Curtis Grubb Hussey first became interested in the Lake Superior copper region in 1844 when he invested heavily in the Pittsburgh and Boston Mining Company, which owned the Cliff Mine, on Keweenaw Point, along with the Northwestern and Central mines. Hussey, who made his initial fortune in dry goods and later in meat packing, also became invested in the National and Adventure mines, Mass, Aztec, in the Ontonagon District, as well as several others.

Thomas F. Mason was another early investor in Michigan copper. Mason, like Hussey, initially became successful in the dry-goods trade first in Rhode Island, then in New York. Mason, like Hussey, decided to invest in Michigan copper in the mid-1840s. His primary investments were in the Quincy Mining Company, in the Portage Lake District, and the Ridge, Hilton and others, in the Ontonagon District.

Horatio Bigelow was another early pioneer of the region and seems to have been involved in just about every venture in the Lake district, including the Clarke, Quincy, Hulbert, Calumet and Hecla, the Tamarack, Osceola mining companies, and the later Kearsarge mines, and several others, including ventures in the western United States.

Mason and Hussey were two pioneers of the Lake Superior Copper Mining District who have not been given the credit they deserve for being two men hugely responsible for the opening and developing of the district, as well as for their roles in Westward Expansion. They were in the right places at the right times. The mines they developed played a significant role in Michigan becoming the dominant U.S. copper producer.

From 1850 to 1887, Michigan dominated the U.S. copper market, producing more than three-quarters of the country’s copper. In that year, Montana surpassed Michigan as the leading copper producer. In 1882, the Butte, Montana district produced nine million pounds of copper, according the Mining History Association. The following year, production skyrocketed by over 250%. By 1896, the district was producing more than 26% of the world supply, and 51% of U.S. production. By 1910, Arizona became the leading U.S. copper producer.

To the owners of the Michigan copper mines, this was potentially devastating, especially for Calumet and Hecla, which was already confronting its own mortality. The C&H annual report for 1907 stated that the work of removing the pillars of Hecla shafts 2 and 3, and the South Hecla’s No. 11 shafts was continuing. While explorations on the Osceola Amygdaloid Lode and the Kearsage Amygdaloid Lode returned optimistic reports, C&H President Alexander Aggasiz was shifting his attention to the stamp sands, tailings generated by the company’s milling operations along Torch Lake. In 1906, the company laid the foundations for a regrinding plant to be equipped with 48 Chili mills and their accompanying washing machines. At the company’s smelting works, in Buffalo, New York, the company also began increasing its electrolytic plant, including a tank building capable of treating 20 million pounds of diodes. This was at the same time the company began taking over its neighboring companies by acquiring shares in each of the companies until C&H became the major shareholder.

C&H reported in 1909 that the Chilean mills were extracting four pounds of copper from a ton of tailings, at a cost of five cents per pound, adding that the production of the mill was approximately one million pounds per year, prompting the company to install an additional 24 Chilean mills.

All of these steps were necessary to C&H retaining its share of copper sales on a world market that was increasingly competitive. While C&H did not report labor relations in its reports during these year, the Tamarack Mining Company did.

“The year 1908 was free from disagreements among employees,” Tamarack’s Vice President and General Manager Norman Haire reported in the company’s 1909 annual report. “Most cordial relations have existed between both officers and men, all of whom deserve our approbation for their zeal in promoting the interests of the company.”

Many mine workers up and down the Keweenaw Peninsula were becoming increasingly involved in organized labor during these years. Among their goals were increasing wages, improved workplace safety and shorter hours. These were topics already on the minds of mine owners at a time when they were desperately trying to hold down costs across the board while maintaining their output of copper.

In 1908, Quincy Mining Company purchased the Franklin mine and its stamp mill location. Like C&H, Quincy was also looking to expand its mining operations. The company’s 1909 report stated that the Pontiac shaft exploration was showing good copper content, including about two tons of mass copper encountered while sinking the shaft. Also like C&H, Quincy’s reports did not mention labor relations, at least not directly.

In 1908, Quincy built seven six-room houses at the Mesnard and Pontiac locations, and 37 other dwellings were repaired and painted.

“These houses have long needed such attention,” the report said, “as do other dwellings about the mine, which will receive like attention the coming season, as fast as conditions about the mine will warrant.”

Mining companies throughout the copper region built and maintained substantial, if somewhat humble, houses to rent to workers at rents low enough that the companies rarely recouped the cost of building them. The idea was to provide goods and services that would attract and retain good, dependable workers. For several decades, this system of corporate paternalism worked well for both the companies and (most of) the workers.

Toward the end of the 19th century, however, the system began to unravel. Employees, particularly the new southern and eastern European immigrants, increasingly saw paternalism as a system of control over the workers’ work, health care, living conditions and even their personal lives. Companies on the other hand were adamant in keeping the system in place.