Skip to main content

Great Lakes Road Trip Day 6 Part 2; M-26 from Copper Harbor to Houghton

As I stated previously in Part 1 of Day 6, I decided to take M-26 back to Houghton despite the incoming storm over Lake Superior.  I don't like to drive in the rain all that much but I hate backtracking even more.  Besides, I wanted to see more of the copper mining ruins on the Keweenaw Peninsula.  The current configuration of M-26 is about 96 miles in length from US 41 in Copper Harbor to US 45 west of Mass City.



M-26 runs along the coast for about 24 miles before meeting US 41 in Phoenix.  The first community M-26 passes through Eagle Harbor which has been inhabited since 1844.  The first large industry in Eagle Harbor was of course copper mining which took place at North American and Eagle Harbor mines.  The community is mostly known for the Eagle Harbor lighthouse which dates back to 1871.


The storm from Copper Harbor finally caught up to me at Great Sand Bay between Eagle Harbor and Eagle River.


I stopped in Eagle River next while the rains were coming down.  Eagle River dates back to the Mid-1840s and had profitable mines until the 1870s.  I stopped to see the Lake Shore Drive Bridge which was built in 1915 and the Eagle River Falls below.  The replacement Eagle River Timber Bridge is an arch span constructed of wood which was opened in 1990.








M-26 intersects US 41 in Phoenix and is multiplexed south to Calumet/Laurium.  Phoenix was the location of the Phoenix Mine which was apparently one of the first big copper mining operations in the 1840s in the Keweenah Peninsula.  Really all that appears to be left of the town is a general store-looking building at the junction of M-26/US 41.






M-26 is multiplexed for 14 miles south to Calumet.  The first community south of Phoenix is Mohawk which appears to be a husk of mining village.






Directly south of Mohawk is the village of Ahmeek.  Ahmeek was a mining town that was estalished in 1904 and was located on the Mineral Range Railroad.  Ahmeek had a high population of about 900 during the height of the copper boom but has declined to less than 200.  Ahmeek actually does have a substantial downtown area to see along 5 Mile Point Road.



South of Ahmeek is the communities of New Allouez and Allouez.  Both appear to be related to the copper mining era but I can't find much of substance on either of them.



South of Allouez is Kearsarge which was founded in 1867 and apparently had active mining activity until the 1920s.


Between Kearsarge and Calumet/Laurium there is a sign for Centennial but I can't find anything written about it.  I'm actually surprised more of these communities aren't covered on websites like ghosttowns.com.






Southbound M-26/US 41 intersects M-203 which comes from the west in Calument.  M-26/US 41 bisects Calumet to the west and Laurium on the right before the former splits from the latter on 3rd Street.








M-26 uses Helca Street and Lake Linden Avenue to traverse downtown Laurium.  Laurium essentially was founded alongside Calumet and actually had the name until 1895.  Laurium was generally considered to be the more upscale and wealthier part of the Calumet/Laurium mining community which is reflective in some of the more ornate surviving homes.  The peak population of Laurium was about 8,500 in 1910 and has declined to about 1,900 today.






M-26 starts to head towards the southeast shoreline of the Keweenaw Peninsula crossing through the community of Florida.  I couldn't find anything written about Florida but it just appears to be an extension of Laurium.





Before entering Lake Liden M-26 travels under an abandoned Railroad overpass.





M-26 turns south on Calumet Street through downtown Lake Linden.  I believe Lake Linden was founded in the 1880s and it appears to almost destroyed in a large fire 1887.  The village had a peak population of about 2,600 at the peak of the copper boom but has declined to about 1,000 today.





South of Lake Linden is Hubbell which I can't find much written on.  The community seems to have a lot in common with Lake Linden with similar buildings dating back to the copper boom.






Tamarack City is directly south of Hubbell which has some ruins of the Quincy Mill.






Approaching Portage Lake is Dollar Bay which was settled in 1887.  Apparently the community used to be known as Clark originally.





Approaching the Portage Lake Lift Bridge is one more community which is known as Ripley.  I don't know much of the history of the town but it was the location of the Quincy Smelter, the Quincy Mine is actually in the hills above.





M-26 meets US 41 at the Portage Lake Lift Bridge in Hancock, both multiplex to cross the Keweenaw Waterway.  As I stated previously the current Portage Lake Lift Bridge dates back to 1959.








M-26 splits from US 41 heading southwest out of the city of Houghton while the latter heads through downtown heading southeast.  I stayed the night in Houghton given that it was fairly late getting out of Isle Royale and Copper Harbor earlier in the day.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

  Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third

Old River Lock & Control Structure (Lettsworth, LA)

  The Old River Control Structure (ORCS) and its connecting satellite facilities combine to form one of the most impressive flood control complexes in North America. Located along the west bank of the Mississippi River near the confluence with the Red River and Atchafalaya River nearby, this structure system was fundamentally made possible by the Flood Control Act of 1928 that was passed by the United States Congress in the aftermath of the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 however a second, less obvious motivation influenced the construction here. The Mississippi River’s channel has gradually elongated and meandered in the area over the centuries, creating new oxbows and sandbars that made navigation of the river challenging and time-consuming through the steamboat era of the 1800s. This treacherous area of the river known as “Turnbull’s Bend” was where the mouth of the Red River was located that the upriver end of the bend and the Atchafalaya River, then effectively an outflow

California State Route 203 the proposed Minaret Summit Highway

California State Route 203 is an approximately nine-mile State Highway located near Mammoth Lakes in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Mono County.  California State Route 203 as presently configured begins at US Route 395, passes through Mammoth Lakes and terminates at the Madera County line at Minaret Summit.  What is now California State Route 203 was added to the State Highway System in 1933 as Legislative Route Number 112.  The original Mammoth Lakes State Highway ended at Lake Mary near the site of Old Mammoth and was renumbered to California State Route 203 in 1964.  The modern alignment of the highway to Minaret Summit was adopted during 1967.   The corridor of Minaret Summit and Mammoth Pass have been subject to numerous proposed Trans-Sierra Highways.  The first corridor was proposed over Mammoth Pass following a Southern Pacific Railroad survey in 1901.  In 1931 a corridor between the Minarets Wilderness and High Sierra Peaks Wilderness was reserved by the Forest Service for po