Virtual Smelter Tour- The Beginning

We are pleased to announce the beginning of the virtual smelter tour! We’ve partnered with Copper Country Explorer to provide an in-depth tour and exploration of the Quincy Smelter. We’ll deal with more of the history here, while Explorer provides architectural commnetary and some great photos of the smelter taken during the special photo tour which took place during our Oct.3, 2009 open house. I really appreciate Explorer’s effort, and hope you enjoy the tour on both sites!

We’ll be moving from building to building in the same manner as the copper would have as it arrived from the stamp mills on Torch Lake. As such, we’ll start with the 1904 Mineral House. For now, here’s a map of the smelter as it would have appeared in 1920. Take a look and orient yourself to the various buildings!

Smelter site map, ca.1920, as drawn by the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) in 1978.

 For larger versions of this drawing, as well as the rest of the HAER documentation of the smelter and the Quincy Mine site, please click here.

Funding for Smelter Stabilization

Throughout 2009, our representatives and senators in Washington worked to secure funding for the ongoing stabilization of the smelter site. H.R. 2996, a bill containing a $1 million earmark for the smelter, passed the House and Senate, but then disappeared into a conference committee. For a time, it was unclear if the smelter appropriation survived the conference negotiations. However, on October 30 the bill cleared the committee with the smelter funding intact, and President Obama signed it into law the next day. The 2010 fiscal year includes $1,000,000 for the Quincy Smelter!

This appropriation is part of the $32 billion Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2010, which provides funding for the Department of the Interior, the National Park Service, the Forest Service, and a number of other agencies. Of the total appropriation, $2.7 billion will go the the NPS. From that subtotal, the Keweenaw National Historical Park will recieve the $1 million for the smelter stabilization, as well as additional funding for installation of exhibits and building restoration in Calumet.  Special thanks are due to Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, and Representative Bart Stupak, all of whom helped get this bill passed. To learn more, visit Sen. Levin’s website and read his statement about the bill .  

Planning on how best to use this money, in addition to the $275,000 awarded by Housing and Urban Development earlier this year, will take place in the coming months. Keep a lookout for work to begin at the smelter in the near future!

Safety First!

We’ve now discussed the Quincy Smelter as well as the other four Portage Lake smelters, and in the future we’ll be touring other former industrial sites. Exploring these sites can be extremely dangerous, and should only be done with proper permission and equipment. The Quincy Smelter is perhaps the most dangerous site I’ll cover here.  It may seem tempting to take a look inside the smelter yourself. Please, please, PLEASE DO NOT attempt to enter the smelter site on your own, for a number of reasons. First, there are obvious safety concerns. Although there are no environmental hazards onsite (thanks to the work of the EPA), many of the buildings are currently unstable. You’ll note from previous posts that every time we take tours inside the site or simply visit to perform work, we wear hard hats to protect ourselves. Funding is being streamlined to stabilize some of the more seriously deteriorated structures, but this work will not begin until next year. In the meantime, existing conditions and increased snowloads will make these buildings even more hazardous. As a result, for your own safety, please stay outside the fence. This will protect you and the historic resources inside the smelter. Thanks to the Keweenaw National Historical Park, signs were recently installed along the fenceline explaing the hazards inside.

One of the new signs installed by the KNHP.

Furthermore, it’s important that you refrain from entering the smelter to protect the numerous historic resources which remain inside. Unfortunately, vandalism and looters have further damaged many of the buildings and removed important items. Your help is instrumental in helping to curtail such destructive activities. As the saying goes, “if you see something, say something!” If you notice irregular activity at the smelter site, please contact the Houghton County Sheriff’s Department and the Franklin Township offices. We appreciate your help in protecting the rich cultural and historic fabric of the smelter, and for your general support for the ongoing stabilization and rehabilitation work!

Since the smelter site is closed, I’ll begin a virtual tour of the individual buildings. Stay tuned and check back regularly for photos and histories of each of the smelter structures!

