ISHPEMING — The A-shaft head-frame on the site of the Cliffs Mine in Ishpeming was built as one of two identical buildings in 1919. Cleveland-Cliff’s Iron Company, the owner of the mine, replaced the wooden head-frame structures with two reinforced concrete shaft houses in a neo-Egyptian revival, according to the U.S. Library of Congress.

In mining, the structure above a vertical shaft that holds the elevator works and hoists is called a headframe. Atop two shafts of the country’s largest hematite mine, Cliffs Shaft Mine, the wooden headframes were in need of replacement in 1919.

Because of the mine’s prominent location the company believed that the structures should be architecturally pleasing as well as functional. The shaft house base measures 37-feet by 57-feet. The top of the pointed roof is nearly 97 feet from the footings of the building. Opened by the Iron Cliffs Co. in 1879, the mine was acquired by the present owner, the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Co., in 1891. The Cliffs Shaft was the nations largest producer of hard specular hematite, a type of iron ore. Over 26 million tons were mined and since 1887 ore was shipped every year but one. The mine was also one of the largest of Michigan iron mines, its sixty-five miles of tunnels running under most of Ishpeming and plunging to a depth of 1358 feet. As late as the 1930s, there were eight iron mines in Ishpeming. The Cliffs Shaft was the last of these, and its closing in 1967 marked the end of an era.

The building is one of several on the site of the Cliffs Shaft Mining Museum.

In 2019 the museum celebrated the 100th anniversary of the building of A and B shafts with an afternoon of events, including tours around the grounds, live music, the firing of a cannon and a peek inside A shaft.

The nonprofit museum is currently closed for the winter and will reopen in May. Current office hours are 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Monday through Friday.

The museum is also home to a trail-head for the Iron Ore Heritage Trail.