Upper Peninsula of Michigan: A History

By Russell M. Magnaghi

For the first time in over a century, a complete history of the U.P.—from prehistoric origins to the present—is available.
Drawing on oral histories, newspapers, census data, archives and libraries, Russell M. Magnaghi has written the seminal history of a very "special place" as seen through the eyes of the men and women who have lived here—the famous and not
so famous.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781387020973

Russell M. Magnaghi

Russell M. Magnaghi, award-winning historian of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, has had a decades-long curiosity about the food and beverages of the region. In addition to frequently dining at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island or on a whitefish dinner at home overlooking Lake Superior, he is the author of numerous food-related articles on the UP as well as a number of books, the most recent being Upper Peninsula Beer: A History of Brewing Across the Bridge and Prohibition in the Upper Peninsula: Booze and Bootleggers on the Border. A graduate of the University of San Francisco and St. Louis University, he taught for forty-five years at Northern Michigan University. He and his wife, Diane, reside in Marquette, Michigan.

Book preview

Upper Peninsula of Michigan: A History

Upper Peninsula of Michigan: A History

Russell M. Magnaghi

Also By Russell M. Magnaghi

The Way It Happened: Settling Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (Iron Mountain, Mich. 1982)

Miners, Merchants. and Midwives: … Upper Peninsula Italians (Marquette, Mich. 1987)

A Sense of Place: Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (Marquette, Mich. 1997)

Italians in Michigan (East Lansing, Mich. 2001)

Cornish in Michigan (East Lansing, Mich. 2007)

Native Americans of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula … to 1900 (Marquette, Mich. 2009)

Feeding the Furnaces: A History of Marquette Ore Dock No. 6 (Marquette, Mich. 2013)

John X. Jamrich: The Man and the University (Marquette, Mich. 2014)

Upper Peninsula Beer: A History of Brewing Above the Bridge (Charleston, SC 2015)

Tsu-Ming Han: Man From Two Different Worlds (Marquette, Mich. 2016)

Booze and Bootleggers on the Border: Prohibition in the Upper Peninsula (Charleston, SC 2017)

Copyright © 2017

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission of the publisher.

906 Heritage

215 E. Michigan

Marquette, Michigan 49855

Russell M. Magnaghi

Upper Peninsula of Michigan: A History

ePub Edition

ISBN:  978-1-387-02097-3

Dedicated To:

Diane D. Kordich

John B. McGloin, S.J.

Lew Allen Chase

Acknowledgments

A work of this magnitude is the work of a single author, who has been assisted over the decades by innumerable individuals, institutions, and events. The process has been a journey that began when I was a youth being taken on summer vacations by my parents, Grace and Mario Magnaghi, who got me interested in history, and continued with my good friend and mentor at the University of San Francisco, John B. McGloin, S.J., who taught me a love for local history. This is what I brought to the Upper Peninsula, when I first arrived on a visit in the middle of a terrific snowstorm in late January 1968. When I arrived soon after as a professor at Northern Michigan University, I would begin my rewarding educational experience of learning about the heritage and people of the Upper Peninsula.

Lew Allen Chase, professor at Northern Michigan University (1919-1944), was a posthumous mentor for me. His work, professional approach, and promotion of local history were inspirations. Locally the individual who invited me to enter the realms of local history was the director of the then Marquette County Historical Society, Esther Bystrom, in the summer of 1974.

I arrived in the U.P. with little knowledge of the history of the region and that allowed me to start from scratch. I quickly learned that Yoopers complained that they had been isolated and forgotten by the state of Michigan and the nation at large. I was surprised by this attitude and was determined to show in my history that the Upper Peninsula and its people had played major and critical roles throughout the history of the United States.

