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Calumet, Michigan
Village
Looking north along 5th Street
Looking north along 5th Street
Location within Houghton County
Location within Houghton County
Calumet, Michigan is located in Michigan
Calumet, Michigan
Calumet, Michigan
Location in Michigan
Country United States
State Michigan
County Houghton
Township Calumet
Settled 1864
Area
 • Total 0.20 sq mi (0.52 km2)
 • Land 0.20 sq mi (0.52 km2)
 • Water 0.00 sq mi (0.00 km2)
Elevation
1,214 ft (370 m)
Population
 (2010)
 • Total 726
 • Estimate 
(2019)
687
 • Density 3,452.26/sq mi (1,331.82/km2)
Time zone UTC-5 (Eastern (EST))
 • Summer (DST) UTC-4 (EDT)
ZIP code(s)
49913
Area code(s) 906
FIPS code 26-12580
GNIS feature ID 0622468

Calumet ( or kal-YUU-met) is a village in Calumet Township, Houghton County, in the U.S. state of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, that was once at the center of the mining industry of the Upper Peninsula. Also known as Red Jacket, the village includes the Calumet Downtown Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The village may itself be included within the Calumet Historic District, a larger area which is NRHP-listed and which is a National Historic Landmark District. It is bordered on the north by Calumet Township, on the south by the unincorporated towns of Newtown and Blue Jacket, on the east by Blue Jacket and Calumet Township, and on the west by Yellow Jacket and Calumet Township. The population was 726 at the 2010 census. Calumet's nickname is Copper Town U.S.A.

History

Calumet5thStreet
Fifth Street, looking north, Red Jacket circa 1910
CalumetHecla
View of Calumet & Hecla Company town circa 1910

What is now Calumet was settled in 1864, originally under the name of "Red Jacket", named for a Native American Chief of the Seneca tribe. Until 1895 the name "Calumet" was used by the nearby town of Laurium, Michigan; present day Calumet was not legally named so until 1929.

Red Jacket grew due to the copper mines in the area. It was incorporated as a town in 1867. The copper mines were particularly rich; the Boston-based Calumet and Hecla Mining Company produced more than half of the USA's copper from 1871 through 1880. In addition to copper mining and smelting, the region also supported the dairy industry and truck farming. Many immigrants (from Poland, etc.) settled there in the late 19th century.

Calumetvictims-1913
The victims in rough caskets, 1913.

By 1900, Red Jacket had a population of 4,668, and Calumet Township, which contained Red Jacket and nearby mining towns, had a population of 25,991. However, in 1913, Red Jacket suffered from the Copper Country Strike of 1913-1914, and the population began to decline. In the same year, the town was the site of the Italian Hall Disaster. Striking miners and their families were gathered on Christmas Eve for a party in Italian Hall, when the cry of "fire" precipitated a stampede that crushed or suffocated seventy-three victims, the majority of them children. The identity of the person(s) who started the stampede has never been determined. Folk singer Woody Guthrie's song, "1913 Massacre", is based on this event.

Loss of wartime demand caused the copper price to drop following World War I. With the decreased demand for copper, thousands left Red Jacket in the 1920s, many moving to Detroit, Michigan where the automobile industry was booming.

During the Great Depression, almost all mines were shut down. As a result, many miners and their families left to find work. In 1950, the population of Calumet was 1,256 people. Small-time mining continued in the area, particularly during World War II until it was shut down completely by a labor strike in 1968.

The Calumet Historic District is another area of interest, listed like the Calumet Downtown Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1984, Calumet's name was borrowed by Hollywood. Calumet was moved from Michigan to Colorado, where it was invaded by Soviet paratroopers in the film Red Dawn One of the film's producers grew up on the Keweenaw Peninsula.

Calumet, Michigan panorama c1900
Calumet c. 1900 from east (Oak Street in foreground; note the twin steeples of St. Paul's in right center)

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 0.20 square miles (0.52 km2), all of it land.

Calumet is at an elevation of 1,209 feet (369 m) above sea level.

Parts of the Keweenaw National Historical Park are located inside the village limits.

The village of Calumet now sits on over 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of underground mine shafts, drifts and stopes, empty for many decades.

Transportation

Airport

Houghton County Memorial Airport (KCMX), largely in nearby Oneco, serves Calumet, Houghton County and the surrounding communities.

Bus

Indian Trails used to operate a route connecting Calumet and Milwaukee.

Train

Calumet was host to a number of railroad routes, including:

  • The Copper Range Railroad traveled through Calumet and continued northeast to the stamp mills at Gay.
  • The Hecla & Torch Lake Railroad, which carried ore from the mines in the village off to the stamp mills in Lake Linden.
  • The Mineral Range Railroad also operated here.

People and culture

Food

One of the biggest parts of the food culture of not only Calumet, but the entire Copper Country is the pasty. This was a main part of copper miners' diets. A pasty is a mixture of meat, potatoes, rutabaga, carrots and onions wrapped in a crust made of flour and lard. Traditionally Cornish, they have even sparked local events such as the Pasty