly recognizable part of the famous Windy City skyline faced a problem: the Carrara marble panels on the 83-story building were cracked and buckling and in need of replacement after only 15 years. In fact, the building hadn’t even completed construction when the first panel of marble cladding came crashing down to the street below. White Mount Airy Granite® was chosen as the replacement stone because it can stand up to Windy City weather while retaining white, brilliant luster over time. Today, the Aon Center is the third largest building in Chicago, and the world’s tallest granite clad building." [polycor_blog]

The Arlington Memorial Bridge is clad with the Sandblasted product.

polycor_arlington

polycor_stones_sandblasted
Sandblasted

"The neoclassical bridge, whose original construction was launched in 1925, underwent a massive rehabilitation project starting in 2018, where hundreds of pieces of stone were removed from the historic span and were cleaned and repaired. While the original balusters were handcrafted, replacements for the few that couldn’t be repaired were made with high-tech guidance from computers, seamlessly matched with stone from the same quarry. It’s an astounding testament to the stone’s integrity that blocks mined from Mount Airy nearly a century ago match perfectly with stone extracted today." [polycor_blog]

NorthCarolinaMuseum
"Granite from the 90-acre quarry (the largest open-faced quarry in the world) is pure in color and texture; a piece removed today matches a piece removed a century ago."

"NCGC has continued to grow and evolve with the technology and markets. Today, NCGC is honored to be a part of the Polycor family of brands, having been acquired by the world’s largest dimension stone quarry company in 2021. Nothing has changed from an operations and service perspective, and you can continue to expect the same level of quality and trust that has been NCGC’s foundation and which is shared by Polycor across all of its family of brands." [polycor]

But four years later the quarry was closed at the end of Aug 2025! [mtairynews]

I'd say that was a change. So, were they lying in 2021 or that ignorant of the economics? Either way, it is a rather low "level of trust."

The mother mass is "is about 7 miles long and 1 mile wide, north and south. And it’s 8,000 feet deep." They have mined just 60' down. They estimate that they have enough granite to last another 500 years. The mining process uses a water pressure jet at 40,000psi, a diamond saw and explosives (Primacord). [OurState]

About 336 million years, to be precise. It was then that The Rock formed through a geological process called plate tectonics.

“Our planet is a restless planet,” says Bert Meijboom, a Pilot Mountain geologist who does consulting work for the North Carolina Granite Corp. and is familiar with the granite quarry. “Continental plates are constantly on the move.”

North Carolina sits on the North American plate, Meijboom says. Several times in geological history — remember, we’re talking about millions of years here — that plate has collided with the African Plate. The last time it happened — approximately 360 million years ago — portions of the African plate subsided beneath the North American plate, creating a subduction zone that set the stage for the formation of Mount Airy’s huge granite quarry.

“It was along such a zone, some 12 to 25 miles underneath the American plate, that blobs of molten rock were formed,” Meijboom says. “Due to its relatively lighter weight, the molten rock, also called magma, started to rise toward the surface, intruding the upper portions of the plate.”

The magma slowly solidified over millions of years and formed what’s known as a pluton — basically, a body of igneous rock that develops beneath the earth’s surface. As the plates continued to move and extensive erosion occurred, these plutons — one of which geologists actually refer to as the Mount Airy pluton — appeared at the surface, giving The Rock its designation as an open-faced quarry.

[OurState]

This is what motivated my research.

Facebook Reel

Satellite

Sunday, May 3, 2026

Orchard Place, IL: Lost/Wisconsin Central Depot

(Satellite)

Not only is the depot lost, the whole town is lost. It was swallowed by O'Hare Airport.

George Almaraz posted two photos with the comment: "In light of recent discoveries (thank you Tom Dueringer for your post on the Guthrie, Illinois train depot,) I wanted to share my own that I’ve made as of a month ago. —I’ve been researching about the lost town of Orchard Place, Illinois (what eventually became O’Hare Int’l Airport, hence, “ORD”) and trying to find as many photographs of the town and/or depot that was located on the Wisconsin Central railroad. There are a couple well known and published photos/info of the depot, but I’m hungry for more. In the midst of my research, I found two photos that were not known of before on an antique auctioning website (WorthPoint.) These photo postcard scans were listed on their sales archive and I was able to download the images. They’re from circa 1910!"

Paul Hurst: I would like to see a map of Orchard Park too. Just to see what it looked like.

