The Quincy Smelter, also known as the Quincy Smelting Works, is a former copper smelter located on the north side of the Keweenaw Waterway in

Ripley, Michigan Ripley is a small, Unincorporated area, unincorporated community in Franklin Township, Houghton County, Michigan, Franklin Township situated upon a slope, just east of Hancock, Michigan, Hancock on M-26 (Michigan highway), M-26 and across the Port ...

. It is a contributing property of the

Quincy Mining Company Historic District The Quincy Mine is an extensive set of copper Mining, mines located near Hancock, Michigan. The mine was owned by the Quincy Mining Company and operated between 1846 and 1945, although some activities continued through the 1970s. The Quincy Mine w ...

, a

National Historic Landmark District National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

. The smelter was built in 1898 by the

Quincy Mining Company The Quincy Mine is an extensive set of copper mines located near Hancock, Michigan. The mine was owned by the Quincy Mining Company and operated between 1846 and 1945, although some activities continued through the 1970s. The Quincy Mine was know ...

, operating from 1898 to 1931 and again from 1948 to 1971. The smelter was part of a Superfund site from 1986 to 2013.

History

Operational years

The

incorporated in 1848. Like other mines in the area, Quincy had its own stamp mills, but did not produce enough copper to justify the investment of operating its own smelter. Before 1860, when the Lake Superior Smelter opened in

Hancock Hancock may refer to: Places in the United States * Hancock, Iowa * Hancock, Maine * Hancock, Maryland * Hancock, Massachusetts * Hancock, Michigan * Hancock, Minnesota * Hancock, Missouri * Hancock, New Hampshire ** Hancock (CDP), New Hampshir ...

, copper was shipped out to be smelted in cities such as Boston or Detroit. By the late 1890s, the quantity of rock mined by Quincy justified the company building its own smelter. In May 1898, the Quincy Mining Company started construction of the Quincy Smelter on the

stamp sand Stamp sand is a coarse sand left over from the processing of ore in a stamp mill. In the United States, the most well-known deposits of stamp sand are in the Copper Country of northern Michigan, where it is black or dark gray, and may contain h ...

s of the old Pewabic mill; Quincy had acquired the Pewabic Mining Company in 1891. The shoreline was dredged and pilings were inserted for the loading dock. This was followed by laying foundations for the primary smelter buildings: the

reverberatory furnace A reverberatory furnace is a metallurgical or process furnace that isolates the material being processed from contact with the fuel, but not from contact with combustion gases. The term ''reverberation'' is used here in a generic sense of ''re ...

building and the

cupola furnace A cupola or cupola furnace is a melting device used in foundries that can be used to melt cast iron, Ni-resist iron and some bronzes. The cupola can be made almost any practical size. The size of a cupola is expressed in diameters and can range ...

building. By the end of 1898, over a dozen buildings had been built on the smelter site. The smelter began operation on December 1, 1898. The smelter was estimated to save the Quincy Mining Company approximately $100,000 per year. Aside from processing copper from the Quincy Mine, the smelter also did business with the Franklin,

Adventure An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme ...

, Allouez, and Centennial mines. As a result of low copper prices and the onset of the Great Depression, the Quincy Mining Company ceased operations on September 22, 1931. The company boarded up facilities including the smelter. The mine itself remained closed from 1931 through 1936, until an increase in copper prices in 1937 prompted reopening the mine. Instead of reopening the Quincy Smelter, smelting was handled by

Calumet and Hecla The Calumet and Hecla Mining Company was a major copper-mining company based within Michigan's Copper Country. In the 19th century, the company paid out more than $72 million in shareholder dividends, more than any other mining company in the Uni ...

. Because prices remained elevated during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, in June 1942 Quincy built a reclamation plant on Torch Lake near its

stamp mills Stamp or Stamps or Stamping may refer to: Official documents and related impressions * Postage stamp, used to indicate prepayment of fees for public mail * Ration stamp, indicating the right to rationed goods * Revenue stamp, used on documents to ...

to recover copper from the large volume of

tailings In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overli ...

in the lake. The reclamation plant began operating in November 1943, and made use of a floating dredge that vacuumed tailings from the lake. With the end of the war, copper prices again decreased and the mine ceased operations permanently on September 1, 1945. However, the reclamation project continued as it was very productive and less expensive than mining. In June 1948, the Quincy Smelter reopened as Calumet and Hecla was no longer able to meet Quincy's needs. Around the same time, 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 ...

