Graham Jaehnig/Daily Mining Gazette The former Calumet and Hecla Mining Company No.1 Warehouse, last occupied by Rowe Moving and Storage, will become a multi-park storage facility.

CALUMET TOWNSHIP — A warehouse constructed by the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company in the late 19th century will again become a warehouse of sorts, not for mining wares, but for a number of parks under the National Park Service.

Wyndeth Davis, director of the National Keweenaw Historical Park (KNHP) said that the project of converting the former C&H Warehouse No.1 has been under way for several years, and upon project completion, the brick-facade structure will serve as a multi-park curitorial storage facility.

KNHP is in the process of working together with the Isle Royale National Park and the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, and long with the National Park Service’s Denver Service Center on the project. The Denver Service Center handles all of the construction contracts for the NPS, said Davis.

“We’ve been working on getting to a point where we can have a general design that we can all agree on,” Davis said, “so that (contractors) can go forward to the next step and start putting drawings together showing where all the light sockets and outlets and what-have-you go.”

The project managers are also working with the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) to ensure that renovations and any alterations to building not only preserves the artifacts that will be housed in the structure, also preserves the building itself and the landscape it sits on, she said.

The warehouse was constructed by the mining company in 1893-1894 to consolidate its scattered supplies and to centralize ordering and distribution.

The NPS Cultural Landscape Inventory of the structure states that the property is of historical value and historical significance. The landscape retains its integrity because of the extant landscape characteristics and features from the period of significance (1864-1930), based on its proximity to the Calumet conglomerate lode and the associated C&H Mining Company buildings and structures constructed before 1930.

The inventory goes on to state that the warehouse property possesses the aspect of (historical) setting for the period of significance due to the visible connection with structures constructed by C&H Mining Company. They include the C&H General Office Building (now KNHP headquarters), the Agassiz House, the C&H Library, C&H Warehouse Number Two, the C&H Paint Shop (which has been substantially altered), the C&H Pattern Shop and the C&H Man Shaft House site.

Davis did not mention a predicted completion date for the project.