
While Calumet was the business center of the northern Keweenaw mining range, its sister city of Laurium just across U.S. 41 developed more as a bedroom community of miners and higher-ups, with a smaller business district. Some tree-shaded blocks are lined with fine old mansions built by mining officials and prosperous merchants and bankers. Laurium was platted by a minor mining company of the same name, borrowed from a famous mining site in ancient Greece. Most of the town has simpler homes. The company housing nearby is mostly outside the village limits. Neighborhoods and locations of miners' homes had no sidewalks and no lawn extensions or yards for planting trees.
| | Laurium's downtown, dead today compared with Calumet's. Yet the finest homes around here are in Laurium, not Calumet. | The main street, Hecla, has a fine red sandstone village hall, re-faced from its original brick fa'ade in 1914. Originally Osceola Street was the village's main thoroughfare. But late in the 19th century the Palace Hotel and assorted stores were built on less expensive Hecla Street. After the turn of the century Hecla began to rival Calumet's main commercial boulevard, Fifth Street. There were once three banks on Hecla, several hotels, and the sizable Vivian's department store, now the local hospital's fitness center, at Hecla and Fourth.
| | A downtown Laurium anchor, the Yard Sale has several rooms stuffed with a vast variety of used stuff from local families and businesses, some of it antiques. | But Laurium's glory days began to fade with the bitter 1913 miners' strike. Its population once neared 9,000. But the turmoil of the strike prompted a sizable number of residents to move to Detroit, where Ford was paying $5 a day. In the aftermath of that long, slow decline, Laurium has become a commercial backwater compared to downtown Calumet. At Hecla and Third, The Yard Sale (906-337-5012), a well-organized resale store open Tuesday-Saturday 10-5, has taken advantage of the inexpensive space and built a thriving business in two buildings on opposite corners of Hecla at Third. Yard Sale furniture and many, many LP records occupy the former bank space. It's open from Tuesday through Saturday, 10 to 5, and occasional Mondays. Correction to current information ... open Mon-Sat 10-5 and Sunday limited > hours, open all year. The entire village of Laurium is now on the National Register of Historic Places - from rooming houses to grand mansions, thanks to a lot of hard work from Julie Sprenger of the Laurium Manor. A grant from the Americana Foundation paid for a historic architecture survey to evaluate Laurium buildings for their contribution to the village's historic character. Now if the owner of any building deemed "contributing" invests in historic renovation/restoration façade and exterior work approved by the State Historic Preservation Office, he or she can get up to a 25% tax credit for the work.
Just east of downtown, along Tamarack, Pewabic, and Iroquois streets between Second and Fourth, is a lovely, settled, neighborhood of homes built around 1900. These were built with style and comfort to compensate mine managers for the hardships of living in this remote region. Some of these houses are quite grand, with rear carriage houses, low red sandstone walls along the street, and sweeping stair halls with large stained-glass windows (if they haven't been removed by the old-house strippers who came through the area several decades ago). More beautiful stained glass is around town in various churches, like the Methodist church on the 300 block of Kearsarge and the Baptist church at 26016 Depot (the western extension of Third).
For a takeout picnic, you can pick up pasties and other baked goods at Toni's Country Kitchen on Third at Kearsarge, and walk two blocks east to the pleasant, shady DANIELL PARK on the corner of Third and Pewabic. Free Thursday-evening summer concerts featuring an interesting variety of top local talent take place in the band shell here at 7 o'clock. On the northeast corner of this intersection stands one of the most sophisticated of the area's grand historic mansions, the 1898 Vivian House, built of red sandstone and shingles in the horizontal, asymmetrical Shingle Style.
The Laurium Manor Inn at 320 Tamarack is the showy mansion built in 1908 by a local investor in copper mines after he struck it rich in Bisbee, Arizona. Today the Hoatson house is a bed and breakfast inn. Interested people can take a self-guided tour between 11 and 5; the $5 book about the house makes the tour even more interesting. The house's huge columns and white paint make it look like a Southern plantation house, but a look inside reveals that its design influences reflect that period when Victorian or Queen Anne was transitioning into Arts & Crafts. Its interiors today reflect the work owners Julie and Dave Sprenger have done in researching the house's original look and approximating it with original colors (olives, golds, and browns) and appropriate furniture. Tours cost $4 for adults, $2 for children. Money goes to replace the stained glass window on the grand staircase, which a previous owner had removed and sold. The inn's Ballroom Gift Shop on the third floor is filled with unusual jewelry, hats, scarves and shawls, home and garden accessories, and other treasures from around the world, often richly textured, like Turkish tapestry bags, belts, and shoes.
At the edge of this neighborhood, where Tamarack joins Lake Linden Road/M-26, the George Gipp Memorial commemorates Laurium's most famous native son, better known as The Gipper. The Notre Dame football star fictionalized deathbed scene gave Ronald Reagan his most memorable role. The memorial is made entirely of football-shaped fieldstones. Take time to read the interesting historical markers written by Gerald Vairus, a current Notre Dame alum in Copper Country.
Northwest of stately Pewabic Street, fans of old houses may also enjoy seeking out the Paul Roehm House at 101 Willow at First. Roehm was "the region's preeminent stonemason and supplier," according to architectural historian Kathryn Eckert in Buildings of Michigan, He used Jacobsville sandstone here in his own 1896 house, a picturesque, simplified version of H.H. Richardson's Romanesque Revival.
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LAURIUM
RESTAURANTS,
LODGINGS
& CAMPGROUNDS

