USA > Michigan > A history of the northern peninsula of Michigan and its people, its mining, lumber and agricultural industries, Volume I > Part 51
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PETER CREBASSA
The real pioneer of the region about L'Anse bay was Peter Crebassa, a Canadian Frenchman, who served for twenty-five years as ugent for the American Fur Company. During that period he was stationed, at different intervals, at L'Anse. La Pointe, Fond du Lac and Rainy Lake (on the line of the British possessions). In 1838, after severing his connection with the fur company, he purchased a stock of goods and es- tablished a trading post at L'Anse, or the Methodist Mission. He was appointed postmaster in 1852. In 1871, on the completion of the Mar- quette, Houghton & Ontonagon Railroad to L'Anse bay the office was removed to the new village, which was called L'Anse after the old post. Mr. Crebassa continued as postmaster and honored citizen of the present L'Ause village for many years.
For several years after its platting. L'Anse grew very rapidly. The general expectations were, especially after the completion of the railroad, that it was to be one of the great shipping points, or outlets for Inmber and ore, in the Upper Peninsula; at least Marquette's most dangerous rival. The prospects were so flattering that people flocked hither from all parts, and lots sold as high as $2.000 each. So intense became the excitement that Iurge houses were loaded onto scows and floated thirty and forty miles to L'Anse. In 1872 the Marquette, Houghton & Onion- agon Railroad also erected a 6,000-ton ore dock. But the panie of 1873 put a sobering touch to such hilarity, and the honor of becoming the seat of the new county in 1875 did not make amends.
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The first school district in what is now Baraga county was formed in November, 1858, its territory including the present site of L'Anse village, but the first school house actually within the corporate limits was erected in 1871, on block 4. The question of erecting a county court house was brought before the people in the summer of 1882, and the voters sustained the proposition of raising $10,000 for that purpose, by 158 to 95. The original county building was a wooden affair moved down the bay from Ilancock in 1872, and also occupied by Capt. Bentry as a residence. The present court house was erected not long after the people voted the building fund noted, in 1882.
As one source of L'Anse's former trade was the business of the slate, graphite and brown stone quarries, nearby ; it should be stated that this industry originated in the Clinton and the Huron Bay slate quarries, which were opened, in 1872. by Thomas Brown and P. Wetmore. The produet of this quarry was used in the building of the Methodist church at L'Anse, in 1874. The quarries were closed in 1878. In 1874 the Clinton Slate Company opened a quarry about a quarter of a mile from the Huron Bay quarry, and operated it until 1879. The Michigan Slate Company was organized, in 1882, and worked the Clinton quarry for about ten years; since which the stone industry has been defunet.
The discovery of iron ore in Baraga county, about the time that the stone quarries were opened, increased the hopes of the promoters of L'Anse. The most westerly mine on the magnetic range was called the Spurr, which was operated by the Spurr Mountain Mining Company and opened in Sepember, 1872, although no ore was shipped until the following year. It was considered a mine of large promise, but collapsed in 1878, and was spasmodically revived at various periods for some years thereafter.
Ore was also discovered in 1872 still further west, in the county, and resulted in exploratory work in what was known as the Taylor mine, from 1878 to 1881, when about 6,000 tons was actually produced.
Still later explorations of the mineral lands of Baraga county-some of which progressed no further than explorations-resulted in the Wet- more mine, located to the south and west of the Spurr; the Webster, in the same locality ; and the Beanmont, near the Taylor mine.
The county sent, as it is today, is located on the northern spur of the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantie Railroad; contains good stores-two banks-National and County; a handsome court house and town hall; a fine graded school ; adequate water supply and fire protection, and an electrie plant, and is, all-in-all, a pretty little village. It has also, and by no means last in importance, n bright weekly paper-the L'Anse Sentinel. Near the village are trout streams and deer resorts, which are the delight of anglers and hunters, and quite a little of the local sum- mer business consists of supplying them with outfits. L'Anse is an ideal summer resort for those who really crave either rest or recreation,
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OTHER VILLAGES
Pequaming. or in the Indian tongue Pe-qua-qua-wa-ming (Point Vil- lage), is an old settlement seven miles north of L'Anse, on the east shore of the bay. In the very long-ago an Indian village is said to have oc- cupied its site, but this had been quite deserted at the coming of Peter Crebassa in the late thirties. The commencement of the modern settle- ment came about through the organization of the Hebard & Thurber Lumber Company in 1878, and the erection of their large steam saw- mill and shingle mill. At one time there were 500 people in the place and it was quite a village-all founded on the business of that company, with its output of 25.000,000 feet of lumber annually. There were 240 men employed in the mill and nearly 400 more in the woods getting out
BIRDS-EYE VIEW OF L'ANSE, LOOKING NORTH
logs. The saw-mill of Charles Hebard & Son, in active operation at Pequaming, with its hotel and general store for employes, is the suc- cessor of the older concern, and is still the mainstay of the place. The Traverse Bay Red Stone Company also runs a quarry.
