The Cass expeditions produced some of the firstsolid evidence of the extent of the copper district. Douglass Houghton wasappointed as the first state geologist for Michigan in 1837. He persuaded thestate legislature to provide $3,000.00 for a survey of the copper country. Hisreport of 1841 aroused much interest in the area. In October 1845, he drownedduring a gale on Lake Superior near Eagle River as he was completing theseason's field work.

     The early mining history of the district is dominated bythe fissure mines. These consisted of large masses of native copper in veinscutting the igneous beds. There were three major mines, the Cliff, Minesota, andCentral. Many other mines were attempted, but the others all proved to be losingpropositions for their investors. The two earliest mining attempts were thePittsburg and Boston (1843-45) near Fort Wilkins and Copper Harbor near the tipof the peninsula. This mine was located on a vein of tenorite, a copper oxide.Ore worth $3,000 was mined, but unfortunately, it cost the company $25,000 tomine this ore. The Lake Superior Copper company tried to mine at Eagle River,but was unsuccessful. 

     The area was wilderness when the first mines werediscovered. To set up a mining operation, the company often had to clear landfor a farm to grow food for the miners and the horses and mules used in theoperations. They set up blacksmith shops to help repair their machinery and toresharpen the drills used in the mining. They were forced to construct sawmills to provide lumber for thehouses as well as for the mining operations. The companies also built the housesto accommodate the miners and surface workers. They did not particularly carefor this added expense, but it did give them leverage over the miners, especiallyin the dead of winter. They also ran some stores, but this was primarily to keepthe prices that the independent storeowners could charge at a reasonable rate.While there was rampant paternalism, it was not as severe as that encountered inthe Appalachian coal mines.

     The fissure mines produced only 2% of the total coppermined, primarily in the 1840 - 1880 time period. There was increasing productionto about 50 million pounds per year in 1880, with about 80% of the total UnitedStates production coming from Michigan in this period. Production rose to 150million pounds per year from the 1890's to 1930, but declined from 30 to 10% ofthe total US production as western mines (especially Butte, Montana) began producingever greater amounts ofcopper.

     Unlike the gold mines in California later in thedecade, there was a government presence in the peninsula and mining claims wereleased to the prospectors. The only Federal mining law in force during thisearly prospecting period was the 1818 Lead Law. Initially a prospector could get a permitfrom the War department covering ninesquare miles (later reduced to one square mile) and have a 9 year lease for mining beforereturning the property to the government (they also were required to pay a 6% royalty).In 1847 this was changed to a system of land sales at a rate of $5.00 per acre.This rate was later lowered to the standard (for non-mineral bearing lands) land sale price of $1.25 peracre. 

About an 8 ton piece of native copper from one of the fissure mines. Largerpieces of ore had to be chiseled into pieces that could be taken up the shafts.Although the fissure mines were the primary source of ore during the earlyyears, they did not represent the majority of ore mined in the district. A largemass was recently removed from the bed of Lake Superior for eventual display at theSeamanMuseum.

Miners are chiseling apart the last piece of a 300 ton mass of native copperfrom 4000 feet down the Quincy # 2 shaft (1912?). Most of the production fromthis mine was of "stamp" ore, but occasional large pieces of copperfrom fracture fillings were found and had to be reduced to a manageable sizeunderground. Although compressed air tools were available at this time,reduction of the ore masses had to be done by hand, as was done in earliertimes, which often took aconsiderable amount of time. Photo courtesy Michigan Technological Universityarchives and Copper Country Historical Collections negative 05908.

The above postcard was from the era ( early 1900's) when buildings still remained in the area ofthe Cliff mine. The vein was found in the cliff and an adit was driven into thehillside. Large masses of native copper were encountered that weighed up to 50tons.  The first dividend of any mine in the Keweenaw was a $60,000dividend declared on May 21, 1849 by the Cliff. Since this area was wildernesswhen the first mining was going on, it was necessary for the mining companies toconstruct housing for the miners, erect stores and sawmills, and start farming operations forfood for the miners and animals. Winter usually forced a closing of navigationon Lake Superior, so all supplies had to be brought in during the summer andfall by ship and all ore shipped out during this period.

Cliff mine (2001) ( Stop 17 - N47° 22.28' W88° 18.73'). This was the first major fissure mine in theKeweenaw (worked from 1845 -1877). The mine produced 38 million pounds ofcopper. It was the richest fissure mine in silver content. TheGreenstone flow is the cliff forming rock in the background.

A mass of native copper hanging from the wall of a mine. This piece isapproaching the largest size that could be handled without cutting up the copperin the mine. Figure on right is Captain Jose - South Range Mining Company(Baltic? Mine).

When mining mass copper, the pieces had to be chiseled to cut the ore intopieces that could be moved out of the mine. These copper chips can sometimesstill be found in the mine dumps.

The miners often produced "fans" of copper as souvenir pieces forvisitors or asexamples of the quality of their hammer work. Specimen from the Seaman museumand was made by William Henry Rule in 1912.

Central mine. Since the waste piles of rock have been broken up and the oredoes not contain sulfides which would oxidize to cause acidification of the water, the rock piles are used to provide material to becrushed to gravel size for use in construction. Many rock piles in the area are being used inthis manner as it saves quarrying and coarse breaking of material for use asgravel. Copper is often recovered from these operations as attempting to crushthe native copper will damage crushing equipment. The Central mine was unique inthat it made a profit in it's first year of operation.

Central (?) mine shops and shaft house 6/1930.Photo courtesy MichiganTechnological University archives and Copper Country Historical Collections.Reeder negative W-816.

Central mine stamp mill engine (built 1866) in 1921. The steam engine wassurrounded with very ornate wrought iron work. Mine companies were very proud oftheir equipment and Calumet & Hecla named their steam engines. Photo courtesyMichigan Technological University archives and Copper Country HistoricalCollections. Reeder Collection negative T-101.

     The Minesota  ( the one n is due to a clericalerror in the original filing of the claim) mine was "discovered" by SamKnapp in 1849. He cleared out an old Native American shaft and found at a depth ofeighteen feet a six ton piece of native copper sitting on several oak timbersthat had been used to raise the mass from the bottom of the shaft.  The largest mass of native copperin the district was forty-five feet long with a maximum thickness of nine feet ( 520 tons) at adepth of 10 fathoms below the adit ( a horizontal tunnel accessible at thesurface) level. This mass of copper required the workof 20 miners for a period of eighteen months to remove the copper. They used2750 pounds of powder to try to reduce the mass to a more manageable size, butmost of it was removed by chiseling the mass apart. The chips from this processweighed a total of 27 tons and many souvenir "fans" were created fromit. Ore processing consisted largely ofsorting out the pieces of native copper, hammering off any country rock, and packing theore pieces in barrels for shipment to Detroit on ships during the summer.

Minesota mine area from a 1858 oversized lithograph viewed from the South. It isnear to the city of Rockland. Original lithograph is in the Houghton County Museum. Photo courtesy MichiganTechnological University archives and Copper Country Historical Collections.Negative # 05696.

Port at the mouth of the Ontonagon River owned by the Minesota mining company in1863. Ship on the right was steam powered, while sailing ships are on the left.Most of the cargo was shipped in barrels which can be seen on the docks. Alighthouse is visible across the river. Photo courtesy Michigan Technological University archives and Copper CountryHistorical Collections. J. Pinter negative.

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