Preserving Michigan's copper country

updated 12:41 p.m. ET Aug. 8, 2007

CALUMET, Mich. - As copper mining slowly died in Michigan's far north, civic leaders desperate to salvage the local economy proposed a national park to preserve the industry's historical and cultural legacy — and draw tourists.

Skeptics scoffed. King Copper's reign had lasted more than a century and brought prosperity to the isolated Keweenaw Peninsula. But its decline had left decaying buildings, rusting equipment, mounds of waste rock. Once-bustling villages were practically ghost towns. A national park? Here?

Congress went along, establishing the Keweenaw National Historical Park in 1992. It has developed slowly since then, hampered by thin budgets and limited authority. But for history buffs who don't mind trekking to the outer reaches of the Upper Peninsula, the place that still proclaims itself Copper Country is a largely undiscovered treasure trove.

"There's a lot more here than what might appear on the surface," says Kathleen Harter, the park's chief of interpretation and education. She's right, in more ways than one. The area is dotted with underground mine shafts, a few open for public tours.

Jutting more than 70 miles into Lake Superior, the Keweenaw Peninsula formed over eons from lava flows that produced rich copper deposits. American Indians used the mineral for tools, beads and ornaments thousands of years ago.

Not long after statehood, word spread that the Keweenaw region was awash in copper, touching off a mineral rush that predated by several years the more famed one in California. During the post-Civil War industrial boom, the Keweenaw was producing more than 75 percent of the nation's copper.

If you go Keweenaw National Historical Park: Information desk at Quincy Mine Hoist gift shop on U.S. 41 just north of Hancock. Headquarters at 200 Fifth St., Calumet; 906-337-3168. Web site provides links to affiliated heritage sites, each with its own admission fees and operating hours. Getting there: Northwest Airlink offers daily service to the Keweenaw's local airport, Houghton County Memorial. A larger airport is in Marquette County, a couple of hours east. Otherwise, be prepared to spend lots of time in the car; the Keweenaw is a long way from just about everywhere (550 miles northwest of Detroit). But it's a beautiful drive; two-lane highways wind through national forests and provide stunning Great Lakes vistas. Dining and accommodations: Towns such as Houghton, Hancock, Calumet and Copper Harbor offer a wealth of bed-and-breakfast inns, chain motels and restaurants. The Web site lists many of them, along with info on other things to see and do. Another good source is the Keweenaw Convention and Visitors Bureau, or 906-337-4579.

Companies such as Quincy Mining Co. and Calumet & Hecla drew immigrant laborers from more than three dozen countries. Villages and neighborhoods sprang up, with company-built houses, schools and libraries. Churches represented an array of faiths.

The industry's heyday lasted until around 1910, when the area population topped 100,000. But a violent 1913 strike over pay and working conditions began a gradual decline, worsened by competition from Western mines and rising costs of extracting copper from ever-deeper deposits.

Another strike in 1967 was the death blow for operations on the peninsula, although a nearby Copper Range Co. mine lingered 30 more years. By the time the national park was up and running, Keweenaw copper production was over.

The story is absorbing and multi-layered. If you've got four or five days, dig in for an extended tour of the Keweenaw region — which could include not only copper history but dazzling natural scenery and outdoor sports such as boating, fishing and mountain biking.

Unlike the typical national park, Keweenaw's boundaries are a bit confusing. The National Park Service owns little property, including the headquarters building in the village of Calumet that once housed mining offices. The park is mostly a partnership of privately owned "heritage sites" such as museums, memorials and abandoned mines.

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Start your visit at the park service's information desk at the Quincy Mine and Hoist, where you can get maps and plan your itinerary.

Perhaps you'll want to head southwest along the Lake Superior shoreline to the Porcupine Mountains for a wilderness hike and camping near former mining sites. On the southern end of the peninsula are the Copper Range Historical Museum in South Range and the well-preserved company village of Painesdale.

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