Athens Mine air line respirator equipment

Abstract

The Athens Mine was an underground iron mine in the Marquette Range, Michigan. Development on the Athens Mine started in 1913 and the Mine was worked into the 1950s, eventually reaching a depth of some 2,400 feet. The Mine was operated by the Athens Iron Mining Company for the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company. Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company was formed by the merger of two major iron mining companies on Michigan's Marquette Range in 1891. The Company had a number of mines operating in the Upper Peninsula by the outbreak of World War I. By the 1940s the high grade iron ores mined underground were becoming depleted. The Company developed a process to concentrate low grade ores into iron ore pellets in the 1950s, and C.C.I.C.'s last underground iron mine closed in 1979.