Michigan's Copper Country

The image depicts the discovery of the famous Ontonagon Boulder, a chunk of copper weighing nearly 4000lbs.

The copper country industry in Michigan began thousands of years ago when ancient miners attacked exposed veins of pure copper with huge hammer-stones. The tools and techniques of mining advanced considerably in the centuries that followed.  Long before Europeans reached America, the natives were mining copper in the Lake Superior copper country and creating articles that were traded among tribes across the continent. French explorers tried to mine the copper and failed. In 1771 a group of Englishmen tried mining near the Ontonagon Boulder, a mass of copper weighing three tons. For years this was the leading producer of copper in the country.

The Keweenaw Peninsula is a unique blend of natural and human history… a rugged, picturesque land which is inhabited and loved by people of many nationalities. Their taproots are deeply imbedded in the conglomerate formations from which they and their ancestors wrested millions of pounds of copper, and they are duly proud of this great heritage.  The ridge, rich in copper deposits ran along the shore of Lake Superior and proved rich enough to supply the world for many years.  Although larger and purer boulders of copper were discovered in the copper country, none eclipsed the Ontonagon Boulder’s fame. (All of the other rocks were eventually melted down.) From its permanent home at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, it has been returned to Michigan from time to time for exhibition at rock and mineral shows.

 

 

The ingot pictured here is a large copper slab on display in the Ontonagon Historical Museum.