More Underwater Archaeology at the Smelter

As you may recall from an earlier post, in September 2009 we teamed up with the Isle Royale Institute and Nautilus Marine Group to perform a quick underwater sonar survey of the Quincy Smelter waterfront. Now, these two organizations have been kind enough to share the final composite image that was generated during the survey!

The composite image of the lake floor around the smelter. 

 As you can see, we didn’t discover any shipwrecks or buried treasure. However, note the disturbed bottom right in front of the smelter. This was likely caused by turbulence generated by the propellors of ships visiting the smelter to unload coal or other supplies or to take on a load of copper ingots. The original dock pilings are also very clear. The black north/south trench at the east end of the smelter is modern, caused by the installation of a new sewer line last year. The smaller black circles are shadows cast by the sonar rig itself.

Since most re-use scenarios for the smelter call for the docks to be redeveloped for water access, this image should help identify areas to be studied further prior to new construction. Thanks again to the Isle Royale Institute and Nautilus Marine for providing us with a new and interesting view of the smelter!

Art at the Smelter

The Quincy Smelter continues to generate interest from a number of groups and individuals. In October 2009, I had the pleasure of leading a group of artists from the Copper Country Community Art Center through the smelter to sketch and photograph the site. The Art Center holds an annual competition of works based on the Quincy No.2 shaft-rockhouse, and last year the focus of the contest was expanded to include the smelter. Be sure to visit the Art Center in December 2010 to see what sort of inspiration the artists drew from the smelter this year!

Touring the smelter

Sketching the warehouse

The Portage Lake Smelter Tour- What’s Left in 2010?

We concluded our tour of the Portage Lake smelters on Monday, having visiting both locations of the Lake Superior Smelting Company, the Lake Superior Native Copper Works, the Quincy Smelter, and the Michigan Smelter. Each of these was once a thriving industrial enterprise, but it’s enlighting to examine what’s left at each of the sites.

As mentioned earlier, the Detroit and Lake Superior Smelter/Lake Superior Smelting Company’s works in east Hancock are still somewhat visible. Some of the buildings of the Houghton County Road Commission are repurposed smelter structures, but it is difficult to identify them as such unless you know what you’re looking at. Development and new construction have largely destroyed the smelting complex, as well as the Hodge Foundry which was located next door. Although some buildings remain, there is little to tie the site to its smelting heritage.

Similarly, the newer Lake Superior Smelting Company works in Dollar Bay is almost completely absent from the landscape. An empty lot marks the site of the smelter, and the famous docks have disappeared. In Houghton, there is no trace of the Lake Superior Native Copper Works. As happened nearly everywhere else in the Copper Country, modernization and redevelopment erased earlier industrial landscapes. At the Michigan Smelter, meanwhile, it was the Copper Range Company rather than redevelopment which removed the smelter from the landscape. Within two years the company completely disassembled one of the largest and most complex smelters in the Great Lakes region. If we look to the massive C&H smelter in Hubbell, a similar pattern is apparent. Currently occupied by Peninsula Copper Industries (PCI), some of the smelter’s buildings remain, including the electrolytic plant, the blacksmith shop, and the mineral house. However, the few structures that remain today give no indication of the huge smelter complex which once filled the site.

So…why are these smelters, all of which are largely absent from the modern landscape, important? The answer is simple. They serve as an important counterpoint to the Quincy Smelter. Their absence highlights the unique totality of the Quincy site. Not only is nearly all of the fabric of the original smelter intact, but it is the ONLY place in the Copper Country where such a wealth of information and material related to smelting remains. If you stand in the large open yard on the waterfront inside the Quincy Smelter, you can look around and see the sites of four former smelters, none of which remain today. That’s why the site is so important, and that’s why the Keweenaw National Historical Park and other groups are so enthusiastic about stabilizing and preserving the site. The Quincy Smelter is simply the last, best example of Keweenaw smelting operations.

