Edward Breitung (November 10,1831 –March 3,1887) was a politician from the U.S. state of Michigan. He served one term in the United States House of Representatives from 1883 to 1885.
Breitung,the son of John M. Breitung,a Lutheran minister,was born in the city of Schalkau in the Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen,Germany (now in Sonneberg District,Thuringia). He attended the College of Mining in Meiningen,then one of the celebrated schools in Germany for scientific and classical studies.
In 1849,after the revolution in Germany,he immigrated to the United States and settled in Kalamazoo County,Michigan. He moved to Detroit in 1851 and became a clerk in a mercantile house. He moved to Marquette and engaged in mercantile pursuits until 1859,when he went to Negaunee. Here he was also engaged in the mercantile business;however,his store burnt in 1860.
After this,he ran the Pioneer Blast Furnace in Negaunee,with Israel Case,under a four-year contract. Subsequently he engaged exclusively in iron-mining operations in 1864,explored for iron deposits in Marquette and Menominee Counties,locating several profitable mines from 1864 to 1867. He later became interested iron mining in Minnesota,and in gold and silver mining in Colorado.
On November 28,1870,Edward married Mary Paulin,who was originally from Belgium,Wisconsin. Mary had been working as a chambermaid at a boarding house in Republic (Smith's Mine),Michigan,where Edward owned the Republic Mine.
Edward and Mary's first child was Edward Jr.,born on November 1,1871,in Negaunee. Their second child,William,was born c. March 1874 in Negaunee,but became sick soon thereafter. Edward did not make it back from his Lansing duties before William's death,on August 26 of the same year,from cholera.
Breitung was a member of the Michigan State House of Representatives in 1873 and 1874 and a member of the Michigan State Senate in 1877 and 1878. He served as mayor of Negaunee in 1879,1880,and 1882. He was elected as a Republican to the United States House of Representatives from Michigan's 11th congressional district for the Forty-eighth Congress,serving from March 4,1883,to March 3,1885. He declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1884.
Breitung died in Eastman,Georgia before he was able to move into a winter house he had built. This was also before construction was due to begin on his new house in Marquette,Michigan. He is interred in the Breitung Mausoleum at Park Cemetery in Marquette.
Breitung Township,Minnesota,is named after him [1] for his work in developing the Soudan Mine there in the 1880s. Breitung Township,Michigan,is also named for him.
Edward Breitung's widow married into the Samuel R. Kaufman family of Marquette,marrying Samuel's son Nathan Kaufman. Mary had in fact placed Nathan in effective charge of several Breitung businesses while Edward was away in Congress.
Breitung's son,Edward N. Breitung Jr.,continued his father's successful mining enterprises in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and much further afield. Edward Jr. also married into the Kaufman family,wedding Nathan's sister Charlotte. Despite his father's political career,Edward Jr.'s loyalties were compromised with the outbreak of World War I. He attempted to profit through the questionable purchase of an impounded German ship. Later,his nephew,and others working in the Breitung New York office,served time for involvement in plots to bomb American factories and merchant ships.
Edward Jr. and Charlotte had one child:Juliet. Although Charlotte was grooming Juliet for New York's high society,she eloped with their Marquette neighbor's gardener,Max. Edward Jr. "gracefully" offered Max a chance to prove himself in a Breitung mine in New Mexico,where over the course of two months he faced nine life-threatening events. Coming back to New York,Max was attacked twice in the same evening,and left for dead.
Marquette is the county seat of Marquette County and the largest city in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan,United States. 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.
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.
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 Iron Range is collectively or individually a number of elongated iron-ore mining districts around Lake Superior in the United States and Canada. Much of the ore-bearing region lies alongside the range of granite hills formed by the Giants Range batholith. These cherty iron ore deposits are Precambrian in the Vermilion Range and middle Precambrian in the Mesabi and Cuyuna ranges,all in Minnesota. The Gogebic Range in Wisconsin and the Marquette Iron Range and Menominee Range in Michigan have similar characteristics and are of similar age. Natural ores and concentrates were produced from 1848 until the mid-1950s,when taconites and jaspers were concentrated and pelletized,and started to become the major source of iron production.
Alfred Peter Swineford was an American journalist and politician who served as the second Governor of District of Alaska. He trained as a printer,worked in Minnesota and Wisconsin before becoming the editor and publisher of the Mining Journal in Marquette,Michigan. From this base he became active in politics and was elected Mayor of Marquette and to a term in the Michigan House of Representatives before his appointment as governor.