These are our choices, not ads.

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LAURIUM RESTAURANTS
See also: Calumet, Lake Linden, Eagle River, Dollar Bay, Hancock, Houghton.

TONI'S COUNTRY KITCHEN & BAKERY
(906) 337-0611

Honors for best Keweenaw pasty are usually given to Toni's, in a small, newish building around the corner from Hecla, the main downtown street, and a block west of Daniell Park. Toni's is a very popular spot, smoke-free, with a full breakfast and lunch menu and a huge carryout business. Low prices keep local regulars coming back. Eric Frimodig, the baker, has owned Toni's since 1982 but kept the name of a previous owner, Antoinette Coppo. His ethnic specialties pass the local ethnic test as elucidated by food writer Calvin Trillin, who says that the best ethnic food is in areas where an ethnic group has enough numbers to elect a city council representative. Toni's cookies and other baked goods meet the standards of customers who grew up with their mother's povitica (PO-vuh-TEET-suh, a rich walnut-cinnamon dessert bread from Croatia and Slovenia, rolled up like a jelly roll) or nisu (NEE-soo, a cardamom-flavored sweet bread from Finland that Eric fills with raspberry or blueberry cream cheese) or rieska (ree-UH-skuh, a biscuit-like flat bread, or saffron bread. These breads can be shipped, unlike Toni's pasties. Breakfast is served all day; it comes with a choice of saffron bread, cinnamon bread, oat bread, or white bread. The cinnamon bread makes a really rich French toast. Saffron costs $350 a pound, but a pound lasts for 60 batches of bread at 15 loaves a batch. The one-pound pasty ($3 to go, $3.25 eat in) is made with coarse-ground chuck and rutabagas plus the usual potatoes and onions. Homemade soups are $1.75 a bowl. Sandwiches range up to $4 for the popular Reuben. Eric's father, the late Mac Frimodig, was well known as a manager of Fort Wilkins State Park and as an authority on Upper Peninsula history and culture, though he would wince at being called an authority. Mac's notecards of sauna scenes with Finnish/English sayings are for sale here. No credit cards. Out-of-town checks OK.

79 Third St. next to post office on north end of downtown Laurium. From U.S. 41 one long block north of the Keweenaw Tourism office, turn east onto Third. Open year-round except closed from around Dec. 20 to Jan. 20. From June through Oct: Mon-Sat 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Closed Mondays at other times. Wheelchair-accessible. Family-friendly. No alcohol.
IRISH TIMES
(906) 337-3977

