USA > Michigan > A history of the northern peninsula of Michigan and its people, its mining, lumber and agricultural industries, Volume I > Part 60
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The Ludington mine was discovered in 1880 by George E. Stock- bridge, and originally consisted of 120 neres in section 25. It was leased from the fee owners, the Inke Superior Ship Canal Company, whose
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toll on shipments was forty cents a ton. The Hamilton mine was dis- covered by John T. Jones in 1883, in the same section as the original Chapin, and was owned by the Hamilton Ore Company. Shipments commenced in 1880. Both mines were good producers but were flooded in 1893, und remained idle until they became the property of the Oliver Mining Company. As stated, with the original mine, they have since been operated as shafts, the entire location being popularly known as the Chapin Mine. [Chapin is still known as one of the "wettest" mines on the whole Menonninee range, gathering steadily from 2,800 to 3.000 gallons of water per minute. ; The bulk of this has been handled through the Hamilton shaft. Everything is systematic and modern about the Chapin mine, both underground and above-ground. The ore bodies upon which it draws consist of a series of lenses extending easterly and west-
CITY HALL, IRON MOUNTAIN
erly for 6,100 feet. In 1909 the management employed 662 men, ope- rated about fifty machine drills and produced 522,141 tons of ore.
After the Chapin mine, what is known as the Pewnbie is the largest producer in the Iron Mountain district. This was organized in 1887 by John HI. Van Dyke, Nelson P. Hulst and associates of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to take over the holdings of the Menominee Mining Com- pany in this district, other than the Chapin Mine which was placed under a separate corporation. The holdings of the Pewabic Company, as thus organized, included the north half of seetion 32, town 40, range 30, upon which was afterward developed the Pewabic mine. Explora- tion on this property was commenced in May. 1887, and a large working shaft was sunk to a depth of 350 feet from which exploratory work developed the bodies of merchantable ore from which the production of the mine commeneed Inte in 1889, since which time the mine has been a continuous producer of the high grade ore which has made it famous. In 1892 the property adjoining to the west, in section 31 and the south- cast quarter of the southeast quarter, section 30, known as the Walpole mine, was acquired and consolidated with the Pewabic. In 1893 the Vol. 1-35
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south half of section 32, formerly known as the Keel Ridge mine, was also acquired and consolidated with the Pewabie mine, since which time these joint properties have been known as the Pewabic Mine, which has produced up to January 1, 1910, 6,936,789 tons. For the year ending December 31, 1909, its gross output was 452,500 tons, and it had 464 men on its payroll.
Millie mine, one of the old properties which has been a fair producer on the Menominee range, is also operated at Iron Mountain. It is owned by the Dessau Mining Company.
The present city of Iron Mountain is a substantially-built town of over nine thousand people, being the northern terminus of the Wiscon- sin & Michigan railroad and on the lines of the Chicago & North-West- ern and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad companies. It is lighted by electricity; has twelve churches; nine schools (three cost- ing over $15,000 and one-the High School-$100,000; a Carnegie pub- lie library of 20,000 volumes; au $85,000 court house; two good banks and several newspapers-the oldest and most prominent of the latter being the Iron Mountain Press-and a fine City Hall.
NORWAY AND THE ARAGON MINE
The second community in Diekinson county, in point of population and business, is Norway, eight miles southeast of Iron Mountain, on the Chicago & North-Western and the Wisconsin & Michigan railroads. In 1911 its population was 4,974 (a little over half that of Iron Moun- tain), and each of its three wards had the following: Ward 1, 1,547; Ward 2, 2,055; Ward 3, 1,372.
The settlement at Norway was born with the sinking of the first test pit at the old Norway mine by Anton Odell in 1877, and the plat- ting of the original town (mostly in a swamp) by Anton Odell Septem- ber 9, 1879. Until 1881 Norway was a part of the township of Brei- tung; it came into Norway township when the latter was organized in 1881, and was incorporated as a city April 27, 1891. Norway is noted as having within its limits the renowned Aragon mine. The young city was ambitious and took nine square miles of land within its corporate limits, numbering among her original additions Frederickton, Ingalls- dorf, South Norway and Brier Hill.
