Poster says------------
I’m in the process of finishing up an article on the Copper Range’s last run to Gay and have been spending a lot of time looking at maps and aerial images of Gay. I thought it would be fun to annotate the 1938 USGS aerial of this mill town. Gay was formed as the location of the Mohawk Mining Company and Wolverine Copper Mining Company stamp mills. The railroad connecting the mines with mills was the Mohawk & Traverse Bay built by the Mohawk Mining Company, with a portion reusing the Hebard Quarry railroad right-of-way. When the M&TB started operations in 1902 the line was leased by the Mineral Range, later in 1917 the Copper Range would take over the lease and eventually purchase the line. The trackage on this aerial would have been built by the Mohawk Mining Company in 1901-02. By the time of this aerial (1938) the stamp mills have ceased operation with the Mohawk mill closing in 1932. As apparent in this aerial, the mills have been mostly disassembled in those six years. Also notice in that short time since the mills have shuttered, a number of houses have been razed as the population of the town moves away looking for employment elsewhere. After the stamp mills closed this line transitioned from a copper-related traffic base to a wood products traffic base. This transition is captured by the newly built Dion Lumber Company mill that is located on the railroad between the former stamp mills and the pump house at the end of the line. On the west side of town is the depot (built by the Mineral Range) and the wye can be seen; track layout in Gay was fairly simplistic, with the railroad support infrastructure (i.e. roundhouse, coaling tower, etc. located in Mohawk). Trains would travel to Gay until 1964 but for that story you will have look in an upcoming issue of the Miscowaubik, the publication of the Copper Range Railroad Historical & Technical Society.
If you find yourself traveling to Gay, make sure you stop by the museum in the former schoolhouse. There are several great exhibits that explain the town’s history and is well worth the visit. If you are lucky, docent Nancy Sanderson will be present to help explain the town’s history.
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