In 1917, the Copper Range Company paid out just under $4 million in dividends. In 1918, the amount had dropped to just over $2 million. The multi-million dollar dividend payouts had plummeted to $394,775 in 1927. The company’s annual report for 1927 related that:

“Although the yield per rock stamped for each of the mines (Champion, Baltic and Trimountain) is being maintained, the grade of the rock mined is much lower than in former years and for the past year is estimated to average 21 pounds (per ton of rock) at the Champion Mine, 17 pounds at the Baltic and 14 pounds at Trimountain.

The Calumet and Hecla company’s copper lodes had already been in decline for years. Two shafts on the company’s Kearsarge Lode were closed in December 1907, while the third was closed in July 1913. By 1916, the work of removing the shaft pillars and arches was rapidly progressing in five of the shafts on the Hecla Branch of the Conglomerate Lode, and in four shafts on the Calumet Branch.

The Quincy Mining Company, in 1927, reported that its mineral content yielded 23.53 pounds of refined copper per ton, but the cost of mining was over $1,100,000 for the year, as operations that year had begun on the 87th level.

In July, a fire in the No. 2 Shaft broke out on the 53rd level, which closed the mine in an attempt to smother it. It was reopened 10 days later but had damaged the shaft from the 18th level to below the 53rd. The shaft timbers had burned, and part of the shaft caved in. The annual report remarked that the fire left portions of the shaft unprotected, resulting in caving, “causing a serious accident at the 40th level while recovering the shaft.” What general manager Charles Lawton did not include in his report was that the “serious accident” killed seven men. The mine continued experiencing air blasts that resulted in significant damage. Repairs and adopting new mining methods prevented Quincy from returning to normal production until 1929, the year of the stock market crash.

“Operations during 1928 were confined almost entirely to shaft sinking, drifting and recovery of No. 2 Shaft.” Quincy’s president W. Parsons Todd wrote in annual report for 1928, “as the closing of this shaft by the fire last year, together with the caving or crushing of the underground openings, made it advisable to discontinue production and devote every effort to opening the mine as rapidly as possible for operations on the retreating system.”

To secure the necessary funding for the work, Todd wrote, the directors issued more shares, increasing the capital stock from 110,000 to 15,000 shares, which were offered at $12.50 per share.

“The Quincy’s underground operations are at such an unusual depth that necessarily much of it is really pioneering,” Lawton said in his report. The Lake Superior copper mines were showing their age. Although the Pewabic Lode still showed well for mineral content, increasing costs associated with increasing depths, along with the above-mentioned problems, were beginning to place too great a financial strain on the company.

Further aggravating the situation in the Lake Superior copper district, copper mines had been opened up in Utah, Arizona and Montana, states the Copper Country Classified Business and Directory of Houghton and Major Portions of Keweenaw, Ontonagon and Baraga Counties for 1947. The price of the metal dropped very low and at the same time, costs of operation rose as depths of mines increased and more complicated problems of ventilation, hoisting, and other challenges were encountered. Miners and their families left the Copper Country in great numbers, often leaving entire towns deserted, moving to neighboring manufacturing community “by the thousands.”

The directory went on to say that many who remained turned to agriculture, commercial fishing and lumbering for livelihood. Potatoes and strawberries became substantial cash crops in some sections, and dairying, the Directory continues, especially the production of butter and cheese, assumed an important place in others.

“Gradually, a new basic economy began to replace the old one-industry economy,” the directory states.

Although the directory stating this was published in 1947, two years after the end of World War II, the gradual shift in the Lake Superior copper region had already been significantly underway for 30 years.

While the labor strike of 1913 prompted thousands of mine workers to abandon the trade, many left the region for work in the growing auto industry, others found employment in logging camps and lumber yards, while hundreds of others spent their savings on establishing farms. Farming had already been expanding in the region for years.

According to the Lake Superior Farmer magazine for February 1914, on Jan. 3 of that year a meeting of representative farmers from various areas in Houghton County met at the Douglass House to organize the Houghton County Potato Growers Association. Four additional meetings were held within a week in other parts of the county to complete the organization.

According to a timeline of annual reports for the MSU Extension Service compiled by Barb Koski and available on the Stanton Township website the initial organization was begun with 78 members enrolling. The Lake Superior Farmer reported that the association’s officers were Joseph Berirand Sr. of the Pilgrim River area; William Parks, Lake Linden was elected vice president, with John Stone, of Houghton, secretary and treasurer. Each association member was to pay into the treasury 5 cents per bushel for all potatoes sold by the association.

The magazine reported, though, that as of January 1914, farms in Houghton County remained comparatively small, “for the reason that here the improved land as yet averaged less than 35 acres per farm while in counties some of the older farming communities the average exceeds 90 acres.”

The Copper Country was, by 1913, already well on its way to becoming one of the most productive and diversified agricultural regions in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Throughout the next decades, agriculture would continue to dominate the copper region economy.