The buzz in Copper Country is about the Irish pub and restaurant in downtown Laurium, where Shawn's used to be. It has good food, a wide-ranging menu, and affordable prices - a lot like the late, lamented Hut. And it's actually Irish, not just capitalizing on the Celtic trend. Cormac Ronan, co-owner with his wife, Lisa, immigrated from Dublin for training in the hospitality industry. There he met Lisa, who wanted to move back to the Keweenaw. He's been in food service at MTU, and now he's taking on this challenge as well. Lots of mainstream American favorites are here - hamburgers, fresh lake trout and whitefish ($10.50 as a dinner entrée with starch and salad), salmon, grilled Parmesan chicken breast on fettucine, homemade soups - but the Irish dishes have been selling the best. There's Irish sausage - deep-fried pork sausage with housemade French fries and cole slaw - for $7.50, and cottage pie - ground beef in a rich seasoned gravy with carrots and peas, topped with a mashed potato crust. Most surprising is customer reaction to the Irish mixed grill, on the menu because Cormac likes it: bacon, sausage, black and white pudding (the black is blood pudding, the white a pork sausage with breading), plus fried bread (the Irish fry it in grease left over from cooking the bacon and sausage - but Cormac uses butter). People love it, Cormac says, and they even eat the blood pudding. Beers on tap are Harp Lager, Guiness Stout, and Smithwicks Irish Ale, a red ale made by Guiness. Live Irish music, often the area band Fiddlehead, plays occasionally on weekends, starting around 6:30. Call. There's room for a dance floor in the banquet room, but cleaning that up is a future project. Incidentally, the restaurant has a terrazzo floor is because it goes back to around 1900; it burned in a 1947 fire but the floor remains. So does the tin ceiling in the banquet room.

333 Hecla. Open for lunch and dinner on Saturday (11 to 10) and Sunday (11-10). Otherwise open Mon-Thurs 4-9, Fri 4-10. Wheelchair accessible. Family friendly; children's menu. Full bar.
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LAURIUM LODGINGS
See also: Lake Linden, Calumet, Eagle River, Hancock, Houghton.

LAURIUM MANOR INN
(906) 337-2549

The Western Upper Peninsula's biggest mansion (13,000 square feet), replete with sophisticated Art Nouveau and Craftsman interior effects, lets guests enjoy the fantasy of living in comfortable, early 20th-century opulence but with modern conveniences. During most seasons a full homemade breakfast buffet is served in the dining room. Room rates vary with the season and room, so that a standard double room is $109 in July and August, $75 and $85 in winter, and $59 and $69 in slow seasons but without breakfast. See the web site for photos and for specials. For instance, the entire inn sleeping 18 people can be rented for $349 and $495/night in April, November, and early December. In 1989 MTU engineering grads Dave and Julie Sprenger bought the 45-room home of Thomas and Cornelia Hoatson and started turning it into a small hotel with ten guest rooms. (They loved Copper Country and its skiing, on the nearby Swedetown cross-country trails and the challenging Mount Bohemia.) Tackling a project of this size is a gutsy act, and the Sprengers have become sophisticated preservationists in the process, researching the original color scheme of olives, browns, and golds. (Ask Julie why it's cheaper in the long run to restore a building than to try to keep up with fashion.) Several earlier antique dealer/owners had stripped and sold off many of its lighting fixtures and stained glass, which they have worked to replace. Some wonderful original details like fireplaces and scenes on handpainted friezes remain. A warm, rich effect is created by original oak woodwork; Art Nouveau leaded glass in dining room cabinets; velvet portieres between rooms; and authentic period window treatments. Even the specially designed radiators play a decorative role. "We make it feel like 1908 to the best of our ability and budget," says Dave. In guest rooms small cable TVs are tucked into cabinets, and functioning phones mimic those from 1910. All rooms have wireless internet. Closets have been reconfigured to allow for private bathrooms, some with tubs or a whirlpool. The Sprengers aren't purists and can't afford to be, but they have acquired lots of furniture and accessories appropriate to the period of the house, arranged with a good eye. In addition to many period antiques, there are 1920s buffets and lamps. Popular reproductions of oil paintings hung one on top of another in the gallery-like downstairs hall. Staying in this small hotel and exploring the house is quite an enjoyable experience, one that includes more privacy and less intimacy than smaller B&Bs. No smoking inside. Dave Sprenger's excellent, amply illustrated 50-page book on the Hoatson House/Laurium Manor history is sold here for around $5. It's highly recommended to attune visitors to the house's history, architectural details, and inner workings (laundry, kitchen, pantry, etc.). Thomas Hoatson was one of 13 children of the man who supervised the Calumet & Hecla mines from 1870 to 1897. (The family lived at 100 Calumet Avenue, which became and remains the private Miskowabik Club after the elder Hoatson died.) Thomas married Cornelia Chynoweth, the daughter of a Rockland, Michigan, businessman. (For decades Ontonagon County held more promise for profits in copper.) In Bisbee, Arizona Thomas Hoatson really struck it rich with copper shortly after 1900. But Michigan's Copper Country was home to Thomas and Cornelia, despite its harsh climate. Thomas built this grand residence for Carrie and their six children as a surprise. All common rooms and guest rooms are pictured online. Common areas, all rich in interesting decorative details, include the huge dining room, handsome adjoining library, the ladies' music parlor, and the cozy den where men discussed business after dinner. The den is especially memorable because ot its iridescent tile thistle design on the fireplace (a nod to the Hoatson family's Scottish background) and its murals of the woods and creeks around Thomas and Carrie's summer home at Bete Gris north of Lac La Belle. Between 11 and 5 p.m. self-guided mansion tours are held to raise money for the stained glass replacement project. The first antique-dealer/owner sold off the showpiece glass windows on the stair landing through an Atlanta auction house. The Ballroom Gift Shop on the third floor is filled with unusual apparel and home and garden accessories. The gift shop replaces weddings as an extra income stream to support the Sprenger's ventures. Weddings turned out to be "too hard on the house and too hard on us," says Julie. She had wanted to go into fashion in college, but her father talked her into engineering. Now she's able to have fun with fashion.