Naturally research for this decades-long study needed financial support. On numerous occasions research funds came from Northern Michigan University faculty grants. Personal support and encouragement at the University came from individuals like Presidents John X. Jamrich and William Vandament; deans of the College of Arts and Sciences Donald Heikkinen and Michael Marsden; and fellow colleagues like Barry Knight, Richard Sonderegger and Richard O’Dell. Additional financial assistance came from the Paisano Clubs of the Upper Peninsula and the Michigan Humanities Council.

Teaching HS 336: History of the Upper Peninsula, beginning in the summer of 1978, allowed me to organize my thoughts, create a syllabus and a bibliography. Over the decades I presented the course to more than a thousand students both on and off campus. The off-campus venues ranged from Marquette Branch Prison to Bay College in Escanaba, Northern’s then-teaching outpost at Iron Mountain, to L’Anse and even to the western extremity of the peninsula at Gogebic Community College in Ironwood. My students inspired me with their interest and excitement for the subject, along with constructive criticism of my work. I was assisted and encouraged by a late and fine friend and colleague, David Halkola, who offered a similar course at Michigan Technological University in Houghton.

Over the years others influenced and assisted me in my research with wise counsel, through financial aid or Yooper hospitality: Paul Albert, Ian Altobello, Leonard Altobello, John Anderton, Robert Archibald, David Armour, Zachary M. Bennett, Josh Benzie, April Bertucci, Blaine Betz, Mary Adam Bone, Larry Brainerd III, Steven Brisson, Burt Boyum, Ester Bystrom, Lara and Mike Clisch, Don Curto, Michael Dayton, Jack Deo, Tom Friggens, Anders and Amanda Boone Gillis, Beth Gruber, David Halkola, Joy Han, Troy Henderson, Charles K. Hyde, Barry James, Pastor Rudolph Kemppainen, Nancy Devlin Kennedy, Gabe Logan, Philip Mason, Rosemary Michelin, Jane Milkie, Robert Money, Erik Nordberg, Jim Northup, Russ Olds, Lore Ann Parent, Carl and Doris Pellonpaa, Terry Reynolds, Marcus Robyns, Fred Rydholm, Jon Saari, Kimberly Mason Shefchik, Msgr. David Spelgatti, Theresa Spence, Faye Swanberg, Mary Trolla, Tom Waggoner; the many people I interviewed; and my students.

One individual who has been an instrumental help to me over the years since the early 1980s has been Ted Bays. He has worked on census data, assisted in the forestry portion of the work, and most recently has conducted extensive editing of the final manuscript. His assistance has pushed the final copy forward, for which we can all be grateful.

In more recent years, alum of Northern Michigan University, James F. Shefchik of Marquette, has been another individual who helped see the project to completion. His technical skill and editorial work have proven invaluable.

The research for such a work has been a challenge and thus the decades-long sojourn. Individuals and staffs at various libraries and archives—Northern Michigan University’s Lydia Olson Library, Central Upper Peninsula and Northern Michigan University Archives, and the Center for Upper Peninsula Studies; Marquette Regional History Center (formerly the Marquette County Historical Society); Archives of the Catholic Diocese of Marquette; Michigan Technological University Archives and Van Pelt and Opie Library; Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University; Bayliss Library at Sault Ste. Marie; Mackinac Island State Park Commission; Burton Collection of the Detroit Public Library; Bentley Library of the University of Michigan; Wisconsin State Historical Society; Chicago Historical Society—have been essential and always extremely helpful.

The book in your hands is ultimately my work. Since this is the first history of the Upper Peninsula written in over a century, I have tried to be as complete and analytic as possible. Creating such a work, covering fifteen counties and hundreds of years, was a monumental task and accomplishment. I understand that some readers will be unhappy that their favorite personality or event has been left out, so I apologize in advance and refer them to my Portals to the Past, an extensive and topical bibliography on-line. This work is the beginning of the historical process and a model and encouragement for future historians to continue the process of writing about our unique and colorful heritage.

