As Calumet Prepares to celebrate its 150th anniversary as a village, it has attracted thousands of people to its businesses, recreational trails and festivals including the annual Pasty Fest which continues to increase in popularity and attendance every year. (Graham Jaehnig/Daily Mining Gazette)

CALUMET — Calumet Village Manager Megan Haseldenis is currently in the beginning stage of planning events for the upcoming sesquicentennial of the incorporation of the village. She is also in the process of forming the sesquicentennial committee. She said the 150th anniversary celebrations throughout 2025, because it will take that long to focus on the more significant events in the village’s history.

On Sept. 21, 2023, Calumet recognized the 100th anniversary of Agassiz Park, located on Fourth Street, by conducting a community day.

Haselden was the organizer of the event. At the time, she said that while the event was to offer community members an opportunity to connect and visit, it was also organized to reach out to village residents for their thoughts and opinions on the village’s update of its master plan.

It was not a coincidence that an event to look at the master plan was combined with an Agassiz Park anniversary celebration. The park is significant to the village’s history on several levels.

It is a physical connection between the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company and the surrounding community that C&H President, Alexander Agassiz was responsible for building. Originally established by Agassiz in the early 1870s as a buffer between the mining company’s surface plant operations and the rapidly growing village, it was originally called Calumet Common by Agassiz. It was used as pasturage for cows belonging to company employees. It was also used a public baseball field and other other recreational community events. Agassiz was C&H’s president until his death in 1910. His son, Rodolphe, subsequently assumed the position. It was Rodolphe who coneived the idea of converting Calumet Common into a park to memorialize his father.

The park was dedicated on September 26, 1923. Over the century, the park has been reduced in size to make room for parking along Fourth Street, a football and track field, and a housing project. A large statue of Agassiz that stood in the park has been relocated, but the park is still an important part of the village.

Mining near the village of Calumet stopped when the last shaft on C&H’s Conglomerate copper lode was capped in 1939, but C&H continued mining in the area until 1968.

As a result, the village, along with its population, experienced significant decline. Many of the historic buildings in the village were eventually abandoned, were neglected, became blighted, and some have been demolished.

But in 2016, a revitalization campaign, Bring Back Calumet, was launched when the Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance brought together a group of stakeholders to find solutions to Calumet’s ongoing issues.

The project grew from updating blight enforcement ordinances to hosting volunteer-based, community-supported historic building preservation efforts and assisting developers with packaging façade- and whole-building renovation projects.

The collaboration has inspired more investment in Calumet including more than ten building rehabilitations completed or underway with three more planned, at least four new businesses opened and at least six historic buildings acquired and stabilized.

On May 4, 2023, the Bring Back Calumet Initiative task force was awarded a 2023 Michigan Governor’s Awards for Historic Preservation. The awardees were the Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance (KEDA), village of Calumet, Calumet Downtown Development Authority (DDA), Main Street Calumet, the Houghton County Land Bank Authority, Keweenaw National Historical Park (KNHP), and Keweenaw National Historical Park Advisory Commission.

Historian Arthur Thurner, in May, 1975, wrote:

“The village’s history can be divided into origins (1867-1875), development (1875-1897), prosperity and expansion (1897-1913), labor strike (1913-1914), prosperity, depression and wartimes (1914-1945), and decline followed by new directions (1945 to present).”

As Calumet celebrates its past this year, it is also taking steps to ensure that is present is also its future.