Mining for Michigan: The History of Mining along the Great Lakes and the Upper Peninsula

Copper mining is as ubiquitous to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan as the automobile industry is to the Lower. Centuries before the first white man set foot in the New World, local natives used rocks to pound copper free from the earth, shaping it into goods traded across the continent. It was not long before European settlers followed up on the natives’ work, and when industry came to Copper Country, mines sprung up, quickly dominating the economy and lives of the Upper Peninsula’s residents.   Copper was not the only mineral harvested from the Earth. Iron mines spread out as well, becoming profitable if less known than their copper cousins. Even less well known but just as integral to the Peninsula’s history, gold and silver prospectors prowled the land, looking for metals whose value had started and ended empires.   Mining, especially copper mining, left a deep mark in the Upper Peninsula by affecting the region’s growth, landscape, culture, and economic structure. Where once a boomi