In the end this work has been completed thanks to my wife, Diane D. Kordich. Over the years she has stood by me, traveled the highways and by-ways of the Upper Peninsula, enjoyed the experience, and continuously encouraged me to finish the project. Her love for me is only matched by her love of the Upper Peninsula. I thank her for her unwavering support and encouragement, without which this work would not have been possible.

Marquette, Michigan

May 4, 2017

Introduction: The Land We Love

If you travel highway M-28 just east of Marquette, Michigan, stop. Stop where the road affords a view of Lake Superior. Walk across the sparse dune grass and down the low bluff to the sandy shore of the biggest, coldest freshwater lake on earth.

Try to focus on the lake and trees. It might not be easy, if you are braced by a cold wind blasting across the big lake or if rain has precipitated clouds of black flies, deerflies, horseflies, sand flies, and mosquitoes. But try. And rein your gaze from the creamy dome of the big sports arena and other elements of the modern Marquette skyline to the west. Try to concentrate on the elemental place: the limitless steel blue water, the intensely green trees, and the rugged hills rumpling the horizon farther west.

You are looking at the timeless view that confronted the first people to approach Marquette harbor, from the French missionaries and fur trappers almost 400 years ago, to Boston copper and iron hunters 160 years ago, to recent recreationists, and before any of them indigenous peoples.

Now stay right there. Though the winds rip and the bugs nip, though local and outlander traffic scurries by on M-28, you can still experience the pristine environment that more than anything else has made and still defines the people and history of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

The U.P. is a singular land and region of the United States because of its distinct geography, climate, the peninsular isolation, and its people. On three sides it is bound by big water—Lakes Superior, Huron, and Michigan—and on the fourth hemmed in by the forests of northern Wisconsin. The only Interstate highway in the U.P., I-75, traverses a mere fifty miles between the Mackinac Bridge and Sault Ste. Marie. Otherwise motorists have two-lane highways with short stretches of passing lanes and small bits of four-lane. Few regions in the United States can make a similar claim of such splendid isolation.

From its earliest days, U.P. residents have been awestruck by the beauty and intensity of the land and the waters. Native Americans, who first arrived as summer visitors to mine copper five millennia ago, came to revere the land, the water, and its sources of sustenance—animals, fish, wood, and sap for sugar.

They came to view Lake Superior, the copper, and the entire biota as sacred. There are accounts of dying Native Americans asking to be carried to Lake Superior so they could see the greatest of waters for the last time. At one point in the nineteenth century, the Native people were told of an abrupt change in government policy that would relocate them to Kansas, the infamous policy of Removal. They quickly packed up their belongings and told the Indian agent that rather than leave the land and water they loved and held sacred, they would move to the north shore of Lake Superior and become Canadian residents.

French Jesuit missionaries, who came to the region in the seventeenth century, wrote of Lake Superior and the Upper Peninsula in the Jesuit Relations of 1647-1648 in glowing terms. They described this superior Lake extending to the northwest, larger than the fresh-water sea [Lake Huron], and then described a very large and very rapid river, the St. Mary’s River, which connects the two lakes, and the fishing that attracted Native Americans. In the French language, superieur meant northern-most or upper-most, and Lac Superieur denoted a geographical extremity, not the zenith of quality and quantity implied by our Lake Superior, an implication now unquestioned by people in the U.P.

The Jesuit writer continued, a peninsula, or a rather narrow strip of land, separates that superior Lake from a third Lake—Lake Michigan, which connects with Lake Huron at the Straits of Mackinac.[1] This is a remarkably accurate observation by writers who had not yet traversed the entire U.P.

Within the next twenty years the Jesuits, now residing in the Upper Peninsula, wrote from experience of the clean, clear waters and the violent storms on Lake Superior; wrote of new plants—lichens called rock tripe, blueberries, and wild rice—that were brought to the attention of European botanists and of the Native People.

