Travels with Twinkles: Keweenaw Peninsula travels

August 17 - 19, 2017:

We decided to tow the Jeep today as the forecast was rain and it was a longer ride and we are fast wearing out the Jeep. I fully expected it to rain at the campground dump station and the gas station and while hooking up the Jeep, it looked threatening, but we stayed dry. Actually there were only a few periods of rain during the ride, it mostly was just dark and gloomy. We went through several towns all claiming to be the greatest logging town, how many can there be ? Also I noted many old decrepit dairy farms with barns falling apart, no cows, just hay fields, it pays better. It was 160 miles with only a couple of stops, at the Michigan border for Michigan travel information and at "Krupp's" all season general store where I saw the sign for Pasties. The woman inside said, we don’t have any now, but if you wait 3 minutes, we have a fresh batch coming out of the oven. Those were magic words to me and it was a beautiful looking Pastie, I just had to stare at it with admiration for a while and it tasted as good as it looked.

At the crossroads

Beautiful !

Our destination F.P. McLain State Park is the first Michigan State Park for us. It is a nice park right on Lake Superior about 8 miles from Hancock, Michigan. These State Parks sometimes annoy me as they can be more expensive than a private campground after they add in all the daily vehicle fees. We ended up getting the annual pass as it’s only a few more dollars and if we stay at one more park will probably come out ahead.

We go to the towns of Hancock and Houghton which are across Portage Lake or Canal (not sure where to draw the boundary) from one another connected by a lift bridge. The Portage Lake and ship canal flows into Lake Superior and affords Great Lakes ships to travel and harbor inland. These were both copper mining towns with the Quincy Mine a few miles north of Hancock on route 41. The remains of the Quincy Mine are now part of the Keweenaw National Historical Park and are open for tours. This section of Michigan, the Upper Peninsula or Keweenaw Peninsula had the largest deposit of pure elemental copper in the world. In time the mining here became more expensive as they had to go deeper and deeper and new mines in the west were developed that could operate cheaper resulting in closure of the last mine in 1996.

The lift bridge between Hancock and Houghton

The Orphem Theater in Hancock

The Finlandia University in Hancock

A series of paintings in the park next to the University
area were somewhat weird

Did they really have to install the AC unit under the
beautiful architectural detail in the plywood panel ?

The Douglass House in Houghton is a beauty !

The entrance to the Douglass House

That's a beautiful thought, but sadly unattainable

Old Houghton Daily Mining Gazette sign

Many nice old buildings remain in Houghton

The Lode Theater remains as an insurance agency, that's just wrong !

Next we go to the town of Calumet which is quite renown for its abundance of early 1900’s buildings. Calumet was a copper mining boom town with the establishment of the Calumet and Hecla Copper Mines. These mines prospered and were consolidated into the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company (C &H) in 1871when they accounted for approximately 57% of Michigan’s total copper output. Calumet was not exactly a company town, the term used is corporate paternalism, as C&H provided many employee amenities such as schools, english classes, health services, bath houses, a library, a swimming pool and donated land for several churches and fraternal organizations. The mine started to decline during the depression years and due to western competition, unstable prices, having to go deeper for the ore and increased labor issues they never recovered. They were taken over by a large corporation, Universal Oil Products, who shut the mine down in 1968.

The whole city is practically a historic district, or should be. We did a tour of the Opera House where they were setting up for a wedding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calumet,_Michigan

Just happened to be in the right place at the right time to see this antique car pass

The Michigan House has quite a history as the
Bosch Brewerey

A great painting over the bar

Calumet firehouse with its American LaFrance fire truck

Looking down from balcony in the Opera House

Another view in the Opera House

Liked the Copper Queen whiskey sign

Independent Order of Odd Fellows Hall window

Many buildings like this in town

Keweenaw Heritage Center in the old St. Anne's Church

The remains of Italian Hall where 70 people died at a
Christmas party when a false cry of "fire" was yelled
causing a panic attributed to anti-union members.

The National Park Service has done an interesting thing here in the Keweenaw Peninsula area of Michigan. They have partnered with various municipalities, private individuals and organizations to develop and manage various historic areas all over the peninsula. The Calumet Unit of the Keweenaw Historic Park is located in Calumet Visitors Center in the beautifully restored "Union Hall". Outside of Hancock is the Quincy Unit of the Keweenaw Historical Park at the former site of the "Quincy Mine" and have stabilized many existing buildings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keweenaw_Peninsula

The Union Building which was built in 1888 as a hall for Masonic Lodge and the Odd Fellows. It was purchased by the park service in 1999 for the Calumet Visitors Center

Many bars, fraternal organizations and churches in Calumet

Mother Jones at Calumet to support the striking miners

The tragedy at the Italian Hall prompted Woody Guthrie
to write a song

The striking miners

I ride north up the peninsula on routes 26 and 41 to Eagle Harbor and Copper City. I happen upon the Eagle River Waterfall and the Eagle Harbor Light Station on route 26. The lighthouse displays were very interesting, but the most fascinating display was the story of the shipwreck of the Bangor. The Bangor was carrying 220 new cars, mostly new 1923 Chryslers and a few Whippets when it beached on the a reef during a storm. Several cars were swept overboard and most of the remaining cars were salvaged. One of the cars is on display at the museum.

At Copper City, a craft festival was going on, I saw nothing at the craft festival that I had to have, but the roasted corn and hot dogs were excellent.