Transition

Within a few years of the 1935 permanent closing of the plant, Fiborn Quarry had completed the transition from community to ghost town.

Foundation of school house

Most residents moved from Fiborn Quarry shortly after Algoma Steel announced that it was ending the operation of the quarry. Train engines were among equipment scrapped, beyond further use except to feed the furnaces of Algoma Steel.

The rail spur from Fiborn Junction was pulled up. The two-story houses were dismantled. Many of the concrete blocks from which they were built found a variety of uses in area construction projects. Some of the smaller wooden houses were moved and still stand in the 1990's within several miles of the abandoned quarry.

The history of the area from the closing of the quarry until its purchase by the Michigan Karst Conservancy in 1987 is that of a largely unattended piece of land. Algoma Steel continued to own the property, selling timber in the 1950's and allowing periodic quarrying on a small scale. Piles of loose rocks, known as "spoil piles" slowly disappeared from the quarry, frequently a pick-up truck load at a time. Bottle collectors and others found interest in the scattered remnants of the community. A large pipe wrench was found among the spoils; a name plate from one of Fiborn's locomotives was collected from the quarry floor; countless other forgotten items either collected, scavenged or left on the ground all represent small pieces of the past here.

Remnants of quarry operations

Today, most of the Fiborn Limestone Company lands here is owned by the Michigan Karst Conservancy. Other small parcels of the land have been purchased by individuals. At the time this history was prepared, some occasional quarrying continued in a small section in the southeast corner of the quarry not owned by the Conservancy.

Through the years, people continued to feel or have developed personal attachments to this particular area. Bear, deer, and bird hunters sought their game in the Fiborn Quarry area seasonally. Many people have visited the remains of the quarry operation. Some came knowing little of Fiborn Quarry's past. Elta Erskine, a school teacher at Fiborn Quarry in the 1920's and daughter of the owners of the nearby Norton's Lumber Camp, occasionally visited the abandoned quarry area with her family to walk the old sites. Erskine's visits are typical of those of some former residents, while many others never returned to the site after they moved away.

Former residents Doris Bush, Keith McEachern, Anna Anger and Emma Kalnbach with MKC president Aubrey Golden at Fiborn Quarry in 1994

The lasting impact of the small town of Fiborn Quarry can be seen in the communities that surround this site. Into the 1990's, nearly sixty years beyond Fiborn Quarry's existence as a community, many local households still find some connection to Fiborn Quarry, which drew workers and residents from the area towns of Rexton, Epoufette, and Trout Lake among others.

Caves and other features that remain in the limestone from which Fiborn Quarry was blasted continued to attract visitors and interest through the years. Known of continuously by a series of residents and visitors for nearly one hundred years, these interesting attributes of the karst process have been rediscovered many times in succeeding generations since the end of Fiborn Quarry and the area's relative depopulation. More than one recent visitor to the Fiborn Quarry area has steadfastly claimed to have "discovered" caves on the property.

Drill hole in quarry

Fiborn Quarry is still presenting its own story many years after its busiest chapters have been completed. A faded account of the past still remains on the land to be interpreted by any visitor. Stories of the people involved with Fiborn Quarry are now beginning to emerge from the many scattered sources of Fiborn's history.

By the Hendrie River, at Fiborn Quarry, early 1930's

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