Photo courtesy of Michigan Tech Archives This photograph, taken by Daily Mining Gazette reporter Earl Gagnon, on April 18, 1966, shows part of the cap of the Tamarack No. 4 shaft having been removed and laying near the shaft, on the right in the photo. The fence surrounding the site is also visible.

July 16, 1966 was a beautiful, sunny Saturday, just perfect for playing outside and looking for adventure. That’s how the morning began for three young children, Ruth Ann Miller, age seven, her brother, Gary, 10, and a friend, Eric Englund, nine.

The children were enjoying the morning, playing outside, and exploring a swampy area north of Calumet, known as the North Tamarack, in the vicinity of the former Tamarack Mining Company’s Number 4 Shaft.

While hunting for wild strawberries, they came upon a barbed wire fence surrounding the abandoned shaft, last worked by the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company in 1924, according to records.

When they reached the fence, they noticed a hole inside the barrier. It was a small hole, only five or six inches round, right at the concrete cap that covering the shaft, newspapers later reported. Being kids, they crawled through the wire with the intention of investigating the hole. Seeing it was enough.

Having looked at it, Gary and Eric began crawling back through the wire, but Ruth Ann was curious. She wanted to know more.

The boys warned her not to play around the hole, because it might be really deep. For whatever reason, she believed it was a shallow hole and crawled into it before the boys could stop her — then disappeared.

Gary, immediately grasping what had just happened, ran for help. This is according to the July 19 edition of the Daily Mining Gazette.

The Gazette reported that members of the Michigan State Police, Calumet Post, questioned Gary and Eric extensively regarding Ruth Ann’s entrance into the hole.

Gary, as was stated, ran for help. That was around Noon. The Calumet and Hecla (C&H) Fire Department responded and was the first agency on the scene. Rescue efforts were underway before 1:00. Firefighters saw the hole and began enlarging it with shovels, according to the Gazette, so that Department Chief Al Beauchene could enter it with a ladder. Beauchene quickly realized that in order for rescue crews to get into the shaft, the cap would need to be removed. At this point, newspaper accounts begin to differ.

One version of the story says that when rescue workers attempted to remove the cap to begin rescue efforts, the cap broke free and fell down the shaft, making any rescue attempt impossible. But, according to the Gazette, half of the cap was removed and laid next to the shaft, leaving the other half in place. Timbers were then placed around the shaft collar to provide a work platform.

While rescue workers were being assembled and the shaft cap was being lifted, men at the C&H machine shop rushed to construct a steel cage to hold men and equipment that could be lowered and raised in the vertical shaft by means of a large crane supplied by Gundlach Construction Co. to serve as a hoist.

Rescue work went on around the clock. Even after large amounts of the debris was removed, workers found no sign of Ruth Ann.

On July 19th, the Ironwood Daily Globe published an article stating, in part:

“Rubble, packed around a 30-foot timber, 460 feet within the shaft, hampered the efforts of 40 searchers who worked through the night.”

Beneath the debris, at about the 500-foot level the article states, miners expected to to encounter a partial cap on the shaft, adding: “There was some hope the girl’s body might be found there.”

Here, too, accounts vary.Older C&H employees had stated that the “cap” was a plug, installed at the 1,100 foot level. Although no reason for its installation was recorded, it was probably to slow the flow of water from the surface into the mine. Was it possible that the pile-up of junk in the shaft extended all the way down to the plug?

The Daily Globe article continued, saying Gary told Houghton County Sheriff deputies that Ruth Ann had fallen into a five or six-inch opening at the (surface) cap.

This differs from the Gazette’s version of Gary’s statement that she had climbed into the hole. The Daily Globe reported parts of the cap falling into the shaft; the Gazette reported it had been removed.

What is agreed upon, however, is that the shaft became so choked with debris that further progress became impossible.

When it was operated by the Tamarack Mining Company, the shaft was bottomed out at 4,450 feet. After 1895, it was occasionally used as a haulage shaft. Neither Tamarack Mining Company records, nor those of C&H, report any maintenance work being being done in Shaft No.4 after 1908, except the placing of a concrete plug in it at the 1,100 foot level in 1926.

It did not take rescue workers long, after accessing the shaft, to realize that this was no longer a rescue effort but rather, a recovery mission. Though they quickly realized no one could have survived falling down that vertical shaft, they would press on in locating the little girl’s remains.