Skanee village, located a few miles to the east on Ravine river near its outlet into Huron bay, was settled in 1871 as a lumber camp, its resi- dents being mostly Germans. Arvon, twelve miles east of L'Anse, was settled in 1872, its life being founded on the quarry and shipment of slates from near-by deposits.
Other points, railroad stations and postoffices in the county are Nes- toria, at the junction of the main and branch lines of the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic; Arnheim and Assinins, on the west shore of Kewee- naw bay; Summit and Taylor, in the old central mining district; Cov- ington, Herman, Pelkie and Redruth. Keweenaw Bay is a place of sev- eral hundred people, on the west shore of the lake, eleven miles north
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of L'Anse and on the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic. Its status rests at present, on the stamp mills of the Mass and Michigan mines.
COUNTY'S INCREASE IN POPULATION
The first complete census of Baraga county was taken by the govern- ment in 1880, and indicated that population was distributed as follows: Avon township, 100; Baraga township. 400; L'Anse township, 170; L'Anse village, 1,014; Spurr township, 120. Total, 1,804 including 528 Indians and half-breeds. The total population had increased to 3,036 in 1890; to 4.320 in 1900, and 6,127 in 1910.
The comparative statement covering the figures of the last three enu- merations by the United States census bureau is as follows:
TOWNSHIPS AND VILLAGES
1910
1900
1890
Arvon Township
390
299
209
Baraga Township, including Baraga Village
.2,548
2.097
1,090
Baraga Village
1,071
1,185
Covington Township
646
298
L'Anse Township, including L'Anse Village 2,083
1,360
1,468
L'Anse Village
708
620
655
Spurr Township
460
266
269
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CHAPTER XXII THE COPPER COUNTIES
QUINCY AND CALUMET & HECLA MINES-DEEPEST COPPER MINE IN THE WORLD-ISLE ROYALE CONSOLIDATED-ATLANTIC AND SUPERIOR MINES -COPPER RANGE, BALTIC, ETC .- COPPER RANGE RAILROAD-MICHIGAN SMELTING WORKS-WOLVERINE, CENTENNIAL AND OSCEOLA-HAN- COCK AND LAURIUM-MINE PRODUCERS AND DIVIDEND PAYERS- HOUGHTON COUNTY POLITICALLY-INCREASE IN POPULATION-PHYS- ICAL FEATURES-HOUGHTON, THE COUNTY SEAT-MICHIGAN COLLEGE OF MINES-OUTLINE HISTORY OF THE VILLAGE-CITY OF HANCOCK- CALUMET AND RED JACKET-VILLAGE OF LAURIUM-LAKE LINDEN AND HUBBELL-KEWEENAW COUNTY-DESCRIPTIVE-MINES-POPULATION -OLD ISLE ROYALE COUNTY-ONTONAGON COUNTY-MINES.
This chapter of the Upper Peninsula history is devoted to a word-sur- vey of the great copper region, which stretches for a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, from the extremity of Keweenaw Point to the Wisconsin boundary line, and ineludes in its political divisions the coun- ties of Koweenaw. Honghton and Ontonagon. The most productive mines-the richest in the world-are in Houghton county. As the won- derful output of copper in this region has built its towns, villages and cities; has founded some of the richest, broadest, and most unique in- dustrial communities, whose development is a striking phase of natural history-it is logical and just to trace the growth of copper mining be- fore delineating the founding and progress of civie communities. In faet, it was around the mines that the centers of population clustered, and the life or death of the infant communities depended on the sub- santial prosperity of the mines. When the activities of the mines broad- ened, settlements developed into villages, and villages into cities. And the best part of the story is yet to be told; for in copper, as in iron mining. there seems to be no reasonable limit to the supply of ore, me- chanical and inventive genius having devised means of reaching the pure underground treasures which, not long ago, were deemed beyond the grasp of man.
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In the general history of copper mining, a picture has been drawn featuring ancient and largely mythical operations; reports of the coun- try made by the early French and English explorers; the scientific sur- vey explorations and definite statements made by Dr. Douglass Hongh- ton as to the discoveries of ore along the lake shore, near the present town of Ontonagon; and the commencement of actual operations at the Cliff mine, Keweenaw county, in 1844.
