Gay, Michigan | |
---|---|
Coordinates: 47°13′39″N88°09′49″W / 47.22750°N 88.16361°W [1] | |
Country | United States |
State | Michigan |
County | Keweenaw |
Township | Sherman |
Elevation | 646 ft (197 m) |
Time zone | UTC-5 (Eastern (EST)) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-4 (EDT) |
ZIP code(s) | 49950 (Mohawk) |
Area code | 906 |
GNIS feature ID | 626692 [1] |
Gay is an unincorporated community in Keweenaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan. [1] It is 12 miles from Lake Linden on Copper Island at the western end of the Upper Peninsula. As an unincorporated community, Gay has no legally recognized boundaries or population statistics of its own. Local government is provided by Sherman Township.
The town was named after Joseph E. Gay, one of the founders of the Mohawk and Wolverine Mining Companies. [2] Gay had explored around the Keweenaw Peninsula, searching for areas where mining and milling could be viable. This proved successful in 1896 when Gay followed up on the discovery of copper by a lumberman named Ernest Koch, establishing the Mohawk Mine in nearby Mohawk to take advantage of the situation. [3]
In need of an improvement in their copper production, the Mohawk Mining Company built the Mohawk Mining Company Stamp Mill in Gay in 1898. [2] The mill processed copper from the Mohawk Mining Company and the Wolverine Mining Company. [3] The residual sand from the stamping process was dumped into Lake Superior, increasing the town's land area greatly. The mill closed in 1922, leaving only the large smokestack and ruins remaining.
At its peak, Gay had 1,500 residents across 117 homes. [3] These residents worked at the town's office, warehouse, blacksmith, dock, pump house, and the copper stamping mill. Children attended the town's 250 student schoolhouse. However, the town began to decline after the 1922 closure of the stamping mill. 11 years later in 1933, the Mohawk Mining Company left the area completely as it had gone belly up. The town struggled on, eventually losing its last industry, logging, in 1965 as railroads left the region.
Hancock is a city in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. The population of Hancock was 4,501 at the 2020 census. The city is located within Houghton County, and is situated upon the Keweenaw Waterway, a channel of Lake Superior that cuts across the Keweenaw Peninsula. Hancock is located across the Keweenaw Waterway from the city of Houghton, and is connected to that city by the Portage Lake Lift Bridge. The city is located within Michigan's Copper Country region.
Calumet is a village in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. The village is located within Calumet Township, Houghton County, and had a population of 621 at the 2020 census.
Calumet Township, officially the Charter Township of Calumet, is a charter township of Houghton County in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 6,263 at the 2020 census. Even with a decreasing population, the township remains the largest township by population in Houghton County.
Stanton Township is a civil township of Houghton County in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 1,590 at the 2020 census. Stanton Township has the distinction of having the highest concentration of people with Finnish ancestry of any place in the United States, at 47%.
Allouez Township is a civil township of Keweenaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 1,428 at the 2020 census.
The Keweenaw Peninsula is the northernmost part of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It projects into Lake Superior and was the site of the first copper boom in the United States, leading to its moniker of "Copper Country." Its major industries are now logging and tourism, as well as jobs related to Michigan Technological University.
Copper Harbor is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) located in Keweenaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located within Grant Township. The population of the CDP was 136 as of the 2020 census.
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 Canal, Portage Lake Canal, Portage River, Lily Pond, Torch Lake, and Portage Lake. The waterway connects to Lake Superior at its north and south entries, with sections known as Portage Lake and Torch Lake in between. The primary tributary to Portage Lake is the Sturgeon River.
Eagle River is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Keweenaw County. Its population was 65 at the 2020 census, which makes it by far the least-populated county seat in the state of Michigan. As an unincorporated community, Eagle River has no legal autonomy and is part of Allouez Township and Houghton Township.
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. It is a federal-local cooperative park made up of two primary units, the Calumet Unit and the Quincy Unit, and almost two dozen cooperating "Heritage Sites" located on federal, state, and privately owned land in and around the Keweenaw Peninsula. The National Park Service owns approximately 1,700 acres (690 ha) in the Calumet and Quincy Units. Units are located in Baraga, Houghton, Keweenaw, and Ontonagon counties.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Houghton County, Michigan.
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 hazardous concentrations of trace metals.
Pequaming is an unincorporated community in L'Anse Township of Baraga County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located on a narrow point of land that juts into Keweenaw Bay. Although still partially inhabited, Pequaming is one of the largest ghost towns in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Freda is an unincorporated community fifteen miles west of Houghton, United States in the Stanton Township.
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.
Fulton is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Keweenaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The CDP had a population of 149 at the 2020 census. The community is located in Allouez Township, immediately southeast of the community of Mohawk. Fulton is located in the Copper Country region of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
The Michigan Smelter was a copper smelter located at Cole's Creek on the Keweenaw Waterway north-west of Houghton, Michigan near the old Atlantic mill. The smelter was created in 1903-4 as a joint effort between the Copper Range Company and Stanton group of mines. An Atlantic dam on the site was reused by the smelter as a water source. 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.
The Mohawk Mining Company was a major copper mining company, based in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan, that was established in November 1898 and lasted until 1932. The company, between 1906 and 1932, paid out more than $15 million in shareholder dividends. The Mine is best known for the large amounts of mohawkite that were found on the property. The Mohawk mine operated until 1932; in 1934 it was purchased by the Copper Range Company.
The Wolverine Mine was a small copper mining operation in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan, that was in operation from January 1882 until November 1884. In August 1890, possession of the company was obtained and reorganized as the Wolverine Copper Mining Company. It mined the Kearsarge lode until 1922 when it closed.
Clarence J. Monette was a prolific author and historian from Michigan's Copper Country, writing extensively on Copper Country history. He has published more than sixty books and has written numerous outdoor survival guides.