Ore miners working on the Marquette Iron Range (located in the United States' Upper Peninsula of Michigan) went on strike in July 1865, shortly after the end of the American Civil War. They were put down by a naval detachment from the USS Michigan, using an improvised armored train, and later with an army detachment from Chicago.
During the United States' Civil War, high demand meant the price of iron had significantly increased. Knowing this, the miners forced the mining companies to raise their wages in 1864. The problem was not solved, as the dockworkers, who were paid significantly less than the miners, struck for higher wages. Cleveland Iron Mining Company officials near the capital requested troops from Michigan's governor, believing that the war's demand for iron would override social concerns for the workers. They were correct; a United States Navy gunboat, Michigan, and a troop contingent were sent to the area. Their arrival was instrumental in quashing the strike. [1]
The wartime demand quickly abated after the war's end in April 1865, and the many returning soldiers increased the labor pool. When combined, this meant that Cleveland and other nearby companies felt justified in announcing a wage cut on Saturday, July 1, 1865. The miners grudgingly accepted the cuts, but the dockworkers refused their wage cut and the companies gave into their demands. This galvanized the miners, and 1500 to 2000 of them marched on the mines and the town of Marquette, looting, burning, and destroying equipment they came across. Two days later, Michigan and its crew arrived in Marquette's harbor as part of a routine sweep of Lake Superior for Confederate activity. [2] [upper-alpha 1]
The captain of Michigan, Lieutenant Commander Francis A. Roe, had fought through the war in various capacities, including directing a fight between his Sassacus and a Confederate ram, Albemarle. On appraising the situation, he quickly moved to end the strike. He mounted two of the ship’s guns on a railroad car, fitted it with metal to act as armor, and enlisted a steam engine to push it with a full landing party. All were armed and most were veterans of the war, as opposed to the miners, who had little to no combat experience. [4] He recounted the incident months later:
They were told that twenty-four hours, and no more, would be allowed them, and if by that time they were not at work, and the ore loaded in the idle cars, that encampment would be stormed by shot and shell, and no questions would be asked or answered. There must be no more rioting, no more idleness, and no more threats. [5]
After Michigan's departure, the miners struck again and were put back down by a returning Michigan and the 8th Regiment of the Veteran Reserve Corps, brought up by rail from Chicago. [6]
Marquette is the county seat of Marquette County and the largest city in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. Located on the shores of Lake Superior, Marquette is a major port, known primarily for shipping iron ore from the Marquette Iron Range. The city is partially surrounded by Marquette Township, but the two are administered autonomously.
The Upper Peninsulaof Michigan—also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P.—is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac. It is bounded primarily by Lake Superior to the north, separated from the Canadian province of Ontario at the east end by the St. Marys River, and flanked by Lake Huron and Lake Michigan along much of its south. Although the peninsula extends as a geographic feature into the state of Wisconsin, the state boundary follows the Montreal and Menominee rivers and a line connecting them.
Negaunee is a city in Marquette County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 4,627 at the 2020 census. The city is located at the southwest corner of Negaunee Township, which is administratively separate, in the Upper Peninsula. The city is home to a luge track. The name "Negaunee" comes from an Anishinabemowin (Ojibwe) word nigani, meaning "foremost, in advance, leading," which was determined to be the closest Ojibwe translation for "pioneer". Within the city limits is Teal Lake.
The Mesabi Iron Range is a mining district and mountain range in northeastern Minnesota following an elongate trend containing large deposits of iron ore. It is the largest of four major iron ranges in the region collectively known as the Iron Range of Minnesota. First described in 1866, it is the chief iron ore mining district in the United States. The district is located largely in Itasca and Saint Louis counties. It has been extensively worked since 1892, and has seen a transition from high-grade direct shipping ores through gravity concentrates to the current industry exclusively producing iron ore (taconite) pellets. Production has been dominantly controlled by vertically integrated steelmakers since 1901, and therefore is dictated largely by US ironmaking capacity and demand.
The Confederate States Navy (CSN) was the naval branch of the Confederate States Armed Forces, established by an act of the Confederate States Congress on February 21, 1861. It was responsible for Confederate naval operations during the American Civil War against the United States's Union Navy.
Taconite is a variety of banded iron formation, an iron-bearing sedimentary rock, in which the iron minerals are interlayered with quartz, chert, or carbonate. The name "taconyte" was coined by Horace Vaughn Winchell (1865–1923) – son of Newton Horace Winchell, the Minnesota State Geologist – during their pioneering investigations of the Precambrian Biwabik Iron Formation of northeastern Minnesota. He believed the sedimentary rock sequence hosting the iron-formation was correlative with the Taconic orogeny of New England, and referred to the unfamiliar and as-yet-unnamed iron-bearing rock as the 'taconic rock' or taconyte.
The Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railroad, is a Class III railroad U.S. railroad offering service from Marquette, Michigan, to nearby locations in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It began operations in 1896. The LS&I continues to operate as an independent railroad from its headquarters in Marquette.