The origin of the name is a matter of some dispute, whether it was called in honor of the nationality of the founder, or out of respect for the monarchs of the forest from ont the shades of which it was hewed, remains undetermined. Its platting, however, did not precede its shipping of ore, for in the fall of 1877, in October, the Vulcan and Cyclops shipped 4,593 tons, at about the same time that the Breen shipped its 5,812 tons from Waucedah.
The original Norway was the property of the Menominee Mining Company, which had leased the location from the Portage Lake & Lake Superior Ship Canal Company. Its first practical work was done in August, 1878, and five years later nearly 150,000 tons of ore annually were being shipped from it.
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In the same year the first saw-mill on the Menominee range was erected at Norway by James and George O'Callaghan. Subsequently another brother entered the firm, and for a number of years afterward it looked as though Norway might become quite a lumber center, and the center of a produce district in connection with the development of camps and the industry in general.
The first postoffice was opened at Ingallsdorf in 1879, with C. B. Knowlton as postmaster, and in the following winter the town was inclined to put on airs from the fact that the Norway management had introduced the innovation of lighting its mine by electricity. This was to facilitate the open pit work then in progress, and was the first elec- trie light plant put to that use in the Menominee range.
From this time on, business men of various callings visited the place only to cast anchor. The strangers within its gates accumulated and by 1883 had reached 3.000 souls. In 1880. James H. Gee-for sometime afterward township clerk, and Richard Oliver established themselves in business. In 1882 came Richard Browning; in 1883, Wm. Ramsdell ar- rived embarking in business on his own account in 1888, and was elected first treasurer of the newly organized city. In 1880. R. C. Flannigan opened his law office in Norway, being prosecuting attorney from that year until 1886; he was also eleeted first mayor of Norway in 1891, and is now Cirenit Judge Flannagan. In 1881 Capt. H. J. Colwell, the widely known mining expert, became a resident of Norway, and in 1884 George O'Callaghan became a citizen and laid out the addition which bears his name. Captain Colwell became the local representative of Angus Smith, of Milwaukee, president of the Aragon when that location was first being actively developed in 1887.
Meanwhile Mr. James B. Knight, who had severed his connection with the Penn Mining Company, became interested in the publication of the Current, the editorial and proprietory responsibilities of which he assmed by purchase in 1886. That his efforts towards developing an interest in the great Iron Range by his reliable representations of the mineral out-look, were not wasted, is evidenced by the estimation in which the paper and its publisher have continued to be held to the pres- ent day. In the management of the Current the proprietor was ably abetted by J. McNaughton, assistant editor. In 1887 Mr. Knight was appointed inspector of mines for the county; has since gone to the legislature, never deserted the Current, and generally conducted him- self as an able and honorable journalist and citizen.
In 1878 the town was almost swept clean by fire, but was rebuilt within a few years in better fashion. It enjoyed its second revival with the substantial performances of the Aragon mine, opened, as stated, in 1887. The great expectations aroused in that year were not wet-blank- eted with disappointments, and, although the northern or old part of the city, has been eaving in for the past ten years, on account of the shifting of quick sands, caused by underground operations, property owners have been so generously reimbursed for actual or fancied dam-
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ages that the townamen and the Oliver Mining Company are on the best of terms. The original Norway of the low lands, however, has been de- serted as a business district and all the substantial mercantile houses and other buildings have been erected on higher ground to the north, out of the probable sphere of underground workings still being actually con- dneted, through east and west shafts, under the name of the Aragon mine.
The Aragon is still the leading mine of Norway and immediate vicinity, its workings passing under the old part of the city, and its location covering 120 acres. It is a member of the Oliver Mining Com- pany combination. In 1909 the management put out 308,000 tons of ore and employed 360 men. The Aragon mine has, in fact, been consid- ered the main industrial support of Norway for many years. The Cy- clops and Norway properties, also on the town site, are controlled and operated by the Penn Iron Company, one of the old mining corpora- tions of the range. About two miles west is a small location operated hy E. C. Eastman & Company, of Marinette. Wisconsin, and known as the Few mine.
The building and development of new Norway, during the past ten years. have been largely the work of the Oliver Mining Company- especially of its adjunet the National Tube Company, which has sold many lots in the town site to prospective residents and builders at actual cost.
