Compared to many mining regions in western states, the Lake Superior copper district enjoyed a low crime rate. The Copper Country did not produce a Jessie James or a Dalton Gang, so it did not need a Wyatt Earp or a Wild Bill Hickok. This is not to claim, however, that in the Copper Country, there was no need for law enforcement.

Murders were not frequent in the region, but they were not uncommon, either. Prostitution was a common vice, as it was in most mining regions throughout the country. Houses of ill fame, as they were called, seemed to be the most common in Hancock for some reason, while in 1897, a Red Jacket newspaper compared Italian dance halls to brothels.

On the other side of the spectrum were preachers who pushed hard to see that such things as social and sporting events were banned on Sundays. Church and women’s organizations frequently lobbied to have saloons and sales of alcohol banned within the limits of villages and towns, though admittedly, with some justification. If surviving court records are any indication, the vast majority of crimes presented before judges were alcohol related.

In the middle of these two extremes was the quiet, family type who sought to stay inside the law. Seeing no harm in an occasional drink, or a Sunday social event or trip to an amusement park, they did expect their communities to offer appropriate services, and first among them were schools. A quick survey of just a few areas strongly suggests that communities took public education very seriously.

In the South Portage Lake district were two school districts. District Number 1 spanned some twelve miles to the east and forty miles to the south, and had three separate schools. At Sturgeon River (now Chassell), the district employed one teacher, while four teachers oversaw the school in Hurontown. The Union School, in Houghton was graded through high school and employed nine teachers ensuring education to fifty-five scholars. District No. 2 was located in East Houghton, while in 1882, Hancock school district found 1,100 children of school age, but only 400 enrollees.

Baraga County’s Arvon Township comprised School Districts 2 and 3, while Baraga Township was divided into three districts, with a total of four schools. District No. 1 had 293 children, while District No. 2 had 110 children with only 30 attending on a regular basis.

These were typical of communities throughout the Copper Country in the years around the turn of the 20th century.

There were, in the Calumet area, several parochial schools, most commonly organized by churches. A Catholic parochial school opened in 1891, a decade after the members of the German Lutheran Church began their own parochial school. Calumet and Hecla Mining Company built and equipped school, which its officials then rented to the community school districts at very nominal fees.

Some parents did not enroll their children in school, either private or parochial, arguing that daughters did not need schooling to get married, while education would only cause their sons exposure to a social and economic class they were not born into.

Other parents viewed education from just the opposite stance. A solid education might help a daughter marry into a higher class, while if a son had a good education, it could increase his chances at a trade or work that would allow him more options than simply following his father into the mines where he was liable to be injured for life or killed. Many accurately saw education as a chance at upward mobility.

James MacNaughton, general manager at C&H, had chosen that course for himself. James’ father, Archibald, was a miner on the Hecla branch of the company. James went to work at the stamp mill dock in Lake Linden as a young boy, later working on the tram road between the mine and the stamp mill. He worked while he studied his school lessons. He worked his way through college and after he graduated, he accepted the position of general manager of the Chapin mine in the Upper Peninsula before returning to C&H as its general manager, and later becoming that company’s president.

Many parents view children as little more than extra income sources, sending boys as young as eight years of age to work in the mines with their fathers, while hiring out daughters as young as six to local homes as maids or helpers. Childhood was rarely an enjoyable experience in the 19th century Copper Country.

On settling day, when contract workers received their monthly earnings, men having a boy or two working underground would draw their wages, too, and the boy(s) rarely saw any of their own earnings. This was a common practice throughout the mining region.

By 1912, life (hopefully) began to improve for children across all of Michigan. Michigan had recently passed the child labor bill, making it illegal for children under the age of 16 to work. It was hoped that this would keep more children in school. While it benefitted many children, it outraged many parents. After all, a drill boy working a 10-hour shift underground brought home an extra $10 to $15 per month.

If life was difficult for adults in the Copper Country, it was equally difficult, if not more so, for children, who had no voice in the future of their own lives.