Students transform the historic Quincy Mine Smelter for three nights of scares
The Quincy Mine Hoist Association and Michigan Tech’s Visual and Performing Arts Department are partnering to bring a haunted experience to the historic Quincy Smelter this Halloween season. The “Haunted Smelter Tour” will take visitors through the historic building as part of an interactive experience themed around the restless spirits of the miners who once worked there.
The Haunted Smelter will run Oct. 29 through 31 from 7 to 10 p.m. each night. Tours will begin every 15 minutes and take approximately 20 minutes to complete. The event is open to all ages, with tickets costing 12 dollars for guests ages 13 and older and 6 dollars for those 12 and younger. While the event was originally planned to be held in the Quincy Mine Hoist House, it was moved into the Smelter due to unforeseen changes. The attraction was held at the Smelter last year, and is supposed to alternate between different Quincy Mine locations under normal circumstances.
Preparation for the event began months before visitors enter the Smelter. Second-year student Natalie Holverson is one of the theater technicians working on this year’s event, helping with scenic design and costumes. “We start initial prep [at the] end of August [and in] early September and start plotting everything out,” Holverson said.
Preparations include planning the different rooms, deciding where actors will be located, and determining what props and set pieces will be needed. During the week of the event, Holverson said students will spend more than 30 hours at the mine setting up, testing equipment, performing dry runs, and putting on the three nights of shows.
“It makes things more interesting, makes it so people aren’t going to the same kind of show every single year,” Holverson said. This year, visitors will travel through both the upstairs and downstairs of the Smelter, including areas that are not typically accessible to visitors.
Every actor in the Haunted Smelter is a Michigan Tech student. Holverson said the student actors also work behind the scenes, with each contributing to the technical side of the production in some capacity. Theater technicians and sound design students are involved with the production, along with members of the Theme Park Engineering Group at Michigan Tech. “It’s really a whole department thing,” Holverson said.
