Ocha Potter was born in 1878 near the eastern shore of Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin. He attended the local rural school and left to attend high school in Fond du Lac. After a stint in the Army for the Spanish-American War, Potter worked several odd jobs, finally securing a job in the Gold Coast Colony in West Africa on diamond drill mine exploration. After contracting malaria, Potter returned to the United States where he enrolled in the Michigan College of Mines (now Michigan Technological University).

While a student at the Michigan College of Mines, Potter was hired to prospect for copper in the Copper River region of Alaska (1905–1908). After several summers in Alaska and the rest of the year in Houghton at school, Potter nearly had enough credit to graduate but as he had gotten married and had a young son, he needed to work. Several years later he was given a degree, the work he had done in mining considered as credit. In the meantime, Potter began working for the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company.

With his college education and former mining experience, Potter soon became mine superintendent at the Superior mine and others, ending up at the Ahmeek mine. With the Great Depression, Potter came to be in charge of state, local and federal relief funds for the Keweenaw Peninsula. As superintendent of Ahmeek Mine, he was familiar with the working men's plight during the Great Depression. He planned many county wide WPA projects, from roadside parks and bridges to the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge, cabins, and golf course. With the start of World War II, Calumet and Hecla began opening mines that had closed. Potter returned to Ahmeek, and was also put in charge of reopening the Seneca mine. He remained at Calumet and Hecla until his retirement in 1948. Ocha Potter passed away in 1955, and is buried in Calumet, Michigan.