Hollowed Ground

Copper Mining and Community Building on Lake Superior, 1840s-1990s

Larry D. Lankton, Larry Lankton

• Publisher: Wayne State University Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780814334904
• eBook ISBN: 9780814336960
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Mining Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Details a century and a half of copper mining along Upper Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula, from the arrival of the first incorporated mines in the 1840s until the closing of the last mine in the mid-1990s.

In Hollowed Ground, author Larry Lankton tells the story of two copper industries on Lake Superior-native copper mining, which produced about 11 billion pounds of the metal from the 1840s until the late 1960s, and copper sulfide mining, which began in the 1950s and produced another 4.4 billion pounds of copper through the 1990s. In addition to documenting companies and their mines, mills, and smelters, Hollowed Ground is also a community study. It examines the region's population and ethnic mix, which was a direct result of the mining industry, and the companies' paternalistic involvement in community building.

While this book covers the history of the entire Lake Superior mining industry, it particularly focuses on the three biggest, most important, and longest-lived companies: Calumet & Hecla, Copper Range, and Quincy. Lankton shows the extent of the companies' influence over their mining locations, as they constructed the houses and neighborhoods of their company towns, set the course of local schools, saw that churches got land to build on, encouraged the growth of commercial villages on the margin of a mine, and even provided pasturage for workers' milk cows and space for vegetable gardens. Lankton also traces the interconnected fortunes of the mining communities and their companies through times of bustling economic growth and periods of decline and closure.

Hollowed Ground presents a wealth of images from Upper Michigan's mining towns, reflecting a century and a half of unique community and industrial history. Local historians, industrial historians, and anyone interested in the history of Michigan's Upper Peninsula will appreciate this informative volume.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Keweenaw Copper: Geology, Discovery, Dreams of Wealth
• 2. Getting the Copper Out: Exploration, Development, and the Tools of Production
• 3. Islands of Industry in a Sea of Trees
• 4. Out at the Locations: From Camps to Communities
• 5. The Quincy Mine: Taking the Long Road to Success
• 6. The Era of Michigan Domination: 1865–1890
• 7. The Largest and Best Copper Mine in the World: Calumet and Hecla
• 8. Befitting a Copper King: C&H’s Visible Empire
• 9. A Far More Typical Mine: Quincy, 1865–1890
• 10. Quincy Makes Itself Over: 1890–1912
• 11. Calumet and Hecla: Profits Now, Problems Later
• 12. An Important Find: The Copper Range Mines Open the Baltic Lode
• 13. Paternalism Revisited: The Baltic, Trimountain, and Champion Mines
• 14. Holding On: Corporate Power in an Age of Social Change, 1890–1912
• 15. Show Them Who’s Boss: The Strike of 1913–1914
• 16. Making the Hard Turn: From Growth to Decline
• 17. The Quincy Mine: From Struggle to Shutdown
• 18. Calumet and Hecla: Down with the King
• 19. Copper Range: Staying Alive
• 20. White Pine: A New Mine, a New Era
• 21. Something Old, Something New: The White Pine Townsite
• 22. White Pine: No Solution
• 23. Legacy
• List of Abbreviations
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index