Pierre Charlevoix, S.J. visiting in June 1721, concluded that the settlement at the Straits of Mackinac was most advantageous for trade, and he continued, there is no place in the world where they [fish] are in greater plenty than at Mackinac. He found the Menominee Indians the finest and handsomest men in all Canada. Nearly ninety years later, Scots-Irish immigrant and fur trader John Johnston, writing around the turn of the nineteenth century, said much the same of the U.P.[2] Henry R. Schoolcraft, Indian agent and father of the U.P., frequently wrote of the beauty and majesty of the region in the 1820s.

Later Upper Peninsula residents have continuously appreciated those qualities. An article in the October 4, 1879 issue of the Mining Journal of Marquette highlighted the strong sense of place: one of the most conspicuous features about this Lake Superior country is the attachment that long residents have for the region, and the alacrity with which most of those who leave for other climes return to our rock-ribbed peninsula.

The U.P.’s attractions also include valuable underground resources. In 1906 L.D. Watkins, reminiscing about Michigan’s growth and development since statehood in 1837, noted, The Upper Peninsula may be considered a vast mineral range, with iron at the top and silver and copper at the bottom. He continued that the quality is unsurpassed by any on earth and there was iron sufficient to supply the whole world for thousands of years. This type of optimism is frequently found in descriptions of the natural resources of the region. In the 1920s, Henry Ford, a frequent visitor, wrote that he thought the U.P. the prettiest place in the world. Compilers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Michigan observed in 1940, To the traveler who crosses the Straits of Mackinac and disembarks upon the shores of the Upper Peninsula, then proceeds to journey through sections of this magnificent northern country, the inadequacy of any printed descriptive comment must be apparent.[3]

Folklorists saw the rare nature of the U.P. and its people. In 1938 Alan Lomax spent two months recording lumberjack and Finnish folk music, then nearly a decade later the father of American folklore Richard M. Dorson also saw the U.P. as a place with a folk culture unlike any other. For my purposes, Dorson wrote, the Upper Peninsula seemed made to order. He found an isolated land where men have lived close to the earth, attracted by white pine timber, red copper and black iron ore, free farmland, and fishing grounds. Exhausted and ravished, with no big cities and heavy industry to save her, the country lies dying now, but the free and easy ways and the wild and violent spirit still persist.[4] Dorson visited the area and collected a wealth of local lore, which helped to propel him into his folklore career at Indiana University.

Local author and jurist John Voelker under the pen name of Robert Traver also loved the Upper Peninsula and frequently indicated as much in such books as Trout Madness, Trout Magic, Laughing Whitefish, Danny and the Boys, Small Town D.A., and most famously Anatomy of a Murder.

The U.P.’s climate also provided realistic assessment as well as praise. Father Marquette found the winds at the Straits of Mackinac strong and continuous, and indeed today entrepreneurs of wind power have erected windmills on the south shore of the straits and on the Garden Peninsula. The Jesuit explorer-chronicler Pierre Charlevoix thought, as his canoe passed the south portion of the U.P. along Lake Michigan, that the low lying sandy land was disagreeable, but he also found the Manistique River agreeably filled with fish, especially sturgeon.

Prior to 1807, John Johnston focused on the climate of Sault Ste. Marie, which he described as extremely variable but concluded that it is a very healthy place, where nothing shortens life but intemperance. Over the centuries, visitors and observers have complained about severely cold winters when the snow falls and temperatures drop. However, Alex Campbell of Marquette in February 1861 spoke before the state legislature and praised the invigorating cold winters. As he put it, No happier or healthy people exist; their whole being gushing with a full tide of life . . . .[5] The insects—mosquitoes, black flies, gnats or no-see-ums, deer flies, and horse flies—noted from the earliest times remain a problem, especially in the woods during the summer. Everyone complains about the bugs, but everyone lives with them.

If the land is unusual even in its faults, it follows that the history of the U.P. is special and helps to explain a tenacious love of the land.