The Cliffs Shaft Mine Museum is a former iron mine, now a heritage museum, located on Euclid Street between Lakeshore Drive and Spruce Street in Ishpeming, Michigan. The museum, operated by "Marquette Range Iron Mining Heritage Theme Park Inc.", celebrates the history of the Marquette Iron Range. The site was designated a state of Michigan historic site in 1973 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. is an American steel manufacturer based in Cleveland, Ohio. They specialize in the mining, beneficiation, and pelletizing of iron ore, as well as steelmaking, including stamping and tooling. The company was the world's 25th-largest steel producer and the third-largest in the United States in 2022. It is the largest flat-rolled steel producer in North America.
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 United States during that period.
In Michigan, copper mining became an important industry in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its rise marked the start of copper mining as a major industry in the United States.
County Road 492 is a primary county road in Marquette County, Michigan. The road serves as an alternate route between Negaunee and Marquette. Several historic sites line the roadway as it runs south and parallel to the main highway, U.S. Highway 41 (US 41) and M-28, through the Marquette Iron Range in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The path of the road runs near tracks of the Lake Superior and Ishpeming Railroad (LS&I). The locally created Iron Ore Heritage Trail will follow CR 492 through Eagle Mills and Morgan Meadows upon completion. The western terminus of the county road is on US 41/M-28 in Negaunee and the eastern end is in Marquette next to Lake Superior.
An ore dock is a large structure used for loading ore onto ships, which then carry the ore to steelworks or to transshipment points. Most known ore docks were constructed near iron mines on the upper Great Lakes and served the lower Great Lakes. Ore docks still in existence are typically about 60 feet (18 m) wide, 80 feet (24 m) high, and vary from 900 feet (270 m) to 2,400 feet (730 m) in length. They are commonly constructed from wood, steel, reinforced concrete, or combinations of these materials.
Samuel Livingston Mather was an American industrialist and philanthropist from Cleveland, Ohio. He co-founded Pickands Mather and Company, a shipping and iron mining company which dominated these two Great Lakes industries from 1900 to 1960. For many years Mather was that city's richest citizen and a major philanthropist, contributing more than US$7 million to community-based organizations in the city.
The Marquette Iron Range is a deposit of iron ore located in Marquette County, Michigan in the United States. The towns of Ishpeming and Negaunee developed as a result of mining this deposit. A smaller counterpart of Minnesota's Mesabi Range, this is one of two iron ranges in the Lake Superior basin that are in active production as of 2018. The iron ore of the Marquette Range has been mined continuously from 1847 until the present day. Marquette Iron Range is the deposit's popular and commercial name; it is also known to geologists as the Negaunee Iron Formation.
The Jackson Mine is an open pit iron mine in Negaunee, Michigan, extracting resources from the Marquette Iron Range. The first iron mine in the Lake Superior region, Jackson Mine was designated as a Michigan State Historic Site in 1956 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. The Lake Superior Mining Institute said, the mine "is attractive in the iron ore region of Michigan and the entire Lake Superior region, because of the fact it was here that the first discovery of iron ore was made, here the first mining was done, and from its ore the first iron was manufactured." Multiple other mines soon followed the Jackson's lead, establishing the foundation of the economy of the entire region. The mine is located northwest of intersection of Business M-28 and Cornish Town Road.
The Cleveland Mine Engine House Number 3, also known as the Brownstone Engine House, is a building located at 601 Division Street in Ishpeming, Michigan. It was built to house engines hoisting ore from various Cleveland Mine locales, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.
The Oliver Iron Mining Company was a mining company operating in Minnesota, United States. It was one of the most prominent companies in the early decades of mining on the Mesabi Range. As a division of U.S. Steel, Oliver dwarfed its competitors—in 1920, it operated 128 mines across the region, while its largest competitor operated only 65.
Iron mining in the United States produced 48 million metric tons of iron ore in 2019. Iron ore was the third-highest-value metal mined in the United States, after gold and copper. Iron ore was mined from nine active mines and three reclamation operations in Michigan, Minnesota, and Utah. Most of the iron ore was mined in northern Minnesota's Mesabi Range. Net exports were 3.9 million tons. US iron ore made up 2.5 percent of the total mined worldwide in 2015. Employment as of 2014 was 5,750 in iron mines and iron ore treatment plants.
The Pickands Mather Group is an American company which provides shipping of coal and other bulk commodities, and the purchase, sale, and marketing of bulk coal. Founded in 1883 as Pickands Mather & Company, it once had the second largest shipping fleet on the Great Lakes in the 1910s and 1920s. The company was purchased by the Diamond Shamrock Corporation in 1968, which in turn sold it to the Moore-McCormack Resources in 1973. Moore-McCormack sold Pickands Mather's mining interests to Cleveland-Cliffs in 1986. Moore-McCormack then spun off the Interlake Steamship Company to James Barker and Paul R. Tregurtha in 1987. Pickands Mather was sold to a management group in 1992, and continues to operate as a private company.