George Almaraz commented on Paul's comment
Ah, you mean Orchard Place, Illinois. Where this depot was located. Orchard Place itself fell into the hands of progress, and pretty much got flattened down with the expansion of the airport and highways in the late 1950s. —Here’s a circa 1930s low aerial photo of the “main square” of Orchard Place. The train tracks are the Wisc. Central (Soo-Line), street going across is Higgins Rd., and the diagonal street on the right is Mannheim Rd. If you zoom in, you can see the depot on the right side of the tracks

Dennis DeBruler commented on Paul's comment
1900 Riverside and Highwood Quads @ 62,500

Dennis DeBruler commented on George's post
This image uses a transparency feature that shows the 1900 topo map overlaid on a base map that has the airport. Orchard Place is at the top to the left of Rosemont. https://livingatlas.arcgis.com/topomapexplorer/index.html...

Dennis DeBruler commented on George's comment
I was confused until I realized this photo is looking South. It appears that the depot was under today's I-90, https://maps.app.goo.gl/9NiHjp2x3y47HE1T8. 1938 aerial photo

Harristown, IL: Lost/Wabash and Illinois Terminal Depots

Wabash: (Satellite)

IT: (Satellite)

Mark Barnett posted two photos with the comment: "Illinois Terminal Harristown depot.Top one taken in 1953 and bottom one in 1951. Photographers unknown, from my collection."

Christopher P Allen: Great pic Mark Barnett

I literally just drove by it🤣

I know the owner, he’s trying to sell…

Tough market/niche

Michael Massa: was that the wabash railroad across from it?

Dennis DeBruler commented on Michael's question
Yes. And it looks like Mark caught the Wabash depot in the first photo. 1954 Niantic Quad @ 62,500

Street View, Jul 2013

Anderson, IN: 1912 Dow (JR) Tower: Big Four vs. Pennsy (PanHandle)

(Satellite, the Pennsy used to continue southeast.)

Mark Teer posted

Bill Haines: Dow tower in Anderson, IN where the Pennsy Richmond - Logansport line crossed the NYC branch.

David L White: Anderson, Indiana. http://madisonrails.railfan.net/dowtower.html

Photo via NorthAmericanInterlockings

1960/61 Anderson North Quad @ 24,000

Saturday, May 2, 2026

Whittier, AK: High Urban Density/Military Base

Alaska Railroad Depot: (Satellite, it is just a platform across the street from the cruise ship terminal.)

The only access from land is through the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel.

Most of the people in town live in this former military base, which was the Hodge Building. It is now the Begich Towers Condominium and has about 200 apartments. I saw a comment that the town gets 24' (7.3m) of snow.

Street View, Aug 2011

Facebook Reel
There is a tunnel that connects Begich Towers to the school building because of the winter weather and the bears.
[A comment observed that you could tell that she was a city girl because she locked her van.]

In the summer, cruise ships come here so that people can visit Alaska for a few days.

Street View, Aug 2009

Alaska Railroad runs "cruise trains."

James James, Mar 2021

Or is this the "cruise train?"

virgil Ellsworth, Jul 2023

The town also has a ferry that goes to Valdez.

Photo, Aug 2016

The railyard appears to handle containers.

Satellite

The Buckner Building was the first part of the military base. It is now abandoned.

Robin Teagarden III, May 2025

tommorow.city
85% of the town's population lives in the Begich Towers. The deep-water port is ice free. The average temperature in winter is -21 Centigrade (-5.8F).
The tunnel is 4km (2.5 miles) long.
"The town also has a port, used by cargo ships, cruise ships, commercial fishing boats, and hundreds of vessels carrying recreational boaters, sport anglers, and tourists. It is an important part of the Alaska Marine Highway System, using Whittier as a terminal for its central-south routes and as a connection to the railroad that transports goods and passengers in and out of the city.
In summer, Whittier changes. Between May and September, cruise ships stop there for two and three days of the week to enjoy the glaciers and the nature in the area. In 2016, according to the most recent figures available, up to 129,894 passengers arrived by this mode of transport."

Arthur, IA: Old Concrete Grain Elevator, Feed Mill and POET Bioprocessing

Old: (Satellite)

Feed Mill: (Satellite)

POET: (Satellite)

CN now owns this C&NW branch from Ida Grove Junction with the former IC route.

The elevator on the left is the old elevator. The elevator on the right looks like a feed mill.

Street View, Sep 2021

Wesley Peters posted four photos with the comment:

Revisiting Arthur, Ida County, IA.
Shotwell Manufacturing Co. Built in 1916, No contractor mentioned. The construction supervisor was B. Sampson. 1,750,000 pounds of popcorn could be stored in this complex.
Believed to be the second oldest concrete elevator in the state behind the Cannon, Haase & Metcalf Elevator (1907) at Granville, IA. [The only concrete silos I found in Granville did look that old.]
Photographed on 4/21/2026.
Photos courtesy of Wesley Peters.

Feed mill:

Street View, Aug 2025

I had to zoom out to find the elevator on the left side of Photo 3 above. Notice all of the tank cars stored in their railyard. It is an ethanol plant.