And the history goes far into the past. Copper was extracted for several millennia by the Copper Indians, worked into ornaments and amulets, and then traded throughout North America. If copper is found at an archaeological site, it probably came from the Upper Peninsula.

Much later in the 1840s, both copper and iron were uncovered and announced to the world. Then logging became a major economic endeavor, followed by commercial fishing on the Great Lakes. Ships and later trains brought a flood of immigrant workers and their families to tackle the dirty and difficult jobs in the mines and forests. These ethnic arrivals dominated most of the local communities and added their special character to the region.

From 1880 to the 1920s the U.P. went through a golden age of development. Steel rails crisscrossed the landscape, and people and goods moved freely across the region. Iron ore docks, a special invention that quickly loaded ore into waiting ships, soon ornamented Lake Superior mining ports and later a few ports on Lake Michigan. The isolated U.P. was now an overnight rail trip to one of the largest cities in the United States—Chicago. With its mineral and timber resources, the U.P. became a great asset to the industrialization and urbanization of the United States. This era of development fostered such pride among U.P. residents that years later a locally generated myth arose that Calumet, the center of mining in the Copper Country, came within one vote of being declared the state capital. This legend suggests how the local people viewed the importance of their homeland.

Most regions with an economy based on natural resources experience good times that turn to hard times, the Boom and Bust pattern. The U.P. was no exception. The Roaring Twenties quickly succumbed to the Depression years of the 1930s. People came and left as national and international events brought severe changes and forced a migration of jobs to large urban centers to the south. Young people and older ones as well found it advisable to move to the metropolitan Detroit area where the automotive industry was booming.

But the scenic beauty and vigor of the Upper Peninsula remains; it attracts both Yoopers who want to return or visit and the tourist who wants respite from the ills of urban America. The descendants of the original ethnic residents remain an active core in many communities. As with most areas where the economy is based on the exploitation and exhaustion of natural resources, the U.P. has survived episodes of growth and decline. But the people and their love of the environment persist and make the U.P. what it is and always has been—MAGNIFICENT!

Although at first glance the Upper Peninsula seems isolated by water and woods from the rest of the United States, historically we find this is not true. From the work of the Copper Indians to the colonial era of the fur trade and then the boom episodes of mining and logging and on through the current development of tourism, the U.P. has had an important role—and at times a leading role—in American history.

For years the people in the U.P. saw themselves as exploited by the larger State of Michigan and others, having surrendered copper riches to Boston businessmen to finance Boston enterprises such as symphonies and universities. Little was returned to the U.P., although a few Easterners who came and stayed—gave generously. Taxes went to the state capital in Lansing, but taxpayers complained of a lack of return. Some citizens hatched the idea of breaking away from Michigan and creating the 51st state. That did not happen, but the U.P. folks longed for a special identity. In the 1970s, almost by happenstance, the nickname Yooper emerged. Today people born or residing in the U.P. proudly proclaim themselves Yoopers.

Then there was The Bridge.

Some people would like to see the Mackinac Bridge—the tether to the lower part of the state—have a much higher toll or even disappear altogether, to make it difficult for tourists to invade their chosen land. The esteemed Judge Voelker shared this attitude with other isolationists, such as Lon Emerick, Marquette author of a book about the U.P. with the coy title You Wouldn’t Like It Here.

In league with the name Yooper is the Finnish word sisu, best defined as rugged tenacious individualism, a proudly self-proclaimed trait of Yoopers, although most non-Finns stop short of Sisu bumper stickers.

There was little time or interest to develop local history. The development of the region as a workers’ frontier demanded long hours underground or in the woods, and proportional hours of management. Labor left little time for reflection.

Higher education in the U.P. began with Michigan Technological University in 1885, but it was a school of mines and its faculty and students had little interest in history of the region. Northern Michigan University in Marquette started as a teachers’ college but one of its faculty, Lew Allen Chase, had a special interest in local history. Chase began the first professional gathering of documents and books dealing with the U.P., working with the Marquette County Historical Society (today the Marquette Regional History Center). Until a body of source material had been collected for research, little could be written about the colorful history of the Upper Peninsula.

