CALUMET

A short history of Calumet

What is now Calumet was settled in 1864, originally under the name of Red Jacket, for a Native American Chief of the Seneca tribe. Until 1895 the name "Calumet" was used by the nearby town of Laurium, Michigan; present-day Calumet was not legally named so until 1929.

Red Jacket grew due to the copper mines in the area. It was incorporated as a town in 1867. The copper mines were particularly rich; the Boston-based Calumet and Hecla Mining Company produced more than half of the United States' copper from 1871 through 1880. In addition to copper mining and smelting, the region also supported the dairy industry and truck farming. Many immigrants (from Poland and other countries) settled there in the late 19th century.

By 1900, Red Jacket had a population of 4,668, and Calumet Township, which contained Red Jacket and nearby mining towns, had a population of 25,991. However, in 1913, Red Jacket suffered from the Copper Country Strike of 1913–1914, and the population began to decline. In the same year, the town was the site of the Italian Hall Disaster. Striking miners and their families were gathered on Christmas Eve for a party in Italian Hall, when the cry of "fire" precipitated a stampede that crushed or suffocated seventy-three victims, over half of them children under ten years old. The identity of the person(s) who started the stampede has never been determined. Folk singer Woody Guthrie's 1945 song, "1913 Massacre", is based on this event.

Loss of wartime demand caused the copper price to drop following World War I. With the decreased demand for copper, thousands left Red Jacket in the 1920s, many moving to Detroit, Michigan, where the automobile industry was booming.

During the Great Depression, almost all mines were shut down. As a result, many miners and their families left to find work. In 1950, the population of Calumet was 1,256 people. Small-time mining continued in the area, particularly during World War II, until it was shut down completely by a labor strike in 1968.

Although much of Calumet's turn-of-the-century peak population had already left by 1968, the closure of Calumet and Hecla sealed the town's fate. Keweenaw National Historic Park was established in 1992 as part of a broader effort to reorient the region's economy around tourism and historic preservation. While the opening of the National Historic Park and other heritage tourism locations has led to growth in the local tourism sector, this growth has not outstripped declines in other economic sectors, such as construction and manufacturing. This is attributed to the inherently seasonal nature of tourism on the Keweenaw: 96% of visitors to the National Historic Park visit between May and October. As of 2022, Calumet's year-round population continues to decline.

Adapted (trimmed) from the Wikipedia article Calumet, Michigan, revision 1380892675 by its contributors, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.