Houghton, Michigan

Houghton, Michigan is the county seat of Houghton County, Michigan and largest city in the Copper Country. The city is located on the south shore of Portage Lake, primarily on the slope of a hill on the opposite side of the Portage Lake valley from Hancock. Portage Lake separates Copper Island, which is often mistakenly referred to as part of the Keweenaw Peninsula, from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan; both ends of the lake connect to Lake Superior. Houghton is named after Douglass Houghton, discoverer of copper nearby (though there is evidence indigenous peoples had mined copper in the area thousands of years before).

Many Cornish and Finnish immigrants arrived in the Houghton area to work in the copper mines; both groups have had a great influence on the culture and cuisine of the local area.

In the East Houghton neighbourhood is East Houghton Park, and along Portage Lake is the Raymond Kestner Waterfront Recreation Area, the principal feature of which is a large "Chutes and Ladders" playground. Also in the waterfront area is the Houghton RV Park. Veterans Park is just across the Portage Lake Lift Bridge from Hancock, and contains the memorial to the Houghton Company, which fought in the Civil War.

The last nearby mines closed in the late 1960s, but a school founded in 1885 by the Michigan State Legislature to teach metallurgy and mining engineering, the Michigan College of Mines, continues today under the name of Michigan Technological University and is the primary employer in the city.

The first settler of Houghton was named Ransom Sheldon, who set up a store named Ransom's near Portage Lake.

William W. Henderson was appointed the first postmaster of Houghton in 1852.

In 1854 Ernest F. Pletschke platted Houghton, which was incorporated as a village in 1861. In Houghton's first days it was said that "only thieves, crooks, murderers and Indians" lived there.

In 1883 the railroad was extended from Marquette.

In 1913 there was a bitter strike of copper miners in the area that the police attempted to violently repress. The Michigan National Guard was called in after the sheriff petitioned the governor.

Houghton was the birthplace of professional ice hockey in the United States when the Portage Lakers were formed in 1899. Houghton is the home of the Portage Lake Pioneers Senior Hockey Team. The team's home ice is Dee Stadium, named after James R. Dee. Dee Stadium was originally called the Amphidrome, before it was severely damaged in a 1927 fire. (The stadium also contains a ballroom and a skate park for skateboarding.)

In the winter of 2001 among the first lumitalos to be constructed in the United States was built in Houghton.

Source: Maki, Wilbert, "Hockey finals here?" (letter to the editor), The Daily Mining Gazette, January 27, 2001.

External link: City of Houghton -- History