The Copper Range Consolidated Company began operations south of Houghton, Michigan in 1899. Unlike most of the other Upper Peninsula copper mines that existed at the time, Copper Range began its life with a huge influx of capital from eastern banking interests. According to William A. Paine, the first president of Copper Range, and a principal at Paine, Webber & Co., the two major goals were to build a railroad to serve the existing mines and to successfully run their own mining operations. The company succeeded on both fronts by quickly building the railroad and acquiring controlling interests in the Baltic, Trimountain, and Champion mines. Soon Copper Range was the third largest copper producer on the Keweenaw Peninsula.
By the time that the Champion Mine closed for good in 1967, Copper Range had established itself as one of the truly great copper mining companies. Its significant contributions to copper production, technological advancements, and worker employment produced lasting impacts to Michigan’s copper mining legacy. Although Copper Range demolished most of its industrial structures after mining operations ceased, the company transferred the Champion #4 shaft-rockhouse structure and several support buildings to Adams Township to continue to maintain the municipal water pumps that lay deep within the mine. Eventually though, after nearly 100 years of service to the community, Adams Township determined that Champion #4 was no longer needed.
In 1996, as Adams Township discussed demolition plans for Champion #4, a group of local citizens formed the non-profit organization Painesdale Mine and Shaft, Inc. (PM&S) with a stated mission to save the structure and share its story with future generations. The group successfully convinced the township board to transfer ownership of Champion #4 and the adjacent support buildings to the newly formed organization. While PM&S’s early projects focused largely on keeping the weather and vandals at bay, the group accelerated its efforts over the last ten years. Our volunteers completed several significant structural repairs, removed asbestos contamination, removed invasive vegetation, improved the site’s accessibility, installed interpretive signs, and started a series of regular guided tours that include the upper levels of the shaft-rockhouse. Recently, the National Park Service recognized the organization’s efforts by making PM&S and the former Champion properties an official Heritage Site partner of Keweenaw National Historical Park.
For more information about the history of the shaft house, please visit our old website. Although the information for our organization is outdated, the history of the shaft house is not. Kevin Musser, who was a great help to our organization had created the website many years ago, and it is left up in his memory.