More Than We Ever Wanted to Know About Mining

The Keweenaw Peninsula was home to one of the largest copper mining industries in the nation from the 1840s through the 1960s. The town of Calumet was the home office of the Calumet and Hecla Copper Mining Company which is now the Keweenaw National Historic Park. The town and park have an unusual partnership to preserve the area’s history. The Mining Company office, home of the owner, library and a few other buildings are owned by the National Park. Many other buildings throughout the town are privately owned but are in partnership with the Park and preserved for historical and tourist purposes. Jay and Chris were so intrigued with the history of the area that they spent several days following the walking tours outlined in the park booklets visiting the historical buildings and learning all about mining in the 19^th century.

Jay standing in front of a 9,392 lb. Float Copper which is created by glacial action tearing it from the veins as it scrapes the earth’s surface.

The Company buildings of the National Park were beautifully restored but unusual in exterior appearance. Irregularly shaped waste rock from the mines, in shades of brown, black and white, was the primary exterior material with building corners, chimneys, and window and door frames trimmed in red brick. Although unique and economical, Chris didn’t think it an attractive material for buildings owned by such a wealthy company although the architectural features were.

The main administrative building of the Calumet-Hecla Mining Company.

They toured the Coppertown Museum and learned all about the mining drills, tram cars that carried the ore out of the mines, the helmet mounted lighting systems and the pattern shop. Displays explained how workers migrated from a dozen different countries to work the mines, open stores and found churches in town.

A miner’s hat complete with candle for illuminating the work area.

Rusting hulks of mining cars used over the years.

Copper was discovered in the Keweenaw Peninsula in 1843 and by 1849 the area’s dozens of mines provided 85 percent of the entire United States’ copper needs, exceeding 11 billion pounds of the mineral over the next hundred years. The process required thousands of workers both under and above ground working around the clock. Calumet and the nearby town of Laurium, where Jay lived and where the wealthier employees and merchants lived, grew in population by the tens of thousands. The Calumet and Hecla Copper Mining Company provided housing, schools, medical care, a library and many other services for its workers and their families.

Jay standing in front of the house he lived in when he lived in Laurium.

But the services didn’t lessen the gruelingly hard work and inhospitable environment created by the industry. The conditions the miners experienced were brought to life for Chris and Jay when they toured the Quincy Mine just outside of Hancock. The mine shafts were poorly lit, and ranged in temperatures from the low forties several hundred feet down to the high nineties at the deepest levels of one to two miles below the earth’s surface. The air was thick with smoke from the many boiler houses which provided the power to operate the tram cars that climbed the shaft full of ore laden rocks, then when emptied descended for another load. Smokestacks from smelting buildings contributed to the lofty morass. The ground vibrated as charges were set off far below and the air was filled with the constant roar of big machinery as railcars brought coal to the boilers and left filled with ore for the smelting houses. The type of lives these people led is as distant to Jay and Chris as the moon.

The Quincy Mine Shaft house and the Brick Hoist House which powered the cables that raised and lowered the tram cars.

The clean, quiet but under populated town of Calumet is a much different place than in its prosperous heyday. The 19^th century architecture remains and for the most part is in beautiful repair, but about ¼ of the buildings are unoccupied and its appearance is not unlike a ghost town where an occasional car is driven by or a solitary resident is seen walking their dog or a small group of children are seen playing in the spray of a fire hose as the firemen empty the truck’s water tanks into a lot occupied by a now boarded up elementary school.

The roads and parking spaces were sparsely populated.

The historic Calumet Theater.

Despite its sparse population the residents, shop owners and attraction volunteers love their town and are proud of their establishments. Chris and Jay ate in a couple of restaurants where the food was excellent and the buildings retained the charm of 19^th century décor with patterned tile floors and high embossed, tin ceilings. One held a 30 foot long, walnut bar complete with a mural on the curved ceiling above depicting an 1800s dance scene.

A beautiful bar with mural painted above and patterned tile floor.

The Upper Peninsula Memorial Firefighters Museum, housed in the old fire station, was a rare treat. The volunteer in attendance grew up in the town and he and his wife return to the area in the summer and donate their time; he at the fire house and she at the Keweenaw Heritage Center at St. Anne’s Church. The station contained the most diverse variety of fire trucks Chris and Jay had ever seen. There was an 1857 Pumper, which was little more than a horse drawn, 10 foot long platform on wheels that held a pipe, and a pump which was driven by men raising and lowering two long, wooden rods on opposite sides of the platform. Nearby was a horse drawn sled with a cargo bed behind the driver’s seat which looked like it would have been used to transport hoses, buckets, ladders and other equipment needed to douse a fire. Along the back wall were hose reels which consisted of two, six foot diameter wheels connected by a drum onto which the fire hose was spooled. It was pulled by man or beast via a long shaft which extended forward of the wheels. The whole contraption was painted, of course, red. Chris got the biggest kick out of the hearse that was in the collection. The docent told her that it was used to transport the hoses (probably before they got those fancy two-wheeled things). The upper level held displays of water nozzles used over the years, framed news accounts of substantial fires in the community and photos of former firemen. But the highlight of the day was a round, canvas catch ring used to rescue people when they jumped from upper story windows of burning buildings. It brought back memories of old Charlie Chaplin movies and smiles to Chris and Jay’s faces.

The 1857 pumper.

The hearse amongst other fire trucks.

Jay with the Catch Ring.