M-35 is a state trunkline highway in the Upper Peninsula (UP) of the US state of Michigan. It runs for 128 miles (206 km) in a general north–south direction and connects the cities of Menominee,Escanaba,and Negaunee. The southern section of M-35 in Menominee and Delta counties carries two additional designations;M-35 forms a segment of the Lake Michigan Circle Tour,and it is the UP Hidden Coast Recreational Heritage Trail,which is a part of what is now called the Pure Michigan Byways Program. Along the southern section,the highway is the closest trunkline to the Green Bay,a section of Lake Michigan. The northern section of the highway turns inland through sylvan areas of the UP,connecting rural portions of Delta and Marquette counties.
Business M-28 is a state trunkline highway serving as a business route that runs for approximately 4.9 miles (7.9 km) through the downtown districts of Ishpeming and Negaunee in the US state of Michigan. The trunkline provides a marked route for traffic diverting from U.S. Highway 41 (US 41) and M-28 through the two historic iron-mining communities. It is one of three business loops for M-numbered highways in the state of Michigan. There have previously been two other Bus. M-28 designations for highways in Newberry and Marquette.
Michigan's 1st congressional district is a United States congressional district that fully contains the 15 counties of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and 20 counties of Northern Michigan in the Lower Peninsula. The district is currently represented by Republican Jack Bergman.
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.
John Munro Longyear Sr. was an American businessman and noted developer of timber and mineral lands in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Minnesota who became the central figure behind the Arctic Coal Company,which surveyed and mined coalfields on Spitsbergen,from 1905 to 1916. This company developed a settlement on Spitsbergen able to accommodate up to around 500 people which became known as Longyear City,now Longyearbyen,adjacent Advent Bay.
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 Smith–Dengler House is a private home located at 58555 US 41 in Wolverine,Calumet Charter Township,Michigan,United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.
The Upper Peninsula Brewing Company Building is an office building located at the intersection of Meeske Street and US 41 in Marquette,Michigan. It is also known as the Charles Meeske House. The structure served as the home and office of brewer Charles Meeske,secretary-treasurer and later president of the company. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
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.
Peter White was one of the original settlers of Marquette,Michigan. He was a banker,businessman,real estate developer,and a philanthropist;and was involved in a number of the area's iron mining-related businesses,including acting as a director the Cleveland Iron Company. White served in many local and state public offices,including postmaster,county clerk,school board member,state representative and senator,and as a member of the state library commission and a Regent of the University of Michigan. Poet William Henry Drummond said of White,"the trail Peter White has cut through life is blessed by acts of private charity and deeds of public devotion that will serve as a guide to those who follow in the footsteps of a truly great,and above all,good man."
The Sundberg Block was a commercial building located at 517–523 Iron Street in Negaunee,Michigan,United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011. It was later demolished in November 2016 and removed from the NRHP in 2020.
The Breitung Hotel,named for Edward Breitung,was a hotel at 111 South Pioneer Avenue in Negaunee,Michigan. The hotel,designed by David M. Harteau,was built from 1879 to 1880. The building was listed as a Michigan State Historic Site on June 20,1985.
County Road 595 was a proposed primary county road in Marquette County in the US state of Michigan. The road would have provided access from the northern part of the county,near the Eagle Mine in Michigamme Township,to US Highway 41 (US 41) and M-28 in Humboldt Township. The approximately 21.5-mile-long (34.6 km) road would have been used primarily for commercial truck traffic hauling rock from the Eagle Mine to a processing facility south of US 41/M-28 in Humboldt Township. At present,such traffic has to use existing county roads which involves passing through the cities of Marquette,Negaunee,and Ishpeming. The northern end would have been northeast of the mine in Champion Township at an intersection with the Triple A Road.
The Michigan Iron Industry Museum,a branch facility of the Michigan History Museum,is a community museum serving the heritage of the Marquette Iron Range on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The museum is located in Negaunee,a town built atop the geological strata of the iron range near Marquette. Until recently,Negaunee was a one-industry town that centered on the mining of iron ore. The Negaunee region served as the center of U.S. iron ore production from about 1880 until approximately 1900,when this role was taken over by iron mines on Minnesota's Mesabi Iron Range. The Michigan Iron Industry Museum opened in 1987 close to the Carp River Forge site on the Carp River where Michigan iron ore was first forged in 1848.
Louis Graveraet Kaufman was an American business executive and businessman. He was named president of the First National Bank of Marquette in Marquette,Michigan,in 1906. In 1910,he became the president of Chatham National Bank of New York,while also remaining president of First National. Under Kaufman,Chatham National soon merged with Phenix National to form the Chatham Phenix National Bank and Trust Company. By the time Kaufman retired in 1932,the bank had increased 50-fold in size. after Joining General Motors board of directors in 1910,Kaufman remained on GM's board for 22 years,and was chairman of their finance committee.