Calumet & Hecla, Inc. - 100 Pieces!

Company History: Calumet & Hecla Consolidated Copper is the result of the merger in 1871 of two mining companies, the Calumet and the Hecla. Under the direction of Alexander Agassiz, Swiss born and a Harvard educated scientist, the firm became the dominant mining company in the Copper Range. This range is in the Keweenaw Peninsula, approximately fifty miles long and fifteen miles wide, and lies at the northernmost tip of Michigan. It forms a narrow spine along which some four hundred copper mining companies operated between 1872 and 1920. Calumet became the most civilized community in the Copper Country. Thousands of immigrants, mostly from Europe, poured into the area between 1845 and 1910. Experienced miners from the copper mines in Cornwall, England, then the world leader in production, arrived. C&H provided low cost housing for the miners, and built schools, a library, a hospital, a bowling alley, community bathhouse and pool.

In the 1870s Calumet & Hecla mined 50 percent of the nation’s copper. By the turn of the century, the company employed over five thousand men, produced in excess of 80 million pounds of copper annually and declared stock dividends of $10 million in 1899 alone. The surface plant was called the most efficient in the nation, with 50 steam engines operating in the late 1890s. The Red Jacket shaft, at more than 8,000 feet deep, was the deepest in the world. Washington implemented the Keweenaw National Historical Park legislation in October, 1992.

Indian around a campfire by American Bank Note. Mixture of Red and Green colors. Exceptional graphics and a very popular copper mining company. 100 Pieces.