The Northern Michigan Railroad Company was organized under Charles A. Wright in 1888. The company intended to build a railroad from Houghton to Watersmeet in order to improve rail connections to the Copper Country and open the South Range to mining. A charter was obtained from the State of Michigan and a survey of the planned route was carried out in 1889-1890, but the company was unable to procure funding for construction.

In 1898, Wright reached an agreement with a group of Boston financiers led by William A. Paine to create the Copper Range Railroad Company to replace the Northern Michigan Railroad Company. Prior to the formal organization of the company in January 1899, Chief Engineer J. Thomas Appleton began surveying the new main line from Houghton to Mass City. Time was of the essence, as the St. Mary's Canal Mineral Land Company promised to donate 2,240 acres of land to the railroad if it was completed by the end of 1899.

Construction of the main line began in May 1899 and finished in December 1899, just before the deadline. The line connected with the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway (better known as the Milwaukee Road) at Range Junction (later renamed McKeever). This would later become the terminus of the line.

Despite the completion of the main line, extensive construction continued. The Painesdale Branch opened in 1900, providing rail service to the new mining towns of Baltic, Trimountain, and Painesdale. In the following year, the Lakeshore Branch (sometimes called the Freda Branch) connected the mill towns in Stanton Township. The small Greenland Branch leading to the Greenland and Adventure Mines was also completed in 1901. In 1902-1903, the Calumet Extension expanded the Copper Range Railroad north to Calumet via Lake Linden.

The final major construction project was the 1914 Painesdale Extension, which allowed the main line to be rerouted through the former Painesdale Branch.

In 1917, the Copper Range Railroad Company leased the Mohawk and Traverse Bay Railroad (later known as the Gay Branch) from the Mohawk Mining Company in 1917. In order to connect this with the main line, a portion of the Keweenaw Central Railroad Company's line was also leased. With this addition, the Copper Range Railroad reached its largest size.

The decline of copper mining starting in the 1920s hit the Copper Range Railroad hard. In 1928, passenger service ended and in March 1935, the Copper Range Railroad Company declared bankruptcy.

With the assistance of federal loans from the Railroad Credit Corporation (RCC) and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), the railroad successfully reorganized by 1938 (for a detailed chronology of the bankruptcy and reorganization proceedings, see Box 92, Folder 3). In order to further cut costs, the Greenland Branch was abandoned in 1939.

The Second World War saw a revival of business for the railroad and a passenger service was even briefly restarted. Following the end of the war, the railroad continued its financial decline.

In 1960, the Atlas Powder Company plant at Senter closed. As a result, the Senter Branch was abandoned in 1964, along with the rarely used Gay Branch. But this was a small setback compared with the closing of the Champion Mine and Mill in 1967. The end of copper mining in the South Range indicated the beginning of the end for the Copper Range Railroad.

The ending was drawn out by the need to obtain permission from the Interstate Commerce Commission for abandonment. In 1969, the Lakeshore Branch was abandoned. The final regular trains on the main line ran in 1972 and the entire line was abandoned the following year.

In 1974, the railroad right-of-way from Houghton to McKeever was sold to the State of Michigan and became the Bill Nicholls Snowmobile Trail. The Houghton to Calumet and Lakeshore Branch rights-of-way were also included in the deal.

The Copper Range Railroad Company officially dissolved in 1980.

For a listing of Copper Range Railroad Company directors and officers, see the Appendix.