QUINCY AND CALUMET & HECLA MINES
Although Honghton county was politically created in 1845 (then embracing the present counties of Keweenaw and Ontonagon), from the standpoint of settled and substantial communities it was not really es- tablished until those greatest and most constant mines gave every indi- cation of being stable producers-the Calmmet and Helea and the Quiney mines. In point of age, the Quiney takes precedence, but while it stands ahout twentieth in the list of the world's greatest producers of copper, the Calumet and Helea is second or third, its only rival in the United States being the great Anaconda of Montana. The first copper mining company in the world, judged from the output of its mines, is the Amer- ican Smelting and Refining Company, with headquarters in New York and smelters for lead and copper scattered over the east and west of the United States and Mexico. The production of copper is merely an inci- dent with the American Smelting & Refining Company, the output of its widely scattered mines being about 94,000,000 pounds of fine copper an- nually, which exceeds somewhat the average yearly production of both the Anaconda and Calumet and Hecla for several years past, although in 1906 the latter exceeded the 100,000,000-pounds record, and the former exceeded it from 1896 to 1901, reaching 131,471,127 pounds in 1897. In comparison with these figures the yield of the Quiney mine, in 1909- 22,511,984 pounds of refined copper-seems modest indeed; it also makes about 100,000 ounces of silver annually.
But the Quiney has fine claims to distinction both for the constancy of its production and its recard as a dividend payer. It paid its first dividend in 1862, and prof.ts have been disbursed to shareholders in every succeeding year, except 1866 and 1867, giving the company a con- tinuons dividend record from 1868, and placing it foremost in this re- gard among American copper mines; among the copper mines of the world it is only preceded in length of record as a dividend-payer by the Tharsis Sulphur & Copper Company, of Spain, operated by a British company since 1886.
The Quincy Mining Company was organized, under special charter from the state of Michigan, March 30, 1848, with a capitalization of $500,000 for thirty years. It was reincorporated in 1878 for a second period of thirty years, with $1,000,000 capital-afterward inercased to $1,250,000 and $2,500,000; and again reincorporated in 1908 for a third term of thirty years and capitalized at $3,750,000. General offices in New York; mine and works office at Hancock, Houghton county. The mine was originally explored in 1856.
Vol. 1-29
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GENERAL VIEW AT THE CALUMET LOCATION
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The lands of the Quincy Mining Company now cover a large area, extending from the Hancock mine on the northern shore of Portage lake to the Franklin Junior, or about half way from Hancock to Calumet ; they include tracts formerly held by the old Qniney, the Pewabie, Frank- lin. Mesnard, Pontiac and St. Mary's, in the order named from south to north. The latter are among the oldest mines in the county, and will therefore be described hereafter. The Mesnard mine, opened in 1862, is now known as No. 8 shaft of the Quiney mine.
Both the underground system and the surface plant of the Quincy Mining Company are exceptionally complete. Electric underground traction is in extensive nse, its tram-lines averaging about 1,800 feet each. The equipment includes 20 electric locomotives, each weighing 5,500 pounds, being nine feet in length, and about three and a half feet wide, and hauling four or five three-ton cars. The latter are unloaded into 500-ton storage bins, built on the walls of the shafts.
The Quincy mine owns several hundred dwellings at its location and a considerable number at the stamp mills in Mason, six miles east. The company's private railroad, known as the Quincy & Torch Lake, built in 1890. is six miles long ; connects all the shafts and shops at the mine with the stamping mills, wharves and coal sheds at Mason, and is, in turn, connected with the Mineral Range. Copper Range and Hancock & Calumet lines. The Quiney has extensive docks at Hancock, the Ripley smelter and Mason. It is said that but for the heavy outlay for improve- ments, begun in 1898. the wisdom of which was questioned by many shareholders at the time, the Quincy would have become a decadent prop- erty ; whereas it secured in 1908 the largest production in the history of the mine. This wise policy of growth began with the purchase of the Pewabic mine, twenty years ago.
The affairs of the original Pewabie Mining Company were finally wound up in 1905; and this is not to be confused with the Pewabic Company operating the iron mine at Iron Mountain, Michigan.
