Calumet and Hecla Industrial District

The Calumet and Hecla Industrial District is a mining facility in Michigan's Upper Peninsula that stretches along railroad tracks connecting different mine openings above a copper seam. The site contains ten main buildings, including a machine shop, roundhouse, and general office, constructed between 1880 and 1910.

Alexander Agassiz took control of the mining operation in 1867 and transformed it into one of the world's most productive copper mines. By 1870, the facility was producing more than half of all copper mined in the United States.

The buildings show how mining operations supported a working community in the harsh Upper Peninsula landscape. You can see the relationship between different structures and imagine how workers moved between the machine shop, offices, and railway facilities throughout their day.

The district is part of the Keweenaw National Historical Park, with the general office building now serving as the visitor center providing information about the site. You can walk through the grounds to see how the historical structures are arranged around the railroad lines.

The roundhouse contains twelve railroad stalls arranged in a 170-degree arc around a central turntable, revealing the scale of locomotive operations needed to move ore and materials. This layout demonstrates how specifically engineered the transportation systems were to support mining activities.