Calumet and Hecla Mining Companies Drawings Collection

Collection — Multiple Containers

Identifier: MS-005

Staff Only

Collection Scope and Content Summary

Drawings, 1871-1970, of the Calumet and Hecla Mining Companies. Contains hand sketches, tracings, blueprints and related manuscript items as well as a card index created by the company. Includes more than 80,000 engineering and architectural drawings gathered by the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company during its active life as a copper mining company in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula. Much of the machinery was built in-house at Calumet and Hecla and they also had need of maps of both aboveground and underground for the layout of buildings, mine shafts and railroads. For all machinery ordered from other manufacturers, Calumet and Hecla needed drawings of the buildings for this machinery, the foundations for it, and as years went by, alterations and repairs to it that were carried out with the company's capabilities. Occasionally Calumet and Hecla bought machinery, or brought it from other mines and made drawings for future use. In addition, the collection includes significant documentation of nonindustrial structures and sites such as company housing, public parks, schools, and libraries, municipal water and sewer systems, and local churches.

Dates

1871-1970

Access

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

Biography

Calumet and Hecla, Inc., 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.

Extent

655 Cubic Feet (45 boxes, 320 map drawers)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

Drawings, 1871-1970, of the Calumet and Hecla Mining Companies. Contains hand sketches, tracings, blueprints and related manuscript items as well as a card index created by the company. Includes more than 80,000 engineering and architectural drawings gathered by the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company during its active life as a copper mining company in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula. Much of the machinery was built in-house at Calumet and Hecla and they also had need of maps of both aboveground and underground for the layout of buildings, mine shafts and railroads. For all machinery ordered from other manufacturers, Calumet and Hecla needed drawings of the buildings for this machinery, the foundations for it, and as years went by, alterations and repairs to it that were carried out with the company's capabilities. Occasionally Calumet and Hecla bought machinery, or brought it from other mines and made drawings for future use. In addition, the collection includes significant documentation of non-industrial structures and sites such as company housing, public parks, schools, and libraries, municipal water and sewer systems, and local churches.

General Physical Description note

655.0 cubic feet: 45 boxes, 320 map drawers

Processing History

Elizabeth Russell, 4/23/2010

Notes from NHPRC 2009 Preservation Survey

Index files: some higher, some lower on scale of condition, 3 represents an overall look; foxing, damaged spines, fire damage, brittle paper, loose material.