Keweenaw National Historical Park is part of the U.S. National Park Service. It was created in 1992 to honor the history and people of the Keweenaw Peninsula in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The park is managed by both the federal government and local communities. It has two main areas, the Calumet Unit and the Quincy Unit, and nearly 24 Heritage Sites located on land owned by the federal government, states, and private individuals around the Keweenaw Peninsula. The National Park Service owns about 1,700 acres (690 hectares) in the Calumet and Quincy Units. These units are found in Baraga, Houghton, Keweenaw, and Ontonagon counties.
The Congressional legislation that created the Park stated, among other things, that:
Copper heritage
The Keweenaw Peninsula has the largest known deposits of native copper in the world. This red metal was found in pure form, making it easy to remove from the rock and shape into many different items, such as jewelry and tools by early miners, and coins and electric wire by later workers. Copper was mined in this area for about 7,000 years, from 5000 BCE until 1968. Between 1840 and 1968, when records were kept, more than 11 billion pounds (5 million metric tons) of copper were mined here. During the highest production years of World War I, 1916–1917, the yearly amount of copper mined reached 270 million pounds (125,000 metric tons).
Ethnic heritage
Many different groups of people helped shape the history of the Keweenaw National Historical Park. Between the late 1800s and the early 1900s, people from Europe moved to the Keweenaw to work in copper mines and mining areas. By 1910, the Copper Country was home to people from many places, including France, Germany, China, Ireland, Cornwall, Croatia, Finland, Italy, Greece, and Syria.
When news about the area’s large copper deposits spread in the 1830s, many families from the English county of Cornwall came to the Upper Peninsula. These families brought with them a type of food called the Cornish pasty and their knowledge of mining hard rock. Some park Heritage Sites, like the log cabin village called "Old Victoria," show the influence of Cornish culture in the region.
Later in the 1800s, many families from Finland moved to the United States. Until 1918, Finland was part of Russia as a Grand Duchy. Many of these Finns settled in the Western Upper Peninsula because they saw similarities between their old and new homes. They found jobs in the Keweenaw, and some of their traditions, like Finnish saunas, are still present today. Park Heritage Sites such as the "Hanka Homestead" remember the large number of Finns who lived there.
Calumet Unit
The Calumet Unit of the Keweenaw National Historical Park includes many places in and around the towns of Calumet and Laurium. These towns are not ghost towns but active communities that continue to exist after their main employer, the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company, closed in 1968. Miners and company leaders dug into the rock to find geological formations that contained small pieces of nearly pure copper.
The Calumet & Hecla was the most productive of the separate copper mines in the Keweenaw region. The towns built near the mine show how successful the mine was. These towns include a 1,200-seat opera house, large churches made from Lake Superior brownstone, and large homes built by the mine's managers. These structures remain as reminders of the mine's busy years.
- Main Office of the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company (now the National Historical Park's headquarters)
- The Company Library and Bathhouse for employees
- Warehouse of the C&H Mining Company in Calumet, Michigan.
Quincy Unit
The Quincy Unit of the Keweenaw National Historical Park celebrates one of the most amazing engineering achievements in northern Michigan, the 9,000-foot (2,700 m) deep Quincy Mine shaft. Known as "Old Reliable" because it paid yearly dividends for many years, the Quincy mine was located on the rich copper deposits of the Pewabic Lode. A private preservation group keeps the Quincy Mine's surface mining equipment, which is the largest steam-powered hoist in the world.
- Quincy Unit, Keweenaw National Historical Park
- Quincy Mine plan by HAER, National Park Service, Department of the Interior.
- Quincy Smelting Works plan by HAER, National Park Service, Department of the Interior.
- Mine Hoist Powerhouse for the Quincy Mine Hoist.
- KNHP sign for the Quincy Mine
Heritage Sites
As of 2023, the Keweenaw National Historical Park works with 23 heritage sites in the Keweenaw Peninsula and nearby areas. The heritage site system started in 2007 with 19 sites. In October 2013, two new sites were added: Houghton's Carnegie Museum and the Michigan Technological University Archives.
The Adventure Mining Company is located at 200 Adventure Avenue in Greenland, Michigan. The Adventure Mine was active in Greenland from 1850 until 1920 and had five shafts, one of which reached 1,300 feet (400 meters) below the ground. Although the site looked promising, the mine never made money. Today, the Adventure Mining Company offers tours of the mine’s surface and underground areas.
