Paula Porter, for the Gazette Calumet's 6th street was the site of a big celebration Saturday to mark the villages 150th anniversary.

CALUMET — The Village of Calumet celebrated its 150th anniversary with a block party downtown Saturday. The celebration had a section of 6th Street blocked off with around 20 vendors and food trucks and live music at the end of the street. Free ice cream was distributed and adults could support the Calumet Fire Department by at the beer tent.

The community came together to put on the event according to Calumet Village Manager Megan Haselden. She said the celebration was held in partnership with the Calumet Theater with community volunteers and the CLK schools and football team provided assistance.

“It’s just really been an outpouring of community that’s very special to see in today’s times,” Haselden said. She added she was proud and honored to be able to serve as the village manager during such a historic year. Calumet’s theater is also celebrating 125 years, and recently installed its chandelier. Calumet Village President Pro Tempore Pamela Que pointed out the community’s history was also being honored with the Quincy Mine Hoist Association in attendance.

The Association’s booth had a game for attendees with an opportunity learn a little about the mining history of the area. Executive director of the Quincy Mine Hoist Association Tom Wright displayed and occasionally demonstrated a 1920’s Chicago Pneumatic one-man drill, which would have been utilized by miners in Calumet. He gave attendees a history of the area. “When you look at the history of mining communities, generally what you see is a boom and bust cycle, and we’re no different up here,” Wright said. “At one time there were over 40,000 people in Calumet and the surrounding area. And nowadays, when you look at the township and the village of Calumet, you’re looking at around 2,000 people or so.”

Wright said boom and bust cycles have decimated some mining areas, however Michigan Tech and the diversification of small light industries kept the area going since the 1960’s, though the mining history is still alive in memory. Wright said a dozen men came up to the display and shared they ran similar tools in nearby mines or they knew of the equipment from when their parents or grandparents worked in the nearby mines.

While the past was a large focus, Que said the village is also celebrating its future setting a precedence by bringing families into the village. “I mean, look at the children that are here,” she said.

Among those in attendance was State Rep. Greg Markkanen, R-Hancock. “Downtown Calumet here is alive and it’s buzzing,” Markkanen said. “We’re right here in the heart of the Keweenaw. The street is full, and I don’t think it’s gonna stop for a long time here. Calumet was kind of the heart of the copper mining era in the Keweenaw, even before the gold rush in California. The copper mining brought in billions and billions of dollars and really created a neighborhood and just a wonderful climate up here for people to stay and raise a family and start a farm and start a business, and multiple generations are still here today, so I think it has says a lot about their longevity.”

Markkanen participated in a march accompanied by the Michigan Tech to the end of the street where he read a tribute to the village’s first 150 years of Keweenaw history put together by he and Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Wacedah. The tribute highlighted the minerals which attracted the mining industry to the area and complimented the people who moved to the area to become miners.

“At the heart of it all was the C & H Mining Company, an industrial Titan that made the Keweenaw the globe’s leading copper producer at the time,” Markkanen read. “The town’s population swelled from people from all corners of the world: Finns, Cornish, Italians, Croatian immigrants, who brought with them vibrant tapestry of cultures, languages, traditions. They built churches, schools, homes, turning a frontier settlement into a thriving city with a population that rivaled some of the largest of the state.”

The tribute also mentioned the architecture of the city and the decline of the mining industry, but ended on Calumet’s resilience. “The mines closed one by one, accumulating in the closure of the last major mine in 1968,” Markkanen read. “The population dwindled, leaving behind the powerful architecture and the ghosts of a bygone era. Yet Calumet’s story did not end there. Its resilience, forged in the depths of the mine, has allowed it to endure. The town has embraced its past, preserving its unique history as part of the Keweenaw National Historical Park. The once bustling streets now tell a story of both industrial triumph and human cost of progress. Today, Calumet stands as a living museum, a monument to the thousands of brave souls who came here to the rugged corner of Michigan and built something extraordinary, leaving behind a legacy that will forever be etched in copper.”

Markkanen then handed the tribute to Haselden, who said she thinks everyone at the celebration was proof Calumet was back. “We are here. We are growing. We’re gonna continue to grow. This is the best tiny village in the state of Michigan,” she said.

A firework display light up the sky at dusk although the block party carried on until 11 p.m.