Norway, as it stands today, is a pretty pluee, its main business street. lined with new and substantial buiklings, being on comparatively level ground, while most of its residences, its schools (it has five outside the High School), and its churches are on elevated and pleasant sites. Just south of the city are the fair-grounds of the County Agricultural Asso- ciation, comprising about forty neres with buildings and a race course. Since its birth, about five years ago, the association has been growing in active membership which is an indication of publie sentiment regard- ing the agricultural interests of the county.
OTHER TOWNS
Vulcan, a few miles east of Norway, is quite a mining center, as the East Vulean, West Vulenn, Curry and Brier Hill mines, owned by the Penn Iron Company, are all operated from that point. These proper- ties, and the Norway and Cyclops mines at Norway, controlled by the same corporation, have an annual production of from 350,000 to 500,000 tons of ore per anmnn. The hydro-electric plant of the company, used for operating the hoists, air compressors and pinps, is located at Stur- geon river, some three miles from the mines. These so-called Penn prop- erties were purchased of the old Menominee Mining Company in 1885.
The only mines operated at Quinnesee, of late years, have been the Vivian, owned by the Verona Mining Company and under the manage- ment of Pickands. Mather & Company of Cleveland, Ohio, and the Quinnesee by Corrigan, MeKinney & Company. Even these have been an inconstant producer.
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At Randville the Groveland Mining Company operates the Grove- land mine on a location of 80 acres. In 1909 it produced 24,933 tons of ore and employed 60 men.
Sagola is a village about twenty miles north of Iron Mountain, on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway. It is not a mining town, but a thriving lumber camp, whose chief industry comprises the saw- mill and planing-mill conducted by the Sagola Lumber Company. It is laid out on a level site; its streets are lighted by electricity from the lumber company's plant ; it has a fine school and town hall, and exhib- its thrift in other features.
Waucedah, southeast of Vulcan and on the extreme outskirt of the Menominee range, is the site of the old Breen mine discovered in 1866 and known as the Dublin shaft. Its mines never produced much ore and it hopes to become a growing center for the winter lumber camps did not long survive. The mine is at present controlled by Messrs, Van Dyke & Brown, who have opened up a large body of ore, of lower grade than most that has been shipped from the property. The Emmett mine, first operated by E. S. Ingalls. Bartley Breen and Thomas Breen, and then by the Kimberleys, was purchased and is now held, for its deposit of low grade ores, by the Minnesota Mining Company.
AGRICULTURE-GOOD ROADS-POPULATION
Dickinson county, like some other sections of the Upper Peninsula, which has little more to hope for as a lumber country, and which is aware of the characteristic uncertainties of mining. is turning its atten- tion, largely through its well organized agricultural society, to the prob- lems and fair outlook offered by various branches of husbandry. As noted in the sketch of Iron county, its soil is also largely based on hard- stone scourings, or sand, but repeated experiments, some of which have resulted in permanent and profitable farms, have demonstrated that it will produce good hay and other fodder for live-stock and fine potatoes and root erops-especially carrots and sugar beets. On account of the danger of prevalent May frosts, fruits do not constitute a sure crop, although this drawback is largely counterbalanced by entire freedom from bugs and destructive parasites. Dickinson county has raised some fine apples, however, and is ambitious to repeat the performance of Delta county in carrying away first prize at the state fair for general excellence in that variety of fruit.
Dickinson adopted the County Road System-upon which so mate- rially depends the establishment of a progressive agricultural populace -only eight years ago, Hon. James B. Knight having had the honor of introducing the bill, and largely pushing it through the legislature, which has made the office of county road commissioner elective, instead of appointive. Three commissioners are now chosen, the county road engineer being under their general supervision.