The A.E. Seaman Mineral Museum was originally on the fifth floor of the Electrical Resource Center at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan. As of 2011, it moved to a building across from the Advanced Technology Development Complex. The museum is named after Arthur Edmund Seaman, who worked at Michigan Tech in the late 1800s and early 1900s and was the museum’s curator from 1928 to 1937.
The mineral collection began in the 1800s and had 27,000 specimens by 1890. A museum to house the collection was built in 1908. The museum has moved several times, and the collection now has over 30,000 specimens, with 8,000 on display. The museum shows a large mineral collection and exhibits about copper formation, including the world’s best collection of crystallized native copper and native copper in crystallized calcite.
The Carnegie Museum in Houghton was once a Carnegie library and the home of the Portage Lake District Library. It is now a museum focused on local history.
The Calumet Theatre is located at 340 Sixth Street in Calumet, Michigan, within the park’s Calumet Unit. The theatre was built in 1899 and opened in 1900. It was the first theatre in the United States built by a city. The theatre originally hosted live performances, including famous actors like Frank Morgan (from The Wizard of Oz), Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Lon Chaney, Sr., John Philip Sousa, Sarah Bernhardt, and Madame Helena Modjeska. In the late 1920s, the theatre became a movie house and stayed that way until the 1950s. Summer stock theatre returned in 1958 and continued until 1968, then again in 1972.
In 1975, the auditorium was restored for Calumet’s 100th anniversary. In 1988–89, the theatre’s outside was restored. In 1983, the Calumet Theatre Company was formed as a nonprofit. Most staff are volunteers, with eight full-time employees. Today, the Calumet Theatre hosts up to 80 theatre-related events each year, with about 20,000 people attending.
The Chassell Heritage Center is located at 42373 Hancock Street in Chassell, Michigan. The center is in a 1917 elementary school building and shows exhibits about Chassell’s history, from a fishing and lumber town to today. It includes the Chassell Township Museum and the Friends of Fashion Vintage Clothing Collection.
The Copper Range Historical Museum is located on Trimountain Avenue in South Range, Michigan. The museum is in an old bank building and shows exhibits about the Copper Range Company.
The Coppertown USA Museum is located at 25815 Red Jacket Road in Calumet, Michigan, within the park’s Calumet Unit. The museum is in the old pattern shop of the Calumet & Hecla Mining Company. Exhibits cover the history of copper mining from ancient times to today, with a focus on the Calumet & Hecla Mining Company.
The Delaware Copper Mine is located 12 miles (19 kilometers) south of Copper Harbor, Michigan, off U.S. Highway 41. The mine is one of the oldest in the Keweenaw, dating back to 1846. It had five shafts, with the deepest reaching 1,400 feet (430 meters). The mine is open from June to October and offers guided and self-guided tours.
The Finnish American Heritage Center & Historical Archive is located at 601 Quincy Street on the campus of Finlandia University in Hancock, Michigan. The center includes a theater, an art gallery, and archives that hold the largest collection of Finnish-North American materials in the world. The center connects the Finnish community in America to Finland through exhibits on history and traditions. The archives, started in 1932, now hold 20,000 items, including genealogical records, cultural information, artifacts, and artwork.
Fort Wilkins Historic State Park is located on U.S. Highway 41 in Copper Harbor, Michigan. The fort was built in 1844 and protected copper resources during the Civil War. The park also has one of the first lighthouses on Lake Superior and offers camping, fishing, hiking, swimming, biking, and day-use facilities.
The Hanka Homestead is located about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) west of U.S. Highway 41, off Tower Road in Pelkie, Michigan. The Hanka Homestead is a Finnish-American “stump farm” settled around the start of the 20th century. The Hanka family lived there until 1966, and the farm has been restored to look like it did in 1920.
The Houghton County Historical Museum is located at 5500 M-26 in Lake Linden, Michigan. The museum has over 100 years of photographs and artifacts, with three floors of exhibits about Copper Country mining, logging, and cultural history. The museum also runs the Lake Linden & Torch Lake Railroad, the Traprock Valley School House, the First Congregational Church (used as the HCHS Heritage Center), the Leo Chaput