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TheCopper Country is an area in theUpper Peninsula of Michigan in theUnited States, includingKeweenaw County, Michigan,Houghton,Baraga andOntonagon counties as well as part ofMarquette County. The area is so named ascopper mining was prevalent there from 1845 until the late 1960s, with one mine (the White Pine mine) continuing through 1995. The region includesCopper Island,Copper Harbor andIsle Royale. In its heyday in the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, the area was the world's greatest producer of copper.[1]
Copper Country is highly unusual among mining districts in that the copper mined was predominantly in its elemental ("native") form, rather than in the form of compounds (mostly oxides and sulfides) that form the basis of the copper ore at almost every other copper-mining district.
Supporting theOld Copper complex,Native Americans mined copper from small pits as early as 3000 B.C. on this peninsula inLake Superior. Native artifacts made from copper have been found from Michigan throughWisconsin toMinnesota along the Lake.
Douglass Houghton, theState Geologist of Michigan in the mid-1800s and later to become mayor ofDetroit, reported on the copper deposits in 1841. The first successful copper mine, theCliff mine, began operations in 1845, and spurred byventure capital from Boston and other East Coast investors, many other mines quickly followed. Mining of the most productive deposit, the Calumet conglomerate, began in 1865. Mining took place along a belt that stretched about 100 miles southwest to northeast.[2]
While mining in Copper Country continues to this day, it is on a much smaller scale than before, withtourism andlogging having taken over as the area's largest industries.
Initially, Irish, Cornish, French-Canadian and German immigrants came to mine copper on the peninsula. They were followed by large numbers ofFinns,Swedes,Danes,Sámi andNorwegians who immigrated to the Upper Peninsula, especially theKeweenaw Peninsula, to work in the mines. The immigration of people from Finland peaked from 1899 to World War I. Slovenes, Croatians, and Italians emigrated from about 1880, the first two groups sometimes called Austrians as their homelands were then part of the Austrian Empire. Polish people also were attracted to this successful mining area. Thus the pattern in this boom period was first the Native Americans and people from the British Isles, French Canada and Western Europe, followed by people from the Nordic countries, and then by people from Southern and Eastern Europe. The Finns in particular stayed on and prospered even after the copper mines closed, while most moved on to other mining areas or homesteaded in other Midwestern states.[3]
The list of ethnic groups included the aforementionedNordic peoples,Chinese;Cornish;Croatians;French Canadians;Germans;Irish;Italians;Native Americans;Poles; andSlovenes.[1]
Popular tourist destinations include the cities ofCopper Harbor,Houghton, and thePorcupine Mountains with Lake of the Clouds.Snowmobiling is very popular in the winter, and snowmobile trails are found in most areas.
The Copper Country is largely rural, and much of it has been designated as state parks or similar designations. These includeMcLain State Park,Porcupine Mountains State Park, and theCopper Country State Forest. TheKeweenaw National Historical Park includes several important sites relating to the area's copper-mining history.
Institutions of higher education include the formerFinlandia University in Hancock, founded in 1896 as Suomi College (closed in 2023), andMichigan Technological University in Houghton, originally established in 1885 as the Michigan School of Mines. Finlandia University was affiliated with theEvangelical Lutheran Church in America, reflecting the spiritual heritage of the region's manyFinnish immigrants. Michigan Tech was founded in response to the needs of the copper mines.
Industrial pollution leftover from the former mining operations remains a significant problem in the region. Copper processing produced enormous quantities ofstamp sand as a waste product, which was often stored in large, unsecured piles near the coast. In the town ofGay, Michigan, stamp sands from a former mill have escaped into the lake and gradually moved South along the coast, burying the natural shoreline, creating new land, and obstructing piers and waterways.
The Copper Country averages more snowfall than any part of the United States east of theMississippi River, and more snowfall than any non-mountainous region of the continental United States.[4]
