Pattuck Mica Mine, Alexandria NH

The Pattuck Mica Mine is located in the hills of Alexandria New Hampshire, and consists of four separate sites that operated between the years 1943 and 1945. During that time over 2,500 tons of rock were removed from the two largest digs. Owners of the mine were H. T. Patten and C. E. Tucker - men who operated several other mines and prospect sites in this area - and through a blend of their last names Pattuck was created.

My search for this mine has roots going all the way back to the 1990s, when on a Saturday afternoon I paid ten cents per page to photocopy a geological booklet I found at the UNH library. I didn't go searching for Pattuck back then, but the booklet ended up in my basement and while doing a little minimalizing a few years ago I stumbled back across it. Always up for a challenge, I set out to see if I could find it using not much more than one of the page's hand-drawn maps.

Although it didn't seem like it should be a tricky place to find - just follow the old mining path on up - I made the search much harder by two weekends in a row choosing the wrong entry point to climb the mountain. But in my defense, when you're looking for a dirt road that hasn't been used in nearly seventy-five years, they don't always jump right out at you. As a result, those first two attempts resulted in enjoyable afternoons in the mountains, but nothing else.


My third time out was with friends, and this time I picked an entry point that, looking back on it, should have been obvious from the start. Bound not to make the day too easy though, I still led the group on a completely unnecessary detour over a rock face before we finally found the first of the dig sites.

Photo by Barry McKay

From there it was easy enough to continue uphill until locating the main area of Pattuck, identified as Pit B in Pegmatite Investigations 1942-1945 New England, by Eugene Cameron. Pit B consists of a large open pit and tunnel extending off its northern end, and is littered with the kind of scraps that any rockhounder would be happy to set up camp in.

Because its entrance sits within a dip, from a distance the tunnel looked like we were going to have to enter on our hands and knees.

Photo by John Egolf

But once past the dip its deceivingly large opening becomes apparent. Rubber boots - a staple for any good mineshaft explorer - are also necessary to navigate several inches of water.

Photo by John Egolf

Although easily of walking height, after approximately twenty feet the tunnel ends in a pool, making this one of the smaller mines we have explored here in the granite state. Three separate afternoons of searching, all for my buddy to poke his head inside and ask, that's it? Not all of our mines are going to be as extensive as the Paddock Pit, but every one of them is a treasure, a window into our past, and a reminder of how men once earned their living at jobs that would never understand the concept of dress down Friday.

My third time into the hills of Alexandria turned out to be the charm, as well as a lesson in persistence, and I was finally able to remove the Pattuck Mica Mine off my never-ending database of places I seek to find.

The Abandoned Movie Set of Patriot's Day

In 2013, terrorist brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev detonated homemade bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring hundreds more. In 2016, the movie Patriot's Day starring Mark Wahlberg and Kevin Bacon was released, recounting this disgusting attack. Much of the filming took place at a former naval base in South Weymouth Massachusetts, where the neighborhood and downtown sets that were created for this movie remain standing today.

The South Weymouth Naval Air Station opened in 1942, and during WWII it served as home base to blimps that would patrol the coast of New England for German submarines. Following the war it was downgraded to a parking lot for decommissioned aircraft, but in the 1950s the base was retrofitted with three runways and given new life as a training center for reservists. Blimps went away, jets came in, and operations continued until 1996 when, after a farewell airshow to 100,000 spectators, the base was closed. Much of it has been razed since then, but two of the towers still stand out in the woods.

The set is visible from the road that borders the base, aptly named Patriot Pkwy. From there it's just a five minute walk to the fake neighborhood. This area is open to the public, so you're liable to come across plenty of joggers, dog-walkers, and otherwise friendly people out enjoying their day. Fencing was put up to keep the movie set off-limits, but both times I've been there the gates have been wide open, allowing us to stroll right in.

Depending on which angle the house was filmed at, it was built either to be just a facade or to have some sides and depth. This one - which some local artist mistook for a canvas - would have been used for only a straight shot.

While a house like this was built for a corner shot, and does a pretty good job convincing you someone could actually live there.

Come around the backside and you'll see it's just a front and one side, however.

Almost every house has at least two floors, accessible by either ladder or stairs, so that someone could appear in an upstairs window. Such as my daughter and I.

Front

Back

From a distance things look pretty well built, but upon closer inspection the tricks of keeping within budget are evident. What looks like a brick stairway is just wooden construction with a fake brick layering.

Details large and small went into making this a believable set. Power lines run the length of the street, then abruptly end once out of camera shot.

The second part of the set stands about a thousand feet away, and consists of several business fronts for the downtown scenes. As with the neighborhood, both vandals and Mother Nature have not been kind, although one of the two doesn't know any better.

Green screens at the top of each building allowed them to be given different business names and used for more than one scene.

There's a part in the movie where Mark Wahlberg walks into a bar amidst all the chaos, and before leaving grabs a bottle of liquor and takes a swig. My wife was hoping to re-enact that scene, but unfortunately she forgot the whiskey.

Another thing about this bar, they proudly accept both Vista and BankMaster credit cards.

It was less than six months between the first and second time I explored here, and in that period the condition of the set has drastically deteriorated. There's a reason they put fences around places like this, but those chain walls have failed to keep out the handful of troublemakers who've wreaked havoc here. At this rate, a time will come when this becomes more of an eyesore and less of a novelty, and when that happens the town will be forced to take it down. I worry that day will happen soon - so visit the abandoned movie set now, while you still have the chance.