Top 3 Abandoned Places In Cobalt

There are so many abandoned places in Cobalt! This is a list of the top three abandoned places in Cobalt. Browse through all abandoned places in Cobalt

1. Cobalt Abandoned Mine

All of these areas can be found on the Heritage Silver Trail in Cobalt. The trail consists of 19 different sites that can be explored. The GPS coordinates are an approximation as this area consists of a trail with several different sites. You can go to the Cobalt Mining Museuem for a tour of one of the mines and then check out the self-guided trail afterwards.

This area is one of my favourites with many things to see and nobody to bother you after hours.

2. Argentite Ghost Town

Argentite began as a small hamlet just south of where North Cobalt is today. Two of the first settlers to the area were Mr. Harry Darke and Mr. Andrew Fernholm who arrived in 1890 (est.). In 1907, Mr. Darke subdivided his farmland into lots and named it Argentite.

On August 7, 1903 silver was discovered in nearby Cobalt by two railway workers searching for wood to be used as railway ties. This discovery set off a silver rush that brought prospectors from all parts of the world.

The Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway (T&NO) reached New Liskeard by January 1905. The purpose of the railway line was to allow lumber and other goods to be shipped down to Toronto. This was especially important during the winter when steamers were unable to make the trip into the docks at Mill Creek.

As Argentite's population grew, the hamlet's services expanded to include a general store, bakery, two taverns, inn and the bottling works plant. A post office was opened in 1908 but closed fourteen months later and moved to North Cobalt, just north of Mill Creek. At its peak, Argentite's population stood at approximately 500 residents.

During the winters, bootleggers on sleights would bring liquor across frozen Lake Temiskaming into Cobalt and Argentite. While Argentite was much smaller than nearby Cobalt, it offered something that Cobalt, being a dry town, could not – a legal place for thirsty prospectors to quench their thirst. The Brady Wine Inn served as both a drinking establishment and a local brothel.

In 1910, the Nipissing Central Railway was built from Cobalt to Haileybury to provide a form of economical public transportation using electric streetcars. At 6 a.m. on April 30, 1910 the NCR trolley car made its first debut.

By 1912 the streetcar service had been extended to New Liskeard and on June 20, 1911 the T&NO railway bought the NCR railway.

The streetcar trolley line crossed over the T&NO bridge and made its way through Argentite. Here the railway station and bridge became known as Argentite Crossing. The cost to travel the trolley was 10 cents (3 cents for children going to school).

By 1918 many of the loggers had left Argentite to fight in the World War. The summer of 1922 had been a hot and dry season. It was common practice for farmers to clear their land by setting fires in their fields.

On October 4, 1922 when burning permits were no longer required, farmers in nearby Haileybury were clearing their land with small bush fires. Large-scale winds turned the small fires into a large inferno. People made their way into Lake Temiskaming where they stood holding their children for hours. The road from Haileybury to Cobalt was lined with people on both sides of the road kneeling in prayer.

The fire completely destroyed Haileybury within hours and continued to spread to North Cobalt and then to Argentite. Forty-three people died from the resulting fire.

Argentite was destroyed. The Mill Creek dam was left to rot or was scavenged for its wood. While a few residents remained in Argentite, many of them left and never returned.

As road quality improved and more cars were being driven, the NCR was seeing fewer passengers use their service and in increase in annual losses. On February 9, 1935 the Nipissing Central Railway made it's last run.

Today all that is left of Argentite are the trolley bridge abutments and the Silverland Cemetery. Take highway 11B north of North Cobalt.

3. Cobalt Lake Mine

In 1902 the Ontario government incorporated the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway (T&NOR). The company was to become a provincial Crown corporation with construction commencing on the railway beginning the following year.

By the summer of August 1903 T&NO railroad crews had reached the 103-mile mark north of North Bay. Legend has it that here a blacksmith named Fred Larose was working at his forge when he was startled by a fox. Larose, as the story is told, threw a hammer at the fox, missing it and hitting a rock instead. The hammer exposed a silver vein underneath that would set off a silver rush.

