5. The Draw Of Limestone

  Calcium Carbide would be manufactured by cooking limestone in continuously operating electrical furnaces to be placed in the quarter-mile long power house which was under construction. In the summer of 1898 sources of suitable limestone were being sought in the eastern upper peninsula for use at the new carbide plant. Clergue's Canadian industries also were developing needs for pure limestone which would later bear directly on Fiborn Quarry, but these demands remained in the background among early influences.

  Nearly weekly accounts in Osborn's paper, The Soo News, detailed the progress of the construction of the power house on the Sainte Marie's River and the power canal, which would bring the waters of Lake Superior to the power house.

  Charles B. Smith, foreman for the Frank Perry lumbering operations, knew Osborn, the two crossing paths at Perry's Camp and at Osborn's Deerfoot Lodge, both located nine miles south of Eckerman in western Chippewa County. Osborn's hunting lodge was on land owned by Perry until he gave the forty acre parcel to Osborn as a Christmas gift in 1898. Smith was busy in the summer and fall of 1898 setting up new camps west of Trout Lake, near the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railroad line. Perry had a contract to supply shoring timbers to the water power canal construction. The new camps were several miles south and west of Deerfoot Lodge. The cave lands which were about to capture Osborn's interest were close by. That December, after having visited with Osborn during his regular November stay at Deerfoot Lodge, Smith guided Osborn to the caves and limestone. This trip to the caves, three miles north of Lewis Station and the Soo Line, was the germinating moment of Fiborn Quarry. Osborn acted at once to begin consolidating the property under his ownership.

6. Affairs Of Property    4. Clergue And Carbide