The general progress of Dickinson county for the past decade is par- tially told by her increase in population, as shown by the figures of the national census:
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BATTERY OF "AUTOS" TAKING TO GOOD ROAD IN DICKINSON COUNTY
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551
TOWNSHIPS AND CITIES
1910
1900
1890
Breen township
868
532
Breitung township
920
1,074
Feleh township
773
400
Iron Mountain city
9,216
9,242
8,599
Norway city
4,974
4,170
Norway township
1,764
1,230
Sagola township
825
527
Waneedah township
922
715
West Branch township
262
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CHAPTER XXIV MENOMINEE COUNTY
BEAUTIES AND UTHATIES OF MENOMINEE RIVER-PIONEER TRADERS AND LUMBERMEN-CHAPPEAU AND FARNSWORTH-MRS. WILLIAM FARNS. WORTH ( MARINETTE)-JOHN G. KITTSON-ONLY MIIA, ON THE RIVER-OTHER NOTABLE EARLY MILLS-SETTLERS OF THE EARLY MILLING DAYS-MARINETTE LUMBER COMPANY-THE N. LUDINGTON COMPANY-THE KIRBY-CARPENTER COMPANY-LUDINGTON, WELLS & VAN SCHACK COMPANY-OTHER OLD PINE LUMBER MILLS-ZENITH LUMBER YEARS - OTHER INDUSTRIES-TRADE-PROFESSIONS-THE TRANSITION PERIOD-PRESENT POPULATION AND MATERIAL CONDI- TIONS-CARPENTER-COOK COMPANY-MENOMINEE RIVER SUGAR COM- PANY-OTHER MENOMINEE INDUSTRIES-TWIN CITIES LIGHT & TRAC- TION COMPANY-MENOMINEE POSTOFFICE-ST. JOSEPH'S HOSPITAL- CHURCHES-NEWSPAPERS-MENOMINEE AS A MUNICIPALITY-THE SPIES PUBLIC LIBRARY-THE JOHN HENES PARK-RIVERSIDE CEME- TERY-VILLAGES OF THE COUNTY-COUNTY GOVERNMENT-CIVIL WAR -COUNTY HIGHWAYS-SCHOOLS-COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL- AGRICULTURE,
Menomine; county occupies the most southerly portion of the North- ern Peninsula, and in its almost triangular, but irregular form, is bounded on the southeast by Green Bay. on the southwest by the Me- nominee river, and on the north by the counties of Delta, Marquette and Dickinson. It is sixty-one miles in its greatest north and south di- mension, and has a stretch of thirty miles between its most easterly and westerly parallels. As at first constructed, it included a portion of what is now Dickinson county, taking in the southern portion of the Menomi- née Iron Range, and it so continued until the settlements along that range became so populous as to demand an independent county govern- ment.
The city of Menominee is the county seat and is located in the ex- treme southerly point of the county where the immense volume of water carried by the Menominee river finds outlet into the bay, and upon
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which the produets of the Upper Peninsula pine forests have, in large part, been floated to the busy mills of that prosperous lumbering eity.
BEAUTIES AND UTILITIES OF MENOMINEE RIVER
The word perfect is most aptly used to deseribe the seenic beauty of the Menominee river in its many changing aspects of more than sixty miles along the county's interstate boundary line. Its great volume of water is gathered by its numerous large tributaries that traverse and drain an immense area of timber and mining country, and at places in its course the rocky and precipitous banks hem the waters into such a
UPPER QUINNESEC FALLS, MENOMINEE RIVER Hydraulic Company Plant; The Falls
narrow channel that they rush and boil and foam as if in anger at the impeding rocks; then again the banks widen and slope gracefully off into broad stretehes of comparatively level country through which the river, spreading sometimes to a width of over five hundred feet, flows as plaeidly as if its temper had never been disturbed, and on the mirrored surface of which the overhanging trees and the variously changing clouds reflect most interesting panoramic views. It has always been prolific of many varieties of fish, and, because of its wide and winding channels, with its occasional bayous of wild rice and various other water-growing plants, wild ducks and geese, and sometimes swans, make of it a feeding place.
In Indian times, because of its fish and game, and of its affording an extensive water highway into a country filled with many kinds of ani-
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mals, the river was widely popular. From the time of the coming of the white men until the present day it has added to its seenie and pleas- nrable advantages, above mentioned, the commercial item of transporta- tion, from forest to mill. logs that have made lumber to the value of approximately one hundred and sixty millions of dollars, and besides the feeding of the mills, its rapids near the outlet have been utilized as power to run the early saw-mills, and the more recently constructed mammoth paper mills upon its either banks: while now we are just at the beginning of the exercise of the great force which its long succes- sion of rapids, through the medium of electricity, is capable of contribnt- ing. in the way of light. power, and perhaps heat. to the vast manufac. turing and commercial interests which must be attracted thereby.
