Copper Peak: Chippewa Hill
Inscription
At an altitude of more than 1500 feet, 300 feet above the surrounding terrain, this location was the southern-most area in Michigan to offer a prospect of producing copper in commercial amounts. The Chippewa Copper Mining Company began work here in 1845, sinking a still-visible tunnel into the granite rock.
No copper was ever produced, although around 1900 the Old Peak Company made further explorations. In 1970 a 280-foot ski slide, the highest in the world, was completed on the peak in time for the western hemisphere’s first international ski flying tournament here. Skiers record flights of nearly 500 feet from this slide.
Location
Sources
More markers in Gogebic
Ironwood City Hall
Ironwood, MI
This building served as city hall for Ironwood, which was settled in 1885 as the commercial center of the Gogebic iron mining district.
Curry House
Ironwood, MI
Here lived Solomon S. Curry, pioneer in the mining industry of the Ironwood area.
Gogebic Iron Range
Bessemer Township, MI
The Gogebic was the last of the three great iron ore fields opened in the Upper Peninsula and northern Wisconsin.