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CALUMET
POINTS
OF
INTEREST
Albion Station Glassworks
The transfer station of the Houghton County Traction Company was a busy place for decades after the streetcar lines were constructed in 1900. Here cars came and went from three directions: Calumet; Laurium and Hubbell; and Mohawk. A streetcar stopped every 15 minutes during operating hours. Mining families welcomed a chance to get out and shop or visit.
To Alexander Agassiz, CEO of Calumet & Hecla, the car line was trouble, necessitating many trestles to go over C&H's existing tramways for rock cars. Furthermore, historian Larry Lankton adds in Cradle to Grave, "he did not want trolleys to transport worker unrest."
Today this little-altered frame building seems perfectly suited to being a museum/workshop. Here are Dick Dana's bottle collections from the four-county area (Houghton, Keweenaw, Baraga, and Ontonagon) and his glass-blowing studio, where recycled bottles are melted and blown into traditional, functional forms like vases, plates, bowls, and carafes, usually in earth tones, displayed and sold in the front room.
Visitors are welcome to observe glass-blowing whenever Dick or an apprentice are at work. Woodcarver Stuart Baird (Dick calls him "world class") is at work mornings, creating birds of prey like a peregrine falcon, or a broad-wing hawk, or a kestrel.
A dark, library-like museum room houses medicine bottles, many, many beer bottles, soda bottles, whiskey jugs, and more. Milk bottles are in a room with a cream separator, wringer washer, and ice box. Then there's depression glass, dishes, and a wood stove.
On Rockland just north of Pine in Albion Location east of Calumet and north of Laurium. From U.S. 41, 3/4 mile north of the blinker light at the National Park Headquarters, look for M-203 intersecting on the left. Turn right onto Pine. Or look for sign on U.S. 41 heading toward The Hut. (906)337-0257. Open from May thru Christmas. From June thru color season open Mon-Sat 10-5. Otherwise open 11-4. Handicap access: 2 steps to enter. Single steps between rooms.
Downtown Calumet. Bustling again, downtown was hopping 24 hours a day when the mining boom was at its zenith, from 1890 to 1913. Today it features Ste. Anne's ethnic museum, lavish historic taverns, plus outstanding shops and galleries: skis, bikes, copper books and gifts, minerals, jewelry, beads, art glass, Ojibwa pottery, beads, and more ...
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Coppertown Mining Museum and Gift Shop. Mining aficionados, woodworkers, and those interested in machines, foundries, and labor and Copper Country history won't want to miss this seasonal museum. ...
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Calumet Theatre and Village Hall. One of the Kewenaw's glories, the elaborate 1899 opera house looks much as it did when touring stars played here in mining days. Authentically restored paintings and ornament. A memorable venue for concerts, films, plays. Tours available. ...
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Norwegian Lutheran Church. Norwegian Lutheran Church resembling Old Country architecture, once a wreck, being painstakingly restored. ...
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Calumet's North End. Cheap, often ornate historic storefronts have attracted several original shops: a bookshop/coffee bar, art gallery, dazzling antiques/gems/jewelry store, and the area's best frame shop. ...
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Site of the 1913 Italian Hall Disaster. 73 people, mostly children, died in the stampede that followed when someome yelled "Fire!" in the Italian social hall. It was the 1913 copper strike's defining event, memorialized in song by Woody Guthrie and others, and in story, photos, vivid websites, and a film. ...
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St. Paul the Apostle Church. A magnificentl Catholic church built by Slovenians between 1903 and 1908. Seasonal afternoon tours show off the splendid stained glass, paintings, and altar. ...
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C&H Library/future Keweenaw History Center. Built by the wealthy Calumet & Hecla copper company as a community library, this unusual stone-faced building contains office and work areas of the Keweenaw National Historic Park. Some day it will house the Keweenaw History Center. ...
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Keweenaw Convention and Visitors Bureau. Free tourism and history handouts and knowledgeable advice. Booklet and website include all Keweenaw parks and natural areas. A highly recommended stop for anyone spending time in the area. ...
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C&H Library/future Keweenaw History Center
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This striking stone building with its façade of contrasting red and gray mine rock was the Calumet & Hecla community library, built in 1898 for the use of mine workers and their families.
Today this key historic building in Calumet is owned by the Keweenaw National Historic Park, whose headquarters is in the former C&H office across the street. It houses the park's paper conservation lab and processing area for its growing collections of papers, C&H blueprints and other documents, and objects relating to C&H and other elements of the multifaceted park. Offices of park interpreters, curators, and historians are here. (Donations of materials about the copper mining story are most welcome, especially diaries and letters revealing everyday life, and even things like a made-in-Japan souvenir of Copper Country mines. Call 906-337-3168.)
Long-range plans call for a Keweenaw History Center, open to the public, possibly housing the Houghton County Genealogical Society. But first the park staff has to figure out how to plan and fund the necessary handicap access for public spaces - so that the National Park Service's preservation services will approve the entrance modifications.
Meanwhile, in summer the park staff offers tours of this most interesting building, typically on Tuesday or Thursday. Check a sign posted on the door, or call 906-337-3168.
Altruism was far from the only motivation of longtime C&H CEO Alexander Agassiz for erecting this splendid building, which also contained a basement bathhouse for C&H families and a second-floor meeting room. He felt that employees who went to church, stayed home, played in bands, read books, and avoided saloons were easier to control, especially when they rented company houses from which they could be evicted with little notice. Michigan Tech history professor Larry Lankton explored the many sides of corporate paternalism in Cradle to Grave: Life, Work and Death at the Lake Superior Copper Mines, a revealing study for which he read much C&H internal correspondence.
The library was designed by a Boston architect related to the company's principal investor, Quincy Adams Shaw. Reading rooms were on the second floor, including one where men could smoke, with a meeting room on the top floor. All library books were carefully reviewed by C&H president Agassiz and superintendant James MacNaughton to be sure they did not contain material that would support union causes: worker safety, organizing, striking, and related issues. Muckraking authors like Upton Sinclair wouldn't be found here!
The interior remains very much as it must have looked when Calumet and Hecla reigned supreme in these parts. The varnished interior trim has never been painted or refinished. There are classic oak desks and map cases, cases of mineral specimens, and a big oil portrait of Alexander Agassiz, son of the famed Harvard botanist Louis Agassiz. Agassiz would rather have devoted himself entirely to scientific research. He was persuaded to spend part of his time managing Calumet and Hecla, while still living in Boston. He did this for most of his life and served as C&H president from 1871 until his death in 1910. Money from C&H paid for Agassiz's zoological and oceanographic investigations. C&H's Bostonian paternalism was widely resented here as controlling and condescending.
East of the office building is a big piece of float copper - pure copper formed in pockets created by volcanic bubbles. Such pure copper is found along the Keweenaw Fault, but almost nowhere else in the world. Outside is a bronze statue of Agassiz. His cold, analytical gaze follows you unsettlingly as you shift your point of view.
On Red Jacket Road, just west of U.S. 41 by the turnoff to Calumet. (906) 337-0202. Check sign on door for tour times, or call. Not handicap-accessible.
Return to Calumet
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