closed the Michigan Smelter and contracted its smelting needs with Quincy. Reclamation was interrupted twice: in January 1956 from the loss of one dredge in a storm, and for ten months in 1958. After the loss of the first dredge,

Quincy Dredge Number Two The Quincy Dredge Number Two (previously known as the Calumet and Hecla Dredge Number One) is a dredge currently sunk in shallow water in Torch Lake, across M-26 from the Quincy Mining Company Stamp Mills Historic District and just east of Mas ...

operated until the stamp sands were exhausted in 1967. Also in 1967, the last Copper Range mine, the Champion Mine, closed. In 1968, natural gas burners were installed on the number 5 furnace for melting scrap copper until 1971. In 1971, because of new environmental regulations from the state of Michigan, Quincy abandoned the smelter and transferred ownership to the Quincy Development Corporation.

After closure

In 1986, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) placed the Torch Lake Superfund site on the National Priorities List, with the Quincy Smelter included as an Area of Concern. In 1999, Franklin Township acquired the smelter from the Quincy Development Corporation. QDC had planned to build condominiums on the site and the township built a water tank for the project. However, QDC pulled out, and the township was given the smelter in lieu of payment for the tank. In 2004, the EPA took action to clean up and stabilize the smelter site. The agency removed laboratory chemicals and tested for asbestos. An chain link fence was built around the site, and geotextile fabric and

riprap Riprap (in North American English), also known as rip rap, rip-rap, shot rock, rock armour (in British English) or rubble, is human-placed rock or other material used to protect shoreline structures against scour and water, wave, or ice erosion. ...

were added to stabilize the shoreline. In 2008, all the remaining asbestos from the site was removed (from a total of twelve buildings). One smokestack at the smelter was also removed in 2008 as it had become hazardous. Public tours of the smelter began as early as 2009. In the first years, tours could not go inside the smelter buildings because of contamination and structure instability. As early as 2010, the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propert ...

had plans to possibly move the mainland headquarters of

Isle Royale National Park Isle Royale National Park is an American national park consisting of Isle Royale – known as Minong to the native Ojibwe – along with more than 400 small adjacent islands and the surrounding waters of Lake Superior, in the state of Michigan ...

to the smelter site. In September 2010, a fire destroyed the carpentry shop and damaged a wood storage lean-to on the site. The Quincy Smelter was removed from the list of Superfund sites in 2013. In 2014, Keweenaw National Historical Park Advisory Commission purchased the smelter from Franklin Township. In late 2015, an ice house was demolished as it was affecting the pH of the surrounding groundwater. In 2017, the National Park Service decided that it would not move the headquarters of Isle Royale National Park to the smelter site.

Heritage designations

The Quincy Smelter is the only remaining copper smelter in the United States from the early 20th century. It is described by the EPA as the "best preserved copper smelter" in the United States, and by the

Keweenaw National Historical Park Keweenaw National Historical Park is a unit of the U.S. National Park Service. Established in 1992, the park celebrates the life and history of the Keweenaw Peninsula in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. As of 2009, it is a pa ...

Advisory Commission as possibly the only remaining copper smelter in the world of its era. On February 10, 1989, the

was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

and was named a

. At the time of nomination, there were 25

contributing building In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distric ...

s and 15 non-contributing buildings in the historic district at the smelter site. The smelter is also within the boundaries of the Keweenaw National Historical Park. In 2016,

ASM International ASM International is a Dutch headquartered multinational corporation that specializes in design, manufacturing, sales and service of semiconductor wafer processing equipment for the fabrication of semiconductor devices. ASM's products are use ...

designated the Quincy Smelter as an ASM Historical Landmark.

Facilities and layout

The Quincy Smelter site juts out from the shoreline of the Keweenaw Waterway, built on stamp sands from the former Pewabic mill. The smelter has two docks, a shipping wharf that was used for copper and a wharf used for coal deliveries. Most of the smelter buildings are built of

Jacobsville Sandstone Jacobsville Sandstone is a red sandstone formation, marked with light-colored streaks and spots, primarily found in northern Upper Michigan, portions of Ontario, and under much of Lake Superior. Desired for its durability and aesthetics, the san ...

References

External links

{{commons category, Quincy Smelter
Historic American Engineering Record of Quincy Mining Company
including the smelter Buildings and structures in Houghton County, Michigan Metallurgical facilities in Michigan Superfund sites in Michigan 1898 establishments in Michigan Historic district contributing properties in Michigan National Historic Landmarks in Michigan Copper smelters Metal companies of the United States