Resources

Digital Archive Additions for 2025

Several hundred Copper Range Company documents were scanned over the 2025 Winter. This collection covers a large range of topics. These documents come from both the Painesdale Mine & Shaft’s and the Copper Range Historical Society’s collections. Below is a listing of the individual document headings. A more detailed, curated list with descriptions can be viewed by going to:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h95I-7IxMF4ngVw8u7adsWkkEjmyX6Gc/view?usp=drive_link
Here is a link to the files themselves:

• Atlantic Mine Stamp Labor c 1889-1896
• Atlantic Mine Underground Labor c 1872
• Atlantic Mine Stamp Labor 1874 – 1876
• Atlantic Mine Surface Labor 1880 – 1881
• Atlantic Mine Surface Labor 1888 – 1895
• Atlantic Mine Stope Contracts May – June 1880
• Atlantic Mine Underground Labor c 1879 – 1881
• Freight at Atlantic Dock c. 1887-1889
• Champion Mine Semi-Monthly Contracts Drifting & Raising July 1944
• Champion Mine Semi-Monthly Contracts for Underground Stoping 1944
• Trimountain Computation Book #2: Underground c.September 1903
• Trimountain Computation Book #3: Underground c. November 1903
• Trimountain Computation Book #4: Stopes c. December 1903
• Trimountain Computation Book #5: Stopes c. December 1903 – January 1904
• Trimountain Computation Book #10: c. November, 1905
• Trimountain Computation Book #11: c. November December 1904
• Book #14 Globe Mine Computations: c. April, 1905
• Trimountain Computation Book #21: c. 1907
• Trimountain Computation Book #117: c. 1912
• Trimountain Computation Book #126: c. 1916
• Trimountain Computation Book #131: c. 1919
• Computation Book Summary Pages 01 c. Undated
• Computation Book Summary Pages 02 c. 1904
• Copper Range Bus Company Monthly Hour Records for Bus Drivers c. 1944
• Champion Mine Time Account Books c. 1923
• Champion Mine Time Account Books c. 1929
• South Pewabic Mine Payroll Ledger, c. 1867 – 1870
• Champion Mine Report of Locomotive Inspection c. 1929
• Atlantic Mine Miners Supplies c.1889-1898
• Central Mining Company Cost Sheets c. 1885
• Recapitalization
• Partial Book #1: Product Orders Placed Unknown Company c. 1877
• Partial Book #2: Records of purchases for unnamed company c. 1872
• White Pine Payroll c. 1915
• Correspondence – Maple Syrup Barrel Acquisition c. 1932
• Invoices – Field Bags & Packs c. 1934
• Invoice – Brunswick Pin Setter c. 1937
• Champion Mine Contract Labor Sheets c. 1966
• Champion Stamp Mill Conical Mill Report c. 1919
• Champion Mill Boiler Reports c. 1917
• Report on Employee Injury – Mike Cherkowski c. 1921
• Water System Use Charts c. 1922
• Champion Copper Company Daily Rock House Running c. 1932
• Daily Pumping Report – Water Works Pump c. 1937
• Daily Pumping Report – 7 1/4” x 36” Prescott Duplex Pump No 133
• Prescott Duplex Pump No 253 c 1937
• CRC – Lease for a Dwelling c. 1947
• CRC Worker Injury Compensation – Nick Maki
• CRC Employee Checks Collection #2
• Champion Mine – Minor Injury Reports c.1938
• Champion Mine Stopping Contracts c. 1944
• Champion Mine Drifting and Raising 1938
• Champion Mine Drifting and Raising 1944
• Atlantic Mining Company Checkbook c. 1903
• Shop Workers Accounts c.1938
• Champion Mine Employee Injury Reports c. 1922
• CRC Misc Invoices, Checks c. 1945, 1955
• CRC Water Utility Water Pumping Records c. 1935
• CRC Payroll Ledger May 1909 – 1955
• Michigan Smelter Payroll Checks c. 1908
• CRC 6 Employee Checks-Various Years
• Champion Running Rock House Records c.1935
• PM&S Property Deeds
• PMS_PostCard
• Things Done Poster 2024
• CRC – Supplies Charged Record for June – December 1960
• Copper Range Company – Supplies Charged Record for January 1959 – May 1960
• Copper Range Company – Supplies Charged Record for January 1958 – December 1958
• Copper Range Company – Supplies Charged Record for January 1958 – December 1960
• White PinesTransfer Car – General Arrangement
• White Pines Transfer Car – Details 1
• White Pines Transfer Car – Details 2
• White Pines Transfer Car – Details 3
• White Pine Transfer Car – General Arrangement
• RR Bridge
• Underground Mine Pump Level 6 Shaft #4
• Champion #4 Hoist Electrical Wiring Schematic Diagram
• Section Map CRC Property c.1928
• Unscanned but Physically Archived PM&S Documents
• Several record books are either heavily damaged or of limited interest. These books
• are kept as part of the physical collection of PM&S.
• Rental Register, Painesdale Addresses c. 1946
• Helvetia Copper Company – Capital Stock Transfer Book c. 1909-1917
• Helvetia Copper Company – Capital Stock Transfer Book c. 1929 – 1943
• Trimountain Mine – Ledger with Invoices c 1908 – 1909
• Trimountain Mine – Ledger with Invoices c 1900 – Unscanned due to damage.
• Trimountain Mine – Ledger with Invoices c 1908 – 1909 – Unscanned due to damage.
• Copper District Power Company Exhibits c. 1941 21, Large Format documents

