In the late 1840s, John R. Grout (1806-1882) convinced people connected with the brass manufacturing industry in Waterbury, Connecticut to back his plans for a copper smelter in Detroit to handle copper from Lake Superior. This was the Waterbury and Detroit Copper Company which was organized and built the Detroit smelter in 1850.

In 1860, the Portage Lake Smelting Works were built by the Bigelow group of investors. Seven years later, it consolidated with the Waterbury and Detroit Copper Company as the Detroit and Lake Superior Copper Company.

The Detroit smelter was closed in 1887, the same year that the Bigelow group founded the Tamarack-Osceola Copper Manufacturing Company. This new company constructed the Dollar Bay Smelting Works the following year. In 1891, it merged with the Detroit and Lake Superior Copper Company to create the jointly owned Lake Superior Smelting Company.

The Bigelow group bought out the interests of the Detroit and Lake Superior Copper Company in 1898 and took sole control of the Lake Superior Smelting Company. Ownership of the company was included in the sale of the Bigelow group's mining interest in Michigan to the Calumet & Hecla Mining Company in 1909. C & H finally dissolved the company in 1924.

John R. Grout was General Manager of the Waterbury and Detroit Copper Company and its successors from its founding until his death in 1882. He was succeeded by his longtime associate James R. Cooper (1829-1906).