The U.P. is a large region with its major developments—mining and lumbering—preserved, written about and published. However to make this work inclusive it was necessary to get a grasp of the total story from one end of the Peninsula to the other. Unpublished information had to be obtained. For instance, the question of women physicians in the late nineteenth century arose, but nothing was available. Was there any information about African-Americans? What about the activity of the Michigan State Constabulary between 1917 and 1919? What was the role of the bootlegger or the KKK in the Peninsula? In most cases grand collections of correspondence and documents of individuals focusing on the history or a part of the region do not exist. Over the years information on these topics was uncovered in bits and pieces and researched from newspaper accounts, census records, and interviews to highlight a few of the non-traditional historical sources. The road to completing this work was laborious and took years of diligent research. This is the work of the regional historian who must use curiosity and historical skills to find, filter and fix the facts and ultimately complete the work that you are reading. On the positive side in recent years sources for the history of the U.P. are becoming available and publications are coming forth, which allow readers and researchers the ability to get an in-depth view of the Upper Peninsula’s past and see why Yoopers are proud of the land and its people.

The narrative is broken into chronology and thematic chapters. The first part takes on a chronological focus dealing with the environment, geology, Native Americans, the colonial era and concluding with the America era, which brings the story through the Civil War.

The second part takes on a thematic format. This is based in part on the five elements closely associated with the Upper Peninsula in the 1830s by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who best knew the region at the time. These components are at the heart of the development of the region: mining, timber industry, commercial fishing, farming, and tourism/recreation. Two additional topics, business & industry and the peoples who settled the area, round out this portion.

Finally, the third section returns to a chronological approach focusing on the 50 years of boom and bust from 1890 to 1940, followed by an extensive chapter on World War II. The final chapter brings the story through the last half of the 20th century and ends with the early 21st century.

So let’s begin our journey through this incredible Upper Peninsula.

---

[1] Relation of 1647-48, in Reuben G. Thwaites, editor. The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents. 70 vols. (New York: The Pageant Book Company, 1959) vol. 33: 149 and 151.

[2] Russell M. Magnaghi. The Jesuits in the Lake Superior Country, Inland Seas 41:3 (Fall 1985): 190-204; Pierre de Charlevoix, S. J. Journal of a Voyage to North-America. 2 vols. Anonymous translator. (London: R. and J. Dodsley, 1761) vol. 2: 43, 46, 59-60; John Johnson. An Account of Lake Superior, 1792-1807, in L.R. Masson, editor. Les Bourgeois de la compagne du Nord-Ouest, Récits de voyages, lettres et rapports inédits relatives au nord-ouest canadien. 2 vols. New York: Antiquarian Press, 1960, II, 147-48,151 +.

[3] L.D. Watkins. Seventy Years of Michigan, Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections 30 (1906): 67; Richard Dorson. Bloodstoppers & Bearwalkers: Folk Tradition of the Upper Peninsula. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952) p. 2; WPA Writers. Michigan’s Upper Peninsula – Its Places and People. (Lansing, Mich.: State Administrative Board, 1940) p. 3.

[4] Richard Dorson. Bloodstoppers and Bearwalkers: Folk Traditions of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952) p. 2.

[5] Canals from the Lakes to New York - Discussion, Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers 34 (December 1900): 34: 1237; Alex Campbell. The Upper Peninsula. An Address on the Climate, Soil, Resources, Development, Commerce and Future of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, [Delivered on February 6, 1861] Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections 3 (1881): 248.

