The Michigan Smelter was a copper smelter located at Cole's Creek on the

Keweenaw Waterway The Keweenaw Waterway is a partly natural, partly artificial waterway which cuts across the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan; it separates Copper Island from the mainland. Parts of the waterway are variously known as the Keweenaw Waterway, Portage ...

north-west of

Houghton, Michigan Houghton (; ) is the largest city and county seat of Houghton County, Michigan, Houghton County in the U.S. state of Michigan. Located on the Keweenaw Peninsula, Houghton is the largest city in the Copper Country region. It is the fifth-larges ...

near the old Atlantic mill. The smelter was created in 1903-4 as a joint effort between the

Copper Range Company The Copper Range Company was a major copper-mining company in the Copper Country of Michigan, United States. It began as the Copper Range Company in the late 19th century as a holding company specializing in shares in the copper mines south of Hou ...

and Stanton group of mines. An Atlantic dam on the site was reused by the smelter as a water source.Stevens, Horace. ''The Copper Handbook'' Volume 6. 1906. Pages 683--684
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/ref> In 1905, the smelter broke a world record by casting 292,000 pounds of fine copper in seven hours with a single furnace and only ten men. The smelter operated through World War II and stopped all operations in 1948. Michigan-smelter-pano-c1900-1906

The smelter was designed by Frank Klepetko and was the most modern plant in the district. The nearby hillside was used improve its efficiency of its operation.Lankton, Larry. ''Hollowed ground: copper mining and community building on Lake Superior'' 201
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page 149. The smelter had a capacity of 90 million pounds annually and was the largest and most efficient on Lake Superior. Several mills sent material to the Michigan Smelter including the

Champion A champion (from the late Latin ''campio'') is the victor in a challenge, Competition, contest or competition. There can be a territorial pyramid of championships, e.g. local, regional/provincial/state, national, continental and world champi ...

Trimountain Trimountain or Tri-mountain, est. , is a traprock mountain located southeast of Meriden, Connecticut. It is part of the narrow, linear Metacomet Ridge that extends from Long Island Sound near New Haven, Connecticut, north through the Connect ...

and

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages *Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...

mills via the

Copper Range Railroad The Copper Range Railroad was a former United States, U.S. Class I railroad that operated from 1899 to 1972 in the western Upper Peninsula of the state of Michigan. History The Copper Range Railroad was incorporated in 1899 as a successor to ...

. Product originated from the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

Mohawk Mohawk may refer to: Related to Native Americans *Mohawk people (Kanien’kehá:ka), an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York) *Mohawk language (Kanien’kéha), the language spoken by the Mohawk people *Mohawk hairstyle, from a ...

, and

Wolverine The wolverine ( , ; ''Gulo gulo''), also called the carcajou or quickhatch (from East Cree, ''kwiihkwahaacheew''), is the largest land-dwelling species, member of the family Mustelidae. It is a muscular carnivore and a solitary animal. The w ...

mines.Sawyer, Alvah Littlefield. ''A history of the northern peninsula of Michigan and its people, its mining, lumber and agricultural industries''. 1911.
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Page 461. They delivered the mineral in 40-ton bottom-dumping cars and the product from each mine was kept separate from the others.

Smelting process

The incoming product was sorted, dried and stored in hoppers above the

reverberatory furnace A reverberatory furnace is a metallurgy, metallurgical or process Metallurgical furnace, furnace that isolates the material being processed from contact with the fuel, but not from contact with combustion gases. The term ''reverberation'' is use ...

s. The site had two melting furnaces and two refining furnaces about seven feet below.

Water-tube boilers A high pressure watertube boiler (also spelled water-tube and water tube) is a type of boiler in which water circulates in tubes heated externally by fire. Fuel is burned inside the furnace, creating hot gas which boils water in the steam-generat ...

were heated by the furnace's waste gas which were drawn up through a 150-foot smokestack.

Slag The general term slag may be a by-product or co-product of smelting (pyrometallurgical) ores and recycled metals depending on the type of material being produced. Slag is mainly a mixture of metal oxides and silicon dioxide. Broadly, it can be c ...

was skimmed off into steel molds on cars of an electric locomotive and the copper was then drained into the refining furnaces. The slag accounted for approximately 35 percent of the material they received. Other buildings on the site included an office and laboratory heated by exhaust steam, a warehouse, two 150 ton railroad track scales.

Today

The smelter's office still remains on the site and is now a private residence. Foundations and concrete columns are still visible. The property is privately owned.

External links

Picture of the Michigan Smelter from 1906 at the Library of Congress
*http://www.coppercountryexplorer.com/2010/03/a-michigan-smelter/ *http://quincyminer.wordpress.com/2010/03/28/the-portage-lake-smelter-tour-the-michigan-smelter-pt-2/

Notes

{{coord, 47.1261, -88.6236, display=title Buildings and structures in Houghton County, Michigan Metallurgical facilities in Michigan

Smelting process

Today

See also

External links

Notes