How would you like to travel back 100 years to a mining boom town in the rugged hills of Ontonagon County? No time machine is required for this journey... just the family car and an active imagination. From the village of Rockland, the Victoria Dam road winds five miles through some beautiful rolling woodland to Old Victoria and a window into the past.

In 1846 the Forrest Mining Company began exploring the basalt trap along a ridge just up from the Ontonagon River. This was near the site where the famous Ontonagon copper boulder was located. Thick veins of native copper were found in and around prehistoric diggings of aboriginal origin. Soon the canvas tents of the exploratory crews were replaced by snug hand hewn log cabins. By 1859, the town site of Victoria consisted of 10 cabins in two neat rows. A saw mill was operating just up the hill from the mine shafts. With the onset of the Civil War, the small community continued to expand as demand for copper grew.
Miners were needed to supply the boom copper market. The mining companies sent representatives to Europe as well as the ports of entry for immigrants to the United States to recruit workers for the northern Michigan copper range. These miners and their families traveled north on paid vouchers from the mine company officials. This debt plus the supplies they would draw from the company store would be worked off in the stopes and drifts hundreds of feet underground. By 1900 the population had grown to over 2,000. The influx of single men to work the mines caused a housing shortage. Families were situated on the ground floor of these two story houses with up to a dozen men sleeping upstairs in two shifts. The women of the household cleaned and prepared meals for the entire group. One assumes there was some form of compensation for the extra work of feeding and cleaning up after a houseful of men who worked long shifts underground.

Through the early years of this century improvements to the village and the neighboring mines kept up with each other. The most interesting of the technological developments was the Taylor Hydraulic Air Compressor. Designed by C. H. Taylor of Montreal, Canada, this amazing system had no moving parts and was one of only four ever constructed. It was basically a thirty foot high chamber drilled out of solid rock under the Ontonagon River. Water from the river filled the chamber compressing air vented from above ground. A venturi effect pressurized this air to 117 P.S.I which was adequate to drive the rock drills, pumps, stamp mill, and even a small locomotive used to move ore. The Taylor Hydraulic Air Compressor was non-polluting, extremely low maintenance, and 82% efficient!

Today, the Society for the Restoration of Old Victoria has made this fascinating mine town come to life. Restoration of these original buildings has taken a great effort by local people and has been almost entirely funded by private subscription. The cabins are furnished with period antiques and personal memorabilia of the people who once lived here. Guides take you through the village explaining the technology and lifestyle of the hardy people who mined copper over a century ago.

Old Victoria is open daily through the summer and admission is free.