1: Lay of the Land

Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is a region unlike any other part of the United States. Resident Yoopers and visitors view the place differently. Some see it as an isolated near-mythic wilderness of azure waters in the Great Lakes, tree-covered mountains, lake storms, brutal winters and mild summers, and plentiful fish and game. For others it is a place of meditative isolation. Many would agree with National Geographic writer Mary Ann Harrell, who wrote in America’s Hidden Corners in 1983, All through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula runs a sense of ultimate outpost, the most distant community, and limit of human things. However it is also a land of contrasts with the southern counties, Delta and Menominee, having more in common with the agricultural-industrial Midwest than the Canadian wilderness and the mining frontier of the north.

Given these views, some attention must be paid to setting the scene and describing the stage upon which the drama of the U.P. unfolds, to dispense with the mythic views and present the reality. As the name implies, the U.P. is indeed a peninsula, from the Latin derivation of this word, paene insula, almost an island. It is bordered by Lake Superior to the north, Lake Huron and the St. Mary’s River to the east and southeast, and Lake Michigan and the state of Wisconsin to the south and southwest. The Straits of Mackinac detach it from the Lower Peninsula. Thus its location makes the U.P. an unusually isolated region.

The landmass of the Upper Peninsula consists of 16,533 square miles, 30% of the state of Michigan. It is a land of distances: from east to west it measures 318 miles and 164 miles from the northern tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula to southernmost Menominee County. The U.P. is larger than any New England state except Maine and it is larger than Delaware and Maryland combined. Any of the following countries could easily fit within the U.P.: Israel (almost 8000 sq. mi.), Belgium (11,774 sq. mi.), or the Netherlands (15,785 sq. mi.). The English province of Cornwall would fit within Marquette County with room to spare. Yoopers like to recite these measurements.

Geology

The geology of the Upper Peninsula is special for its antiquity and varied geologic phenomena. Once covering this now stable land were lofty peaks, rumbling volcanoes, shallow seas, and eventually great sheets of ice. Some rock formations in the west are among the oldest on the planet. The geologic story provides an understanding of the forces that created the U.P. A broad survey of the geology is useful to understand the mineral wealth or lack of it in the Upper Peninsula.[6]

At the base of the Upper Peninsula are ancient Precambrian rocks that date to 542 million years ago. They are part of the Canadian or Laurentian Shield that covers an area of 2.8 million square miles in Canada, Greenland, and the United States. During the Precambrian period, which covers 88% of geologic history, enormous natural changes were effected.

There was mountain building, when the Penokeon Range (1.8 billion years ago), as high as the Rocky Mountains or the Alps, extended through the Upper Peninsula and beyond to the east and west. Sediments were lifted, changed to mountain rock then crumbled, folded, and contorted. The mineral result was sandstone, limestone, and marble.

The Portage Lake and Porcupine Volcanoes erupted 2-3 million years ago. Hundreds of lava flows decorated the Keweenaw Peninsula and Isle Royale. This volcanic activity produced the only strata on earth where large-scale economically recoverable copper 97% pure is found as well as other copper compounds.

county seat.jpg

Map 1: County seats and principal mining towns. Source: Historic American Engineering Record

mineral ranges.jpg

Map 2: Upper Peninsula county map showing mineral ranges.  Source: Historic American Engineering Record.

Over the eons, shallow seas formed and sediment filled them, marking profound changes in the landscape. The heat, water pressure, and lava altered the Precambrian rock, giving rise to the mineral resources.

Then came the ice. Three and possibly four monstrous ice sheets covered the Upper Peninsula and much of North America. The ice ages were relatively late in the geologic process– 35,000 to 10,000 years BP (that is, Before the Present).[7] The movement of the ice scoured the land, ground out soil, and exposed the ancient rock of the Canadian Shield that dates back three billion years. The ice also left its imprint on the land surface–lakes, streams, and kettle basins.

The world has seen cycles of glaciations with ice sheets advancing and retreating on enormous time scales. The earth is currently in an interglacial era; all that remains of the continental ice sheets are the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet and smaller glaciers such as on Baffin Island.

