Built by the Quincy Mining Company in Hancock, Michigan, the smelter used heat and chemical processes to turn copper ore into ingots. The ingots were then sold and shipped to factories where they were turned into products such as copper wire or tubing. The Quincy Smelting Works, once a major component of the Quincy Mining Company holdings, is owned by Franklin Township. The smelter complex is unique in the country and, perhaps, the world in the number and types of 19th and early 20th century buildings and landscape features that survive.

The continued survival of these structures is tenuous. Preservation of the complex is proving challenging. Since the final shutdown of the smelter in 1971, little has been done to maintain it. Severe winters and neglect have taken a sizable toll; some buildings have collapsed, others are nearly so. Franklin Township took on the property as a preservation-friendly owner, and has endeavored to find new uses for the historic complex, including simply opening it as a heritage attraction as part of Keweenaw National Historical Park (from http://www.nps.gov/kewe/parkmgmt/quincy-smelter-planning.htm, accessed June 2011).