Thank you for joining us on our tour of the Portage Lake smelters. We hope you’ve learned a bit about the smelters of the area, but we also hope we’ve piqued your interest in the Quincy Smelter. Check back in the coming weeks for an in-depth tour of the buildings at the smelter, showcasing the high level of preservation but also the continuing threats at the site.

The Portage Lake Smelter Tour- The Michigan Smelter, Pt.2

Today we conclude our tour of the Portage Lake smelters with the last days of the Michigan Smelter.

 In 1911 Copper Range bought the Atlantic Mine’s share of the Michigan Smelter stock, beginning a move towards total ownership of the smelter. Like Quincy’s smelter, the Michigan Smelter experienced a wave of production highs and lows brought about by the strike of 1913 and World War One. However, as the Quincy Smelter declined through the 1920s, the Michigan Smelter actually expanded its operations. Although 1926 saw much lower tonnages of mineral smelted, by 1927 an increased output from the Mohawk mines and a new contract with the Isle Royale mines meant that business once again picked up. While Quincy shuttered its smelter and ultimately its mines as the Depression deepened, in 1932 Copper Range moved to gain complete control of the Michigan Smelting Company, renaming it the Copper Range Company Smelting Department in 1933. Although production dropped off with the closure of the Mohawk Mine in that same year, work continued at the smelter using stockpiled copper rock. Despite the downturn in both input from the mines and the demand for refined copper, in 1936 a new 2,000 pound Lectromelt furnace was added to the smelter, and production totals for 1938 were highest in several years thanks to increased work in the Champion and Isle Royale mines.

 As the Depression continued, Copper Range increasingly used the Michigan Smelter for contract work with several other mines. Perhaps the most notable of these smelting contracts was formed with the Quincy Mining Company, whose own smelter had been closed in 1931. In 1940 Quincy, along with Isle Royale, supplied most of the mineral treated at the Michigan Smelter. To keep Quincy’s business, special discount rates were offered to prevent the company from using Calumet and Hecla’s smelters in Lake Linden, and in 1943 Quincy began sending the products of its Torch Lake reclamation efforts to the Michigan Smelter. However, with the closure of nearly all of the Lake Superior mines in the autumn of 1945, the Michigan Smelter ceased operations. Work resumed nearly a year later in December of 1946, after the Lake Copper Refining Company contracted with Copper Range for smelting work. This arrangement lasted only a year, as the smelter stopped treating newly mined or reclaimed mineral in November 1947. Smelting continued using stockpiled mineral until March 1, 1948, when the Michigan Smelter ceased operations permanently. Beginning in 1952 Copper Range moved to liquidate all of the physical assets of the Michigan Smelter, selling off machinery and demolishing all of the smelter structures (except the office building) within two years.

Today, there are few remains of the Michigan Smelter visible on the landscape. A few massive concrete bridge piers mark the location of the Copper Range Railroad spur which delivered mineral to the smelter, and other foundations remain scattered around the site. The office building, now privately owned, is the only structure associated with the smelter that is still standing.

Copper Range rock cars on the tracks to the Michigan Smelter. Note the slag dump at left.

Another view of the Michigan Smelter.

The Portage Lake Smelter Tour- The Michigan Smelter, Pt.1

Today we begin to wrap up our tour of the Portage Lake smelters by visiting the newest and most modern, the Michigan Smelter.

The last of the Portage Lake smelting works was the Michigan Smelter, considered by many to represent the pinnacle of smelting technology in the Lake Superior region. Like Quincy only a few years before, the Copper Range Consolidated Company determined the need for a company-owned smelter in 1903. As such, the Michigan Smelting Company was quickly organized, with 60% of the company’s stock owned by the Champion, Trimountain, and Baltic Mines and the remaining 40% in the hands of the Wolverine, Atlantic, and Mohawk Mines. In July of 1903 F.I. Cairns, previously the superintendent of the Anaconda Smelter in Montana, was hired to plan and oversee construction on the new works. Copper Range contracted with the Northern Construction Company to build an office building, laboratory, powerhouse, machine shop, and mineral storage bins on the site of the old Atlantic stamp mill on Cole’s Creek, west of Houghton.

