NEGAUNEE - A portion of the Iron Ore Heritage Trail now has three new figures to welcome travelers between Ishpeming and Negaunee.
On Wednesday morning, a sculpture of three men working with sledge hammers, using the double jacking - hand drilling - mining technique to break up rock, was installed near the Jackson Mine Pit No. 1 along the trail.
"This is one of the nice touches of being able to have sculpture that depicts the style of mining that took place here back in the 1850s," said Jim Thomas, Negaunee City Council member and president of the Iron Ore Heritage Recreation Authority.
The new sculpture is the final addition in a three-phase project that also included the placement of a crusher and a series of carts used in underground mining near the start of the pathway that goes past the pit.
All three sculptures were paid for by a $20,000 grant from the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Local artist Mike Lempinen worked with Rick Kauppila, owner of U.P. Fabricating, to create the three figures that are made from layers of steel stacked together.
"Mike and I have worked on similar projects like this for years," Kauppila said. "What we've always said is if we can dream it, we can make it."
Lempinen said his interest in local history and his Finnish mining heritage helped inspire the piece.
"I'm interested in history in general and local history in particular," he said. "The idea for metal (sculptures) was the fact that metal is the product of iron ore. It's also a hard substance like the men who were miners."
U.P. Fabricating typically works to produce beams and other construction items, and Kauppila said that his crews enjoyed working on an art piece.
"I think anytime that any of our people... work on something that people can see, it just adds to the excitement of the project," he said.
The three figures, each weighing about a ton, were modeled after a photograph of two men and a boy working to drill holes into the rock to insert explosives, Lempinen said.
Double jacking usually involved two men working with sledge hammers to pound a metal drill rod into the rock. The drill rod was typically held by a young boy and turned a quarter turn after every blow from the hammers.
Made of steel, Kauppila said the figures will be allowed to rust naturally, to further reflect the area's mining heritage.
"It'll look like rusted structures typical of what you'd see in any mining operation," he said.
Creating the statues was a six-month process, with patterns of each steel piece being laid out on an 8-foot by 20-foot sheet of metal and then cut out. Once cut out, the three figures took two weeks to assemble.
Now the figures are anchored into the ground and will soon be finished off by a layer of rock containing hematite ore from the mine to be layered under their feet to complete the setting of the three miners at work, Lempinen said.
The installation took about two hours Wednesday morning, but that isn't the end of the plans for the area surrounding the pit.
Thomas said he hopes to see the installation of a boardwalk around the water-filled mine pit, turning it into more of a park area.
The park will showcase both the open pit and the entrance to one of the mine tunnels, as both mining methods were used at the Jackson Mine.
"This whole area used to be a huge mound of iron ore," he said, pointing to the piles of rock criss-crossed by drill holes. "We hope to make this into a park and show people the two types of mining."
