Early mining ventures created the housing communities in which their workers worked, lived, and often died. They had no choice: There was no existing housing on the frontier when mining and exploration began in the 1840s. But, moving into the mid-20th century, the successful companies were in rapid decline, and were no longer financially able to support their communities as they once had.

Throughout the Copper Country, populations continued to decline in proportion to the number of industrial jobs that were eliminated as more mines closed. By the end of World War II, many of the mines that had been producing copper in 1940 were defunct, including the Quincy, Globe and Isle Royale mines. The Great Depression had already claimed others that closed and never reopened.

In 1947, the Copper Country Classified Business and Professional Directory for Baraga, Houghton, Keweenaw and Ontonagon counties stated:

“While copper mining remains significant to the region’s economy, the economic development of the entire region has broadened to include forest products, agriculture, a rapidly growing tourist industry, commercial fishing and general industrial activities.”

The directory summed up 100 years of the Copper Country’s story in one paragraph, although with some slight exaggerations:

“One of the oldest copper producing districts in the world, it was the first American field of any importance to be discovered, and the only place where native, or mass copper has ever been found in any considerable quantity. At one the time, the Michigan district set the world prices for the ore, because it produced more than half of the entire world’s supply, but in recent years production has decreased sharply due to the depletion of some of the mines, to increased operating costs as greater depths were reached, and to number other factors such a strong migratory movement of labor away from the mines toward the automobile manufacturing centers.”

There were, however, positive changes over the years.

By the end of World War II, the days of 10-12 hour work shifts and six-day work weeks were long gone; Copper Country residents, for the most part, had more leisure time, and money to enjoy it.

“Tennis and bowling are year-round activities in several communities,” the directory boasted, “with baseball a popular seasonal game.”

Houghton County boasted a number of golf courses. Keweenaw County listed one, as did Ontonagon County.

The 1947 directory reads more like a modern-day community Master Plan than a telephone book. Perhaps it was the predecessor of modern-day Master Plans, as it mentioned the existence of something called the Copper Country Regional Planning Commission.

The planning commission worked with county, state and federal agencies to expand and diversify industrial and economic development across the four counties, as well as to expand agricultural programs. It was a firm statement that the mining companies no longer controlled the Copper Country.

In 1953, Ebasco Services, of New York, published the Engineering Study of the Economic Resources of the Michigan Upper Peninsula, for the Michigan Economic Development Commission. Among other topics, the study examined new ways of keeping the Copper Country from becoming an enormous ghost town. The commission was just one of a growing number of such organizations that would become a hallmark of regional and state-wide development commissions studying all levels of society.

“The work of the Commission’s Upper Peninsula Advisory Committee, comprised of leading figures in business and industry there (it did not name them), pointed to, late in 1951, the need for a peninsula-wide industrial program in that area,” the report stated. “It was suggested that a sound engineering study for economic data pertaining to the Upper Peninsula would indicate the potential for future development.”

The report included the assets and liabilities of the entire Upper Peninsula.

“The greatest single asset in the Upper Peninsula,” the study found, “is the character of the people themselves. They are adaptable to new methods, have excellent attitudes towards their jobs and have a record of high productivity per worker in many industrial fields. The people have their roots deeply imbedded in their communities in the Upper Peninsula. In times of low labor demands in outside metropolitan centers, the workers originating from the Upper Peninsula invariably return in great numbers to their home communities.”

Among the liabilities listed was that while the Upper Peninsula’s geography created a strong land link with areas like Milwaukee, Chicago, Minneapolis and Duluth. However, better transportation ties with the Lower Peninsula were in dire need. Considering the number of Upper Peninsula residents who had relocated to downstate manufacturing and industrial centers, this may have sounded like a good idea to many who desired returning to the are for vacation or for holidays.

The study also found that due to a lack of financial management and marketing skills, a lack of local large business in the region had become too dependent on outside business concerns, which caused a sense of “defeatism, which is prevalent in some regions of the area.”

The continual yearly loss of the younger people to other areas was reported as a major problem, adding that “the glamor of jobs in metropolitan centers is seriously draining this vital element of the labor pool.”

The Minerals Yearbook for 1955 reported that, in spite of Calumet and Hecla’s Centennial and North Kearsarge mines, Houghton County ranked third of the three copper producing counties. Keweenaw County ranked second, again owing to C&H, which operated the Ahmeek, Allouez, Douglas, Iroquois, and Seneca mines. Ontonagon County, with the White Pine mine, ranked first.

Older Copper Country residents were keenly aware that these mines would not live much longer, and many of the younger males, recently having graduated from high school, or soon to graduate, did not relish the thought of working thousands of feet underground in jobs that held no hope for advancement or promotion.

Because mining is, as it always was, a physically demanding job, the Copper Country was always a young man’s job, as was logging. Work, and life in larger cities and towns lured the young, many of whom saw the Copper Country as old, worn out, and long past its prime. For the younger residents, the Copper Country in the mid-1950s, appeared to be a place of little promise and no future.