To the transportation advantages of rail. lake and river, and to the possibilities of power afforded as an inducement to manufacturing in- terests, a very large proportion of the highlands from which pine and the hard woods have been harvested are proven to be extremely pro- ductive in a large range of agricultural items, including grains, fruits and vegetables, and the low black cedar swamps. when drained, have yielded large valnes in truck gardening products, so that this county. as it is now in its transition stage from the condition of a pine saw-mill locality. to that of a combination in the products of factories and fields. has a future the prospects of which are undimmed by the brillianey of its past.
PIONEER TRADERS AND LATMBERMEN
As the history of every country necessarily begins with its pioneers. so it is with Menominee. The people who came to the Menominee river in the two decades following the year 1840, are the ones most generally referred to as the Pioneers, and, with few exceptions, they were those to whom is due the chief credit of the early development of this section : to their work and worth is the present generation indebted for the many things that entered into the formation and npbuilding of our present enlightened and progressive communities. The organization of local government, the establishment of schools and churches. the opening of highways through the forests and the building of bridges to span our rivers, are samples of the work accomplished by them. They came here into a country that was a wilderness, beautiful and inviting it is true, with its wealth of forests penetrated by beautiful rivers and bordered by the shores of the bay with its many advantages and charms: inviting it was, yet. nevertheless, a wilderness peopled mostly with savages and abounding in those qualities which made it attractive to the savage. The rivers and the woods were evidences to those pioneers of the exist- ing wealth, and the opportunities afforded for its introduction into the world of commerce, just as they had in earlier days been evidences to the still earlier pioneers of the advantages here offered for trade in furs : and. again, just as they had, in still carlier years, in all their savagery of nature, peopled with the numerous animals. fish and birds that the
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environment afforded, invited the red man to adopt this section as a most advantageous place of habitation.
It was not until late in the fifties that any of the large mills of the Menominee were first constructed, that of the New York Lumber Com- pany, later known as The Menominee River Lumber Company, having been the first of the large mills on the river, it having been built in 1856; though a number of the prominent companies entered the arena at about that time. The N. Ludington Company built its first mill in 1856-7, and Isaac Stephenson became interested therein in 1858. The Kirby-Carpenter Company's first mill was built by Mr. Kirby during the same years, and Samnel M. Stephenson became interested therein in 1859. he having come to Menominee in 1856. The reason for this burst of activity in the lumber industry which developed at that time is easily accounted for by the fact that until about that time the govern- ment lands had not been upon the market. and therefore the opportu- nity had not been open for investment therein.
With the development of activity in the Inmber interests came also the demand for accompanying industries, and so, in that period of the fifties, there came to the Menominee river a large proportion of the peo- ple whose names have gone npon the records to evidence the part taken by them in the establishment of local government and the development of industries. It will be our pleasure later to name many of them, and the few that had preceded them, although they played an important part, left comparatively little in the way of development to evidence their existence here.
In order to truly understand the local situation, as it was approached by those of the settlers whom we are accustomed to consider as the pio- neers, and from whose lips we have heard many interesting accounts of early experiences, it is necessary that we peer back a little farther, and yet not far, for a hundred years is as but a day in the history of the world's development, to the time when another class of pioneers first settled upon the river.
The first permanent white settler upon the Menominee was Louis Chappeau (commonly called Chappee). His coming has been placed by some at as carly a date as 1796, but there is strong reason to believe that it was not until 1805. He came as agent of George Law of Green Bay, and located the first permanent trading post on the river at a point near where the home of Fred Carney, Jr., now stands, on the Marinette side. Anton LaDuke, who, himself was one of the early traders of this section, said that in 1849 Lonis Chappeau told him he had then been there forty-four years, which would fix the year of his coming as 1805; though Judge Ingalls, who acquired much information from early set- thers, which was published in his "Centennial History of Menominee County," fixes the date as 1796.
Some appreciation may be had of the attractions offered to this early trader as a site for a trading post, by considering that, including the villages on the rivers and bay, many Indians were within easy eanoe-
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ing reach, and all the country abounded in the best of fur-bearing ani- mals of both woods and water habitat.
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