St. Nicholas Coal Breaker Visit

AWESOME pics there. As a teenager it was all the rage to bust into old abandoned mills around here - there's plenty of them still. All my buddies wanted to trash the place, but I was always fascinated by the machinery, construction, and old cans, bottles, papers and other artifacts I'd find in there. Closest we can ever get to going back in time.

Looking at all those pics now just makes me sad. That's America's legacy right there - neglected ... wasted ... decaying into nothingness. Think of all the jobs that place provided. All the vendors that made a living supplying that breaker with goods ... the truckers & railroad engineers that hauled that coal out of there. The MILLIONS of dollars that place pumped into the economy. What a shame.

See what that shine does---gets ya all mushy. Nice call SMITTY, I'm with ya on all that. The history of this Country to this day continues to fascinate me.

Hear hear Fred.

Yeah, white lightnin' tends to do that to ya ...

I know exactly what you mean Smitty and feel the same way.

I have never been to this coal breaker, but man would I ever love too. The wife and I enjoy doing these sort of explores and is why I found this link and subsequent photo shoot and narrative. When we do this sort of thing, we have one rule: Leave Nothing But Footprints, And Take Nothing But Photos.

So far the best place we have been in was the Old Birdseye Factory in Caribou Maine. That was a sprawling place, probably not as big as this coal breaker, but it was very interesting to go through. That was last operated in 2002 and was in the process of being demolished. We got there before they had got to far and it was truly neat. From seeing the safety banners still hung up on the wall, to seeing the clothes still in the locker rooms to going through the offices and seeing photos of office workers children; kids today who would be adults. You can just picture the people working there, the truckloads of potatoes coming in, and the truckloads of frozen food leaving. It was truly neat and we took a lot of photos if nothing else for historical reasons. It was a part of caribou's history even if the people there might not have thought much of the place.

Mercury is still used for measurements because of it specific gravity

Darren L: Ah, what a shame, I've been trying to find out if you can still get in or not. A friend of mine doesn't live far from the St. Nick Breaker and went there a few years ago without any trouble and has offered to go with me to explore it together, but I guess she wasn't aware of the increased security. Does anyone know if they are working on the place or are they just beginning to prevent trespassers in general?

heard today and saw a picture they are starting to tear down the St Nick Breaker

I'm with Smitty. I love the old machinery. Back when people cared about craftmanship and machines seamed to have souls. Grew up in a mill city myself. What it must have been like 100 years ago.

I wondered if that's what they were getting ready to do. I mustered up the courage to check it out with my friend in the beginning of August (it was PHENOMENAL to see in person), and as we were walking out of there a truck pulled in and a guy got out and started spray painting red x's on the support beams. Not long after, security showed up. We made it out just in time I wish I would have known they were thinking of tearing it down, I would have snagged a pair of those old boots lying all over the place and not felt guilty . What a damn shame...I'll post some pictures when I get the chance to upload them.

rhas94 wrote: I wish I would have known they were thinking of tearing it down, I would have snagged a pair of those old boots lying all over the place and not felt guilty . What a damn shame...I'll post some pictures when I get the chance to upload them.

Thats too bad, considering most is gonna end up in a landfill somewhere or melted down and sent overseas.

Yeah, maybe I'll head up there again and ask a construction worker to go in and grab a pair for me...haha worth a shot right? I'm really glad I got to see it though.
These are some of the pictures I took; I'm no photographer, especially when I'm nervous (there is an active coal company(?) right next to it, guys were out with bulldozers and cranes all over the place, could've looked right in the broken windows and saw us). We have tons more pictures, but I wish we could have spent more time there and seen the whole thing, as well as had better light to work with.