Quincy Smelter: The Thief Who Wrote Back
In 1923 a former Quincy Smelter worker wrote from Finland confessing he had stolen 16 pounds of copper in 1907. He paid the $2...
How the U.P. became the U.P.
History & Culture
People, places, traditions, industries, and turning points that shaped Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
Keweenaw & Copper Country
43 stories from this part of the U.P.
Gay Stamp Sands: The Black Beach Threatening Buffalo Reef
There is a beach on the east side of the Keweenaw Peninsula that is the wrong color. It runs black-grey for miles south of...
Calumet Theatre: The Opera House Copper Built
The town put a clock tower on it. That is the detail that gives away what Calumet thought it was building in 1900, because...
Michigan Tech Winter Carnival: Snow Statues Since 1936
Somewhere around two in the morning in early February, in a town where the snow gets measured in feet, a few hundred college students...
Redridge Steel Dam: One of Three Ever Built in the U.S.
The Redridge Steel Dam is one of only three steel dams ever built in the United States. In 1979 crews cut holes in it,...
Fort Wilkins: The Fort That Never Saw Battle
Fort Wilkins was garrisoned about five years out of twenty-six and never saw a shot fired. It is now the most complete surviving 1840s...
Delaware Mine: The Copper Mine Greeley Backed
Horace Greeley was a stockholder and agent of the Delaware Mine in Keweenaw County. It ran forty years, sank five shafts, and never turned...
Painesdale Mine and Shaft: Champion No. 4 Shaft House
William A. Paine of Paine Webber financed the Copper Range Company, which named Painesdale after him and Freda after his daughter. The Champion No....
Old Victoria: A Preserved Copper Mining Village
Old Victoria’s hand-hewn cabins went up in 1899 for copper miners and still sit where they were built. Nothing is behind glass, and the...
Quincy Mine Hoist: World's Largest Steam Hoist
The Nordberg hoist at the Quincy Mine is the largest steam hoisting engine in the world. Quincy built it for a shaft that was...
Jampot Monks: The Keweenaw Bakery in a Burger Shack
The Jampot monks arrived on the Keweenaw in 1983, moved into an abandoned hamburger stand with no heat or plumbing, and started picking wild...
Portage Lake Lift Bridge: The Only Road Onto Copper Island
A ship canal finished in 1874 cut the northern Keweenaw off from the rest of Michigan, and the Portage Lake Lift Bridge is the...
Keweenaw Snow Thermometer: The 390-Inch Winter It Marks
The Keweenaw snow thermometer north of Mohawk marks a 390.4-inch winter. The stranger part is how that number is measured, and why the real...
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