The actual discovery of silver in the Cobalt area began in the Long Lake area on August 7, 1903 while two workers named James H, McKinley and Ernest Darragh were scouting the right of way for trees to use as railway ties. The pair discovered rocks showing leaves of bright metal. The samples were sent away for examination with the results finding native silver assaying 4,000 ounces to the ton. McKinley and Darragh secured their claim and began the McKinley-Darragh mine which would go on to produce thirteen millions dollars worth of silver.

Contrary to the tale, Fred Larose found silver a few weeks later in mid-September. He had discovered pink-stained rocks that he thought contained copper and had the samples sent to Toronto. The results indicated that the rocks were rich in nickel. Newly appointed Ontario Provincial Geologist, Willett G. Miller followed up on Larose’s discovery of nickel. His findings indicated that Larose had discovered four veins. Three of the veins contained massive chunks of silver while the fourth, the original nickel vein, was actually bloom.

These initial findings set off a silver rush that brought prospectors, miners and financiers from all over the world.

As for the railway, it reached Englehart in 1906, and Cochrane in 1909. After the silver rush began, the T&NO had no difficulty in finding men to work on the rail crews north of Cobalt, rather they had difficulty in keeping them. As the train neared 100 miles of Cobalt, men would jump from the train to go off in search of silver – their transportation provided free by the railway. Eventually the T&NO posted guards at the doors so that their fresh group of workmen would still be there when the train reached it’s destination north of Cobalt.

Drinking became a problem for prospectors and the sale of alcohol was prohibited within a five-mile radius of any mine. The first Ontario Provincial Police detachment was opened and George Caldbick became the first constable. To keep the town peace, Caldbick would frisk each man for weapons when they disembarked the train.

Alcohol was available legally in Haileybury for thirsty miners and Cobalt residents. For those not wanting to purchase alcohol the legal way, over 100 “blind pigs” were operating out of Cobalt where a thirsty man could purchase some “home brew”. The Hunter Block building alone had nine illegal drinking establishments within it.

Female companionship became available for a price, at one of Cobalt’s cathouses. In some cases the madams followed the miners from state to state.

Cobalt’s mining reached its peak in 1911 and had a population of between 10,000 to 15,000 residents. That year the silver production reached 31,507,791 ounces.

By the 1920’s most of the mines were closed due to the stock market crash and depleted silver supply.

-- Cobalt Lake Mine --

Much of Cobalt’s early silver was to be found in narrow veins in rocks close to the surface. When it came to accessing the silver veins, early mining methods were not as environmentally friendly as today’s methods. In some cases, trees would be cut down and then water would be pumped from nearby lakes and sprayed under high pressure to strip the soil from the land.

Nip Hill was one location in Cobalt where vegetation was washed away in order to access the silver content. Soil runoff from the high-pressure water drained into nearby Cobalt and Peterson Lakes. By 1910, Cobalt Lake was dark and murky as a result of soil and debris from mining, as well as tailings from the mills. Today much of Nip Hill remains barren.

In December of 1906, the Cobalt Lake Mining Company was given the ownership rights to 47 acres of mineral content located under Cobalt Lake. Shafts were dug at the Southern portion of the lake in order to gain access the minerals. By 1909 over 5000 feet of shaft had been sunk. In 1911 the first mill was built on the location of the Cobalt Lake Mine.

In 1914, the Mining Corporation of Canada Limited bought out numerous Cobalt area mines including the Cobalt Lake Mine. The lake was then drained to allow mining of veins located under the lake. A local doctor disputed resident’s concerns about possible disease from the water by saying that, “the waters were a gift of nature, but since they were now so polluted there was no real drawback to draining the lake.”

The old tailings were removed from the lake to be processed. New tailings were then dumped into where the lake had been.

In 1932, while blasting in the mine, workers broke through the bedrock cap which resulted in approximately 400,000 tons of mill tailings to pour into the mine. There were no injuries but the lower levels of the mine were now flooded and unusable.

In 1951 the Hellens Mill was built on the site of the Cobalt Lake Mill to reprocess tailings. The lake was drained again and mining continued until 1955.