The Franklin Mining Company, one of the oldest mining corporations in the Upper Peninsula, was organized in 1857. The old Franklin mine is surrounded on three sides by the Quiney location, which has ent off the Franklin Mining Company from following the lode beyond. Open- ings in the original mine, embracing 160 aeres, were made in the Pe- wabie lode. The properties of the company also include the Franklin Junior mine of 1,359 acres, which was opened in 1860 as the Albany & Boston mine and bonght by the present proprietors in 1895; as well as surface rights to an additional quarter-section, a millsite of nearly 200 aeres at Grosse Pointe and one mile of frontage on Portage lake. The total ontput of the company in 1909 was 1.615.556 pounds of copper.
The old St. Mary's mine of 1863 went out of business in 1899, with the winding up of the affairs of the St. Mary's Copper Company and the sale of its lands to the Arcadian Copper Company. Altogether the latter came into possession of abont 3.200 acres of mineral lands, includ- ing the St. Mary's and four other old mines, and operated vigorously
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from 1899 to 1901 equipping the property with modern machinery and buildings including a stamp mill at Grosse Pointe. But work was sus- pended in 1903. the stamp mill being sold to the Centennial and the mna- chinery and shaft honses to the Trimountain.
The great Calumet & Hecla Mining Company is controlled by Bos- ton capitalists, its administrative center being at the Hub. The mine office is at Calumet : its mill office at Lake Linden and its smelter offices at Hubbell and Buffalo, New York, all of its mechanical processes, with the exception of the smelting in New York, being conducted in Houghton county, Michigan. The company was organized in 1871, under Michi- gan laws, with a capitalization of $2.500,000. Its charter was renewed in 1900 for thirty years, and amended in 1905 so as to make the corporation n securities holding company, as well as a mining and smelting company. The company is a consolidation of the Hecla, Calumet, Portland and Scott mining companies; its subsidiary corporations are the Frontenac Cop- per Company, Gratiot Mining Company and Manitou Mining Company, and the corporations controlled by the Calmmet & Heela, through owner- ship of a majority of share interests, inelnde the Centennial, LaSalle, Superior, Dana, and St. Louis copper companies and the Allouez Mining Company, owning also minor interests in the Osceola Consolidated, Lau. rium and Seneca mining companies. For a number of years past the Calumet & Hecla Mining Company has paid annnal dividends of from $5,000,000 to $7,000,000, its total dividends up to date being not far from $125,000,000, constituting the largest mining profits ever divided by any incorporated company whatsoever.
The landed holdings of the corporation, owned and controlled, situated in Houghton, Keweenaw and Ontonagon counties amount to about 117 square miles. The Calumet & Heela mine proper covers about 2,750 acres; in addition, the company owns considerable tracts west of the Tamarack mine, which so far have proved unproductive. As a rule the richer portions of the conglomerate are in the central part of the Calu- met & Ilecla tract. As stated in Stevens' "Copper Handbook": "The life of the old conglomerate mine was said by President Agassiz, in 1907, to be about fifteen years, at the present rate of ore extraction, but it is probable that the mine will be producing at least limited quantities of conglomerate rock for twenty and perhaps twenty-five years to come."
The conglomerate property of the Calumet & Hecla is worked as two separate mines, known as the Heela and Calumet branches of South Hecla being a southerly continuation of the Heela branch and the Red Jacket vertical shaft a portion of the Calumet mine. The Calumet to the north, the Hecla in the center and the South Hecla at the south, form a continuons mine, developing the conglomerate by ineline shafts, the Red Jacket shaft opening the same bed vertically. The conglom- erate, opened for two miles along the outerop, has eleven shafts. In 1908 the mine operated 318 power drills, the largest number in use in any American mine. Iron pillars are used extensively as supports. The deepest shaft, No. 4. is over 8,000 feet from the collar of the shaft to the bottom of the mine.
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A tract of two hundred acres, a quarter of a mile wide and 114 miles long, lying between the Tamarack and Tamarack Junior mines, carries the underlay of the conglomerate at great depth, and, to obviate sinking a deep and costly vertical shaft. this tract is being opened by n blind shaft, which starts 1,500 feet cast of Red Jacket vertical and near the bottom of Calumet No. 4.
The amygloid mine is opened on the Osccola bed, which onterops 730 feet east of the Calumet conglomerate, and has six shafts, with twenty miles of workings and frequent connections with the conglomerate hy cross-ents.
The surface equipment at the Calumet & Hecla is the most complete found in any mine in the world. With few exceptions everything is duplicated, to prevent possible delays or suspension, by reason of fire or neeideut. The power plants at the main mine on the Calumet conglomerate include four large boiler plants and six hoisting plants. At No. 4 Calumet shaft is a group of the most powerful machinery ever built ; but it would require a volume to describe these ponderous mech- anisms which are installed at every shaft-hoisters, drillers, air compres- sors and huge boilers and engines.