The glacier associated with the last ice age began melting about 20,000 years ago. Its retreat was slow, not withdrawing from the Great Lakes region until about 10,000 years ago. The sluggish retreat of this 2-mile thick overburden of ice and rock formed the present Great Lakes about 4,000 to 3,500 years ago.

The Upper Peninsula is divided into two topographical parts: Superior Upland and Great Lakes Plain. The dividing line between these two regions runs from Marquette southward, thus splitting the U.P. into two equal parts. The western half, or Superior Upland, consists of rising tableland broken by ridges and gorges, wild and harsh terrain to traverse but of rugged beauty and mineral wealth. The land rises from 677 feet above sea level at Marquette to 1565 feet above sea level at Champion-Humboldt, just 30 miles west. The highest natural point in the state of Michigan is Mount Arvon located in L’Anse Township, Baraga County reaching 1,979 feet.[8] Mount Arvon is part of the Huron Mountains and named because its slate deposits resemble those located around Caernarvon in Wales. Other high land includes the Porcupine Mountains in Ontonagon County, the Sylvania Tract south and west of Watersmeet, and the Keweenaw Ridge that forms the spine of the Keweenaw Peninsula.

The western U. P. is home to copper and iron deposits. Extensive copper deposits run the length of the Keweenaw Peninsula from Gogebic County in the southwest to Copper Harbor in the extreme northeast. Many communities in the western U.P. claim the designation Copper Country, but the term most accurately describes Houghton and Keweenaw Counties where the greatest mining activity took place. The soil in this region is very thin, and in certain areas rocks of the Canadian or Laurentian Shield are completely exposed. Yet in some areas fertile loams and poor sandy soils occur in close proximity.

To the south of the Copper Country are the Iron Ranges: the Marquette Range in the central U.P.; the Eastern and Western Menominee Ranges in Iron and Dickinson Counties to the southwest and south; and the Gogebic Range in the extreme western Upper Peninsula and neighboring Wisconsin.

The Great Lakes Plain runs from Wisconsin to Ohio and includes the eastern Upper Peninsula. They consist of low-lying lands and wetlands, the largest spreading along the Tahquamenon River in Luce and Chippewa Counties and the Seney Wildlife Refuge in Schoolcraft County. The lowest-lying community in the Upper Peninsula is St. Ignace, at 593 feet above sea level. The soils consist of peat and bog, and here too the soils vary from fertile loams to poor, infertile, sandy soil. The soil in the eastern end of the U.P. is the basis of extensive agriculture.

Across the southern U.P., substantial limestone cliffs crop out in exposed ridges in a long curving cuesta from Wisconsin's High Cliff State Park to the picturesque harbor at Fayette on the Garden Peninsula and on to Drummond Island at the eastern end of the Peninsula. These limestone and dolomite deposits in Schoolcraft, Mackinac, and Chippewa counties continue to be quarried. (The same limestone formation crops out in western New York State at the Niagara escarpment.) Bordering Lake Superior on the northern edge of the U.P. are sandstone tablelands, with Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore the most scenic and dramatic manifestation of this feature.

Rivers, Bays, and Lakes

The rivers of the Upper Peninsula are all products of glacial activity. They are generally short, although four have extensive drainage basins and contain many rapids and waterfalls. Most of the streams flowing into Lake Superior are very short because the ridge of the watershed is close to the lake. The south boundary of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore is only three to five miles from Lake Superior yet contains the entire north-flowing watershed of that area.

The largest river in the U.P. is the Menominee River. It is formed by the confluence of the Brule and Michigamme Rivers, a dozen miles above Iron Mountain. It then meanders, creating the Michigan-Wisconsin boundary, approximately 116 miles to its mouth at Menominee-Marinette, discharging into Green Bay. The Menominee River drains an area of 4,070 square miles (2,618 in Michigan and 1,452 in Wisconsin) and has over one hundred tributaries. It was extensively used for log drives from the 1850s through 1910s and as a source for water and electrical power. The log