For the residents of Freda, it was the silence that was the loudest. For almost 65 years, the Champion mine’s stamp mill and reclamation plant, at the base of the Cliff on the lakeshore, had provided a nearly constant background noise that rumbled out into the community, permeating life six days a week, 24 hours a day, except on Sundays. Mill workers had Sundays for church services and to rest.

One day, the rumbling stopped – permanently.

At 7 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 4, 1967, Ray Durocher, master mechanic at the mill, blew the whistle signaling the end of the last work shift, at the mill. The whistle also signaled the end of trains of rock cars coming and going in Freda.

For decades, residents watched Copper Range Railroad trains deliver carloads of mine rock to the top level of the mill, dumping them into storage bins below. The rock was then fed into the stamp heads below, crushing it into a course sand, before passing through ball mills for further pulverizing and separation of copper from the rock. In the bottom level of the mill, finishing processes removed as much of the remaining copper as possible from the pulverized matrix, with a mud-like, copper mess that was then taken via railroad to the smelter at Coles Creek. The mill also served to re-process stamp sands from neighboring mills. It was a noisy operation.

The Champion Copper Company was organized in 1899, in what became Painesdale. In January 1902, the company began stamping its mine rock with one small head at the Atlantic mill, at Redridge. A second head was leased at the Baltic company’s mill in August, 1902. At the same time, Champion was constructing its own mill, at Freda. The Annual Report for 1902 stated that the Champion mill, by that year, had three stamp heads in commission, with a fourth head to become operational in May. By 1905, the mill operated six heads.

While the company was constructing the mill, it also platted the village, installed waterlines, constructed dwellings for workers and their families, and organized a fire department, says the Stanton Township website. By 1910, Freda boasted a population of 500 residents, two churches and, by 1917, a movie theater. The same year, the Catholic church was built. Freda even boasted of a hotel. There was, of course, a saloon.

During the Champion mine’s peak production, the mill received an average of 55 rock cars per day. That ended on Thursday, Nov. 2, when the Copper Range R.R. hauled its last load of material to the mill. But, it wasn’t Champion mine rock. By the 1950s, the copper content of the Champion’s rock had decreased significantly.

In 1911, the Atlantic Mining Company became a subsidiary of the Copper Range Company. The Atlantic, organized in 1872, constructed its first stamp mill on the south shore of Portage Lake, but was abandoned when the company constructed its second mill at Redridge, in 1895.

The Copper Range Newsletter August 1963, reported:

“The old Atlantic Mill, (was) built early in the 1860’s and ceased operations completely in 1895. As might be expected, this mill used primitive tools and processes; mine rock was processed by the old stamp, jig and table methods. Through considerable copper (was) extracted from the rock, much remained that left the mill through the lake launder. Now, however, the modern flotation process makes it possible for these stamp sands to yield copper economically.”

The newsletter went on to say that for several years, sands from the Atlantic and Baltic Mills at Redridge had supplied a sufficient amount of copper to justify their being transported to Freda for processing.

“Lately, however, tests by CR assayist Richard Benbow show that these sands can no longer provide enough return for the effort necessary to extract the copper,” the report states. “For this reason the company has turned to the sands left at the original Atlantic Mill site on the banks of Portage Lake, west of the Bosch Brewery.”

The Gregoire Construction Company of Lake Linden was contracted to load the Atlantic sands into railroad cars for shipment by rail to Freda Mill, about 20 rail cars shipped daily, seven days a week. By that year, though (1963), the Atlantic sands, combined with Champion’s rock, were ample evidence that the Copper Range’s days were numbered.

“The mill is now operating on a 50-50 basis,” the newsletter reported, “half mine rock from Painesdale and half sands from the old mill sites.”

The December 1967 CR newsletter reported dryly: “The last skipload of ore was removed from Champion Mine in Painesdale and loaded in cars for the trip to Freda, September 11. With copper-bearing rock so poor as to be unprofitable to extract, the mine had to be closed.”

After the mill closed, in November, many of Freda’s residents were compelled to move from the mill town and seek employment elsewhere. Many others, however remained, amidst the absence of the rumbling of the mill. Not long after, they would see the removal of the processing plant. The Copper Range Railroad abandoned its trackage to Freda and the tracks that once carried Champion rock and Atlantic sands to the mill were removed in 1971. The following year, the mill was dismantled for scrap metal, leaving only concrete slabs and foundations.