Calumet and Hecla Mining Company Smelter Correspondence

Collection — Box: 1

Identifier: MS-263

Staff Only

Collection Scope and Content Summary

Correspondence, 1899-1913, consisting of exchanges between James Cooper, the superintendent of the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company's smelter in Lake Linden, Michigan and H.Y. Bassett, a Calumet and Hecla Mining Company executive from the East Coast offices. The letters, including reports, address metallurgical issues as well as the results of comparative testing of Michigan copper versus copper from other regions as used by consumers of copper.

Dates

1899-1913

Access

Available for use in the Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections.

Biography

The Calumet and Hecla Consolidated Copper Company was the most successful corporation to have mined native copper in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Through nearly a century of mining activity, the company produced in excess of 4.5 billion pounds of refined copper and issued over $200 million in shareholder dividends. Unlike many of its competitors along the Keweenaw Peninsula, Calumet and Hecla successfully expanded its operations over several separate mineral bodies, developed capital-intensive ancillary industrial facilities, explored diversified non-mining enterprises, and remained a significant mining corporation at the national and international level well past the district’s most productive era.