Courtesy of Swedetown Trails The Swedetown Trails, and its chalet, are two accomplishments by Calumet Township that former Township Supervisor Paul Lehto is proud to have been a part of. A portion of the funding for the chalet was provided by a $100,000 grant obtained by then-state Rep. Rusty Hellman.

CALUMET TOWNSHIP — In the 50 years since Paul Lehto entered public service, Calumet Township has experienced many changes and much progress. When Universal Oil Products purchased the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company (C&H) in 1968, the township began its transition from a community largely controlled by the company to a self-sustaining, progressive township.

From fall 1972 until September 2019, Lehto served as Calumet Township supervisor. At the end of this month, he is retiring and stepping down from the boards he remains on, including his position as trustee on the township board and chairman of the North Houghton County Water & Sewer Authority (NHCWSA) and the Michigan Township Participating Plan. For the past 35 years, he was on that board.

Lehto became the township’s supervisor just four years after C&H suspended its operations and sold its Michigan holdings.

“Not too many people have stuck around for 50 years,” he said.

Reflecting on his half a century in public service, Lehto recalled some 51 projects the township took on, which averages about one a year, which includes the NHCWSA and purchasing the Calumet Colosseum, the curling facility next to the Public Schools of Calumet, Laurium & Keweenaw, and Lions Park.

When he became supervisor, Calumet Township had 1,700 homes on leased company-owned land, he said.

“When I took over, C&H owned everything,” he said. “They even owned the land your house sat on.”

The township platted 1,500 property lots, which allowed the people to buy their property.

While Lehto will not take credit for initiating the projects, he did say he worked on most of them.

“The trouble is,” he said, “is there is a big story behind each one. That’s the trouble.”

For example, the township organized the NHCWSA in 1972 because the three villages (Calumet, Laurium and Copper City) owned their individual sewer systems and they were patchwork, he said. Other systems were owned by water companies and the township purchased and consolidated all of them into the NHCWSA, Lehto said.

“That was a big project that had to be done between Laurium, Calumet, Osceola Township, Calumet Township,” he said.

One of the projects the township took on, Lehto said, that nobody knows they did, was to combine the fire water system and the potable water system.

John Sullivan came to Lehto’s office one day and suggested joining the two, saying that in doing so, the township would increase its water capacity.

Lehto said with a chuckle: “I said, ‘John, you’ve finally lost it.'”

The project involved constructing a new water tank on Swedetown Hill and installing two water pumps at the Lake Superior shore.

The biggest part of the project, Lehto said, was they needed to clean out every fire hydrant in the township, because they were not suitable for potable water.

Another big project was extending a new water line to Phillipsville, which was done with a $200,000 grant made available by then-state Rep. Rusty Hellman.

The Swedetown Ski Trails project is another example. Lehto said the township now owns 3,000 acres, acquiring the properties over a period of several years.

There are other projects Lehto mentioned, but like he said, “there is a story behind each one.” Lehto’s accomplishments are not confined to township business.

A 1957 graduate of Calumet High School, Lehto was elected president of the Wolverine Athletic Club when he was just 14 years old. At 16, he was playing and coaching in the Calumet Hockey Association.

From 1962 until 1972, he played for and coached Wolverine in the Copper Country Intermediate Hockey League and the CLK Wolverines in the Northern Michigan-Wisconsin Hockey League. He got the position, he said, because he could shovel more snow than anybody else. In 2014, he was inducted into the Calumet High School Athletics Hall of fame, which recognizes outstanding accomplishments in athletics.

Eighty-four years after his birth, Lehto still lives in the home where he was born.

“I was born in the room right behind that (living room) wall right there,” he said. “My sister came here one time and said ‘if you die in that room, you can die in the same room you were born in.'”

When his two older brothers were 14 and 16 years old, he said with a laugh, they installed an indoor toilet in what was, until then, his bedroom.

In his span of 50 years as supervisor, the township acquired the Calumet Township Fire Department from C&H, along with Coppertown Museum property, the former C&H drill shop and installed new lights and concrete floors where the Curling Club is now located. In addition, the township also acquired the old Michigan State Police Post, the Wolverine Baseball Field, and the old C&H No. 2 Warehouse.

At a Meet the Developers meeting in Calumet Village this past April, Jeff Ratcliffe, Executive Director of the Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance, told attendees that Calumet has a base economy much larger than most people realize, adding that today Calumet Township has more than one-third of the manufacturing technology employment in the three-county Keweenaw Peninsula.

Lehto had a significant role in preparing Calumet Township for the growth.