The machine shop, largely rebuilt in 1907, is 225 by 250 feet, and is one of the largest buildings of the kind in the country. Then there are the foundry, pattern shop, carpenter and blacksmith shops, warehouses, electrical plants, hotels, clubhouse, hospital, library, some 1,200 dwell- ings and a fire department owned by this great corporation.
The Calumet & Hleela library, of more than 30,000 volumes, contains books, periodicals and newspapers printed in a score of languages, abont thirty different nationalities being represented on the company's pay roll. There is also a combination library and clubhouse at Lake Linden for stamp-mill and smelter employees.
The company's hospital, built in 1898, is maintained for employees solely, and has abont a dozen physicians on its staff.
There are eight school-houses on the Calumet & Hecla lands, most of which were built by the corporation, including a fine mannal training school, and a handsome high school building at Calumet. Upon its lands are also upwards of thirty churches, representing a dozen denominations. All of the sites of the latter were donated by the company and in most cases substantial aid has been given in their erection and maintenance.
The company maintains three distinct systems of water-works-one at the mines in Calumet, one at the mills at Lake Linden, and one on the shore of Lake Superior, four miles from Calmnet, the latter pumping water for domestic purposes-about 4,000,000 gallons daily. In 1908 elertricity was substituted for steam at this plant. The fire department is metropolitan, affording protection not only to the company's proper- ties, but responding to calls from Red Jacket, Laurium and other towns that go to make up the 40,000 population virtually under the wing of the Calmmet & Hecla corporation.
The Hecla & Torch Luke railroad, owned by the company, connects
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CALUMET AND HECLA STAMP MIA,, LAKE LINDEN
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THE NORTHERN PENINSULA OF MICHIGAN
the mines, mills, smelter and shops by twenty or more miles of main tracks, spurs and sidings. The stamp mills at Lake Linden, four miles from the mine, are located on a tract of nearly one thousand aeres, hav- ing several miles of frontage on Torch lake. There are two mills, known as the Calumet and Heeln. The old mills were completely remodeled and modernized in 1908, the electrification of the property having been be- gun in 1904. Water for the mills is supplied by five pumps, of which the Michigan is the most powerful in the world, having a daily capacity of 60,000,000 gallons. The other pumps bring the total up to 130,000,000.
The Torch Lake smelter is at Hubbell, about a mile south of the mills, on a thirty-aere site, and comprises four furunce buildings and a blister copper furnace building. The three mineral houses will store 18,000 tons of ore.
The dock system includes a series of large coal sheds at Lake Linden with one of 200.000 tons capacity, with a series of doeks and smelts on Torch Lake-all with substantial wharves: both at Lake Linden and Hubbell. The company owns and operates the ship canal connecting Torch Lake with the government waterways on Portage Lake, this canal being twenty-one feet deep.
A sawmill at the head of Torch Lake receives logs by rafts, and ships sawed lumber and timber by a branch of the Hecta & Torch Lake railway. They own extensive tracts of pine, hemlock and hardwood timber along the southern shore of Lake Superior, which carry about 500,000,000 feet of standing timber. It has also a contract with the Ke- weenaw Association, Ltd., and buys extensively of jobbers, to meet the requirements of underground timbering and for other purposes, the former item alone amounting to 30,000,000 feet annually.
DEEPEST COPPER MINE IN THE WORLD
The Tamarack, the deepest copper mine in the world, covers a tract of over 1.100 acres of very irregular outline, bounded on all sides by the lands of the Calmmuet & Heela. The mine is opened by five shufts, that known as No. 3, the deepest, having been sunk to a depth of over a mile. The Tamarack Mining Company, which was organized in 1882, also owns the old Cliff mine in Keweenaw county, a millsite on Torch lake, and timber lands and other realty sufficient to make its total landed holding amount to 8,640 aeres.
As stated in "Stevens' Copper Handbook," the Tamarack owes its inception to the late Capt. John Daniell, whose genius was not properly appreciated until a short time before his death, which was brought about by a disease of the brain due to incessant mental labors. Twenty years ago (this was written in 1901) Captain Daniell was in charge of the Osceola mine and noting the regular dip of the Calumet conglomerate at an angle of 3716 degrees conceived the iden of opening a mine on the underlay of the lode, beyond the Calumet & Hecln's western boundary, by means of vertical shafts. Captain Daniell spent much thought upon the perfection of his plans, and after several years of effort interested
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