320 Tamarack, east of downtown Laurium and north of M-26/Lake Linden Rd. Not wheelchair accessible. Well mannered children over 4 are welcome; $12/extra person. No pets.
VICTORIAN HALL
(906) 337-2549

Dave and Julie Sprenger, owners of Laurium Manor across the street, rolled up their sleeves to restore this late Victorian mansion an attractive mustard brick with red sandstone trim. It was built in 1906 by Norman Macdonald, friend and business partner of Thomas Hoatson in the Calumet and Arizona Mining Company in Bisbee, Arizona. The interior with its rich paneling and stained glass feels warm and Victorian, even cozy. The house exterior also has a Victorian look with its projecting gables and roofline and wrap-around porch (both hallmarks of the eclectic Queen Anne style). But if you stop to think about the basic house plan, it's obviously a four-square house of a later era of architecture, with a center hall plan. Each of the seven guest rooms has a private bath, many have wood-burning fireplaces, and some have whirlpools and TVs. Three are air-conditioned. Two rooms are actually two-room suites; these are quite outstanding rooms, especially the master bedroom with the nursery. By July 2005 guest rooms will have phones. Guests share the parlor, library, dining room, and porch. The stunning stained-glass landscape at the landing of the grand stair hall has subtle variations of colors and textures. A full buffet breakfast is served at Laurium Manor across the street, except in very slow times, when rates are reduced. Toni's a few blocks away has terrific breakfasts. No tours of this inn are offered, which makes it quieter during the day. Room rates vary considerably with season. The large ones range from $139 in summer to $79 in slow season with no breakfast. Smaller rooms are more like $69 to $89, Details, room photos, and rates are on the website. No smoking inside.

305 Tamarack. Check in at 320 Tamarack, the Laurium Manor. Handicap access: one room on first floor; several steps up to porch. Children: well-behaved children over 4. $12/extra person.
WONDERLAND MOTEL & CABINS
(906) 337-4511

This tidy, old-fashioned complex (4 attached motel units and 6 duplex units with kitchenettes) may be just the thing for thrifty vacationers who enjoy retro lodgings. Owner Ted Adiska operates his place for quiet, sedate guests, many of whom eventually buy or build in the area. The motel rooms ($40 for two people) have two or three beds, maple furniture, attractive paneling, and a tailored look. Gradually the cabins, also very clean, are being remodeled and rented for longer stays. But for now they are rented on a weekly basis in summer for about $200 a week for two people. They have double beds in one or two small rear bedrooms, which open on to a separate fully furnished kitchenette with a two-burner gas hotplate, minifridge, cabinets, and coffeemaker. All motel and cabin units have cable TV, showers, and fans. (Air conditioning might be wanted five days a year.) Guests can use phone in office. There's a pleasant little lawn in front with rustic furniture. M-26 here isn't too busy. The immediate neighborhood of ranch houses lets walkers and joggers get off the highway. Laurium's premiere neighborhood is within half a mile. No credit cards. Personal checks OK.

787 Lake Linden Ave./M-26 just over a mile east of U.S. 41 in Calumet. Open May into October. Handicap access: call. Family-friendly. Dogs: by prior approval.
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LAURIUM CAMPGROUNDS
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