Multiple Volumes of Copper Range Company Records 1907-1957

The first are volumes were titled Transfer Ledger on the covers. Each of these volumes is 16” thick, with 2,250 loose double sided pages bound with posts and weighing 35 pounds each. These ledgers cover the years 1907 to 1950. In the Transfer Ledgers expenses are divided into accounts with each account related to the nature of the expense. The years 1907 – 1928 were bound into one volume. The years 1929-1950 were bound into a second volume. Each transaction entry has a folio number recorded as part of its entry. These folio numbers refer to the page numbers found in the second set of two volumes.

The second set of volumes are labeled “Journal Transfer” on the covers. They record transactions by date from 1928 – 1960. Each page is stamped with a page number. This page number refers back to an entry in a corresponding Transfer Ledger. This correlation can be seen in the overlap years (1928-1950) of the two sets. Four other smaller ledgers are also included.

Four other smaller ledgers are also included.

• Day Book 1926-1932: This volume is a listing of names and the wages earned. These names do not appear in our CRC payroll lists so it could be a record of the wages paid to private contractors.
• Journal D 1911-1916: This book is similar to the Transfer Journals. Each page is numbered sequentially and entries are by date.
• Voucher-Cash Record 1956-1957: This book is a record of cash receipts and disbursements.
• Supplies Charge Record 1945-1947: This book is a record requests for materials from the company’s central warehouse. These requests were made by various departments within the Copper Range Company.

View the Copper Range Company Financial Records here

Copper Range Digital Archive Catalog

Volunteers at the PM&S have digitized hundreds of documents that were recovered from the Champion Mine’s Office in Painesdale before it was demolished. For the past 25 years these documents have been held in safe keeping by the Copper Range Historical Society and Painesdale Mine & Shaft. This digital library contains an incredible range of topics. Paychecks, underground drift diagrams, photos, journals and blueprints to name just a few.
This digital catalog is a large file (44Mb) and will take a few minutes to download. Please be patient.
View the Copper Range Digital Archive Catalog here

Payroll Ledger Digital Archives

We have 22 years of payroll ledgers. The years include: 1909, 1913 (partial), 1914 (partial), 1922, 1927, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1934-1937, 1940, 1944-1948, and 1951-1955. These ledgers have been scanned and then processed through optical recognition software to create a database of worker names. This database contains the names of the people who worked for the Champion Mining Company during those years. Each name entry has a link back to the digital image of the original scanned page containing the name.

In order to keep this project to a manageable size, only the employees listed as working in May of a year were recorded. The month of May was selected in order to create a “snapshot” of the number of employees in a given year. This month was selected because it fell in the middle of the ledger’s pages and so usually sustained less water damage during its years of abandonment.

It should also be noted that the employees recorded in the ledgers were not only underground miners. Managers, surface workers, workers at the Champion Mill in Freda, and the staff at the Trimountain Hospital were each included on separated pages.

Many individuals and organizations are to be thanked for saving these ledgers. Please let us know if you have a story about saving records form the old mine office. We would love to hear from you! We have made this database available in two formats. Both the Excel version and the PDF version are available. Only the PDF version has annotations that provide information related to the ledgers. The PDF version is searchable and close to 500 pages long.

View the payroll ledger digital archive here.

Paycheck Index

Adams Township Digital Archive of Copper Range Company’s Records

Over the Winter of 2022 volunteers digitized a cache of Copper Range Company documents that are in the possession of Adams Township. 1,250 paper documents were recovered from the Copper Range Mine Office and turned over to Adams Township for safe keeping. These documents have been digitized and stored in PM&S’s Google Drive.

They are available to the public free of charge.

The inventory/database of the Adams Township digital archives can be downloaded by clicking either of the following links:
PDF Version
Excel Version

Once you have downloaded the inventory you can search it for file references that might be of interest. Once you know the file name (found in the left most column) you can then look for the actual file that is located in our Google Drive.

Click on this link to access the Google Drive Folder containing all of the Adams Township
Digital Archive.

Painesdale Memories

We are currently collecting memories of what life was like in Painesdale during the mining days. We appreciate any additions to this effort. If you have a memory you would like to share, please contact us.

A Shaft of Memories by a Coal Miner’s Daughter by Benita Hall Cole

Portrait of Cesare Cappo by Annette Cappo Butina

Memories Of Painesdale by Orrin H. Bentz

Tara’s Store and The Great Depression by Thomas Cernek.

More stories about the Teague Barber Shop and Other Stories by James Teague Gourd and Ruth Cleary

Shirley Laurin

William Jose

Charlotte Chapman McManus

UPLINK