Smelting operations began in early 1904, with disappointing results. However, 1905 brought increased efficiency and productivity to the smelter, and in 1906 Copper Range built a new electrical generating station on the site which provided for all of the company’s electrical needs beyond powering the shaft hoists and compressors.[i] During this early period the smelter reached the height of its expansion and growth. Drawing heavily upon stamp mill design, the smelter was built in a multilevel terrace design, utilizing gravity to move copper rock and molten mineral through the works. Raw mineral arrived on the uppermost level of the smelter via the Copper Range Railroad, which dumped copper rock into 3,000 ton storage bins. Coal and other fuels were also delivered to storage bins on the upper terrace. To begin smelting, the mineral passed downward through rotary dryers powered by exhaust from the furnaces below. Once dry, the mineral entered the main 160 by 205 foot furnace building, which ultimately contained six reverberatories. Initially, the furnaces were constructed on a massive scale, 18 by 50 feet, but these dimensions quickly proved problematic and were reduced in size. Apart from heating the mineral dryers, the furnaces also powered three boilers before passing up the hill and venting out of a 150 foot tall stack at the top of the smelter complex.[ii]

After the initial melting in the reverberatories, molten copper flowed downhill through a 21 foot launder to two refining furnaces prior to casting. The reverberatory slag, meanwhile, was treated in the typical manner in two cupolas. Housed in a 40 by 70 foot blast furnace building, these cupolas produced molded ingots which were transferred by an electric crane to the refining furnaces for remelting. The cupola slag was cast into 1,000 pound cakes and carried by electric trams to a large Blake jaw crusher, which produced a finely-ground sand which was hydraulically ejected into Portage Lake.[iii] Thanks to these and other automated features, such as electric travelling cranes, pneumatic hoists, and large grain silo-like storage bins, the Michigan Smelter proved highly efficient. For instance, in August 1905 a 10-man crew worked one of the furnaces for seven hours, during which time they cast 292,000 pounds of refined copper, which was then collected at the bottom of the complex for shipment to the Houghton docks on the Copper Range Railroad. This feat broke an existing world record, and proved that despite some initial difficulties, the Michigan Smelter was a competitive and successful venture.[iv]

The Michigan Smelter

A casting wheel and furnace.

---

[i] Van Pelt, J. Robert (attributed). “Michigan Smelting Company, 1903-1952.”  

[ii] Stevens, Horace J. The Copper Handbook: A Manual of the Copper Industry of the World. Vol. 6, 1906, pg. 683-84; Vol. 11, 1912-13, pg.586-87.

[iii] Rickard, T.A. “Smelting Practice-Chapter XIII.” The Copper Mines of Lake Superior. Pgs. 142-147.

[iv] Stevens, Horace J. The Copper Handbook: A Manual of the Copper Industry of the World. Vol. 6, 1906, pg. 683-84

The Portage Lake Smelter Tour- The Lake Superior Native Copper Works

Part 5 in our continuing series about the smelters the operated contemporaneously with the Quincy Smelter on Portage Lake. Today, we move to Houghton to look at the nearly-forgotten Lake Superior Native Copper Works.

As evidenced by Tamarack and Osceola’s independent venture into copper smelting (the rolling mill in Dollar Bay that was later absorbed by the Lake Superior Smelting Co.), small-scale smelters were not uncommon in the Keweenaw in the latter part of the 19^th century. However, all were apparently short-lived, and only one, the Lake Superior Native Copper Works, was located centrally on Portage Lake. The LSNCW was formally incorporated on July 19, 1880, with an initial capitalization of $500,000. Unlike the Detroit and Lake Superior venture across the lake in Hancock, the Houghton-based LSNCW was a local affair, formed by Thomas Edwards and Richard Uren of Houghton and Edward Ryan of Hancock. These three men initially held all of the company’s shares, valued at $25 apiece.[i] The works appears to have been equipped with only three reverberatory furnaces and one cupola, but featured a large rolling mill with three sets of rollers and an extensive dock system on Portage Lake. The Mineral Range Railroad tracks running east from downtown Houghton passed through the smelter property, but it is unclear as to whether the works were serviced by this rail connection or through the city streets.[ii]

Information concerning the LSNCW is minimal at best, perhaps due to the smelter’s relatively short operational history. However, it is clear that the works treated local copper, as evidenced by Houghton County Circuit Court records. In 1884, for example, the LSNCW successfully took the Wolverine Mining Company to court over an issue of nonpayment. The judge ultimately ordered Wolverine to pay the smelting company $1,532.98 for “goods sold and delivered.” A decade later, the LSNCW battled the Mineral Range Railroad, again in the Houghton County Circuit Court. In October 1898 the smelting company took the railroad to court in a land dispute. Attorneys for the LSNCW claimed that the railroad had illegally evicted the smelting company from its property.[iii] This “illegal” eviction may represent a move by the Mineral Range to acquire abandoned property near the railroad’s tracks, as insurance maps list the LSNCW as “closed” by 1888.[iv]

However, this notation may only represent a temporary closure. For instance, only two years later, a report for the Smithsonian Museum detailed the operating procedures of the smelter in 1891. By the early 1890s the smelter was fueled by coke, treating small batches of copper and slag in 7 to 8 hour smelting sessions. In this time frame, the cupola (which was the only operation observed for the museum report) treated six tons of slag, producing a “very impure pig copper.”[v] Furthermore, a biographical sketch of Richard Uren’s family noted that his father, William Uren, served as the secretary and treasurer of the LSNCW until his death in March 1897.[vi] As such, the LSNCW must have survived until at least the late 1890s, although perhaps not in a state of continuous operation.

Unfortunately, no images of the LSNCW survive beyond Sanborn insurance maps. Even the smelter’s exact location is difficult to pinpoint. It likely operated somewhere in the vicinity of the Super 8 hotel and the small waterfront park and boat launch just east of downtown Houghton. As this area has been considerably disturbed by modern development, there are no features on the landscape to mark the smelter’s location.

---

[i] “Articles of Association of the Lake Superior Native Copper Works.” Record of Articles of Association-Houghton County, Volume 2. Pg. 78-80.[ii] Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps. Houghton, Michigan. June 1888, No.5.

[iii] “The Lake Superior Native Copper Works vs. the Wolverine Mining Company: Conference of Judgement.,” and “The Lake Superior Native Copper Works vs. the Mineral Range Railroad Company.” Houghton County Circuit Court, docket nos.502 and 1660, filed Nov. 21, 1884 and Oct. 22, 1898.

[iv] Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps. Houghton, Michigan. June 1888, No.5.

[v] Dewey, Frederick. “The Lake Superior Native Copper Works.” Bulletin of the United States National Museum, No.42. Pg. 98

[vi] “William J. Uren.” Biographical Record of Sketches of Leading Citizens of Houghton, Baraga, and Marquette Counties, Michigan. Pg. 46.

Smelter Tours a Success!

In October 2009, I helped plan the first large-scale public open house at the Quincy Smelter. I got a chance to work with a lot of great people, and met numerous interested individuals on the tours I led through the site.Despite the cold, wind, and threatening rain, the public open house and tours of the Quincy Smelter were a great success! Over 200 people showed up for the tours, each of which was sold out. An additional tour (for a total of 9) even took place to accomodate those who couldn’t get on the earlier tours! Special thanks are due to the Keweenaw Chapter of the Michigan Tech Alumni Association, the staff of the Keweenaw National Historical Park, Dr. Liz Norris and the industrial archaeology students from Michigan Tech, and the staff of Franklin Township. This event wouldn’t have been possible without their help. Thanks are also due to everyone who came out and showed their support and interest in the smelter!

Tour group gathering before heading into the smelter.

Group at the cupola furnace building.

Industrial archaeology students from Michigan Tech documenting the ice house.

Special photography tour group examining the locomotive behind the smelter.

Inside the 1920 casting house.