Quincy Copper - Susan J. Godwin

In my opinion, unexpected finds are the most remembered.

I was wandering Michigan’s Upper Peninsula last summer when I turned a bend and saw what remains of the majestic Quincy Mines.

It took my breath away for some reason. I had to stop and check it out.

Operated for 99 years, the Quincy Mine located near Hancock, Michigan, was one of the most productive and longest operating mines in the Copper Country. The mine reached depths of nearly two miles and produced over 400,000 tons of copper.

Many other copper mines were founded at the same time, but the Upper Peninsula’s Quincy Mine became the most successful of the mid-nineteenth century-era mines. In fact, it was the country’s leading copper producing mine during The Civil War. The Quincy Mine was known as “Old Reliable,” because it paid a dividend to investors every year from 1868 through 1920.

It closed operations—but did not dissolve—in 1931 due to low copper prices. During World War II, the mines re-opened due to increased copper demand. When the government stopped supporting copper prices after the war, the mines quickly closed for good.

Its architectural design stunned me, “natural rigorous beauty” claims SFMOMA’s curator, Jeff Rosenheim, so when CBS Sunday Morning did a feature on the German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher and their exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, ending this week, it reminded me of my stumble onto the Quincy Mine.

For nearly fifty years, German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher photographed the industrial architecture of Western Europe. Early coverage referred to the Bechers as “photographer-archaeologists.” They documented lime kilns, cooling towers, blast furnaces, winding towers, water towers, gas tanks, silos, and other industrial structures.

They normally arranged their photographs in grids or sequence them in monographs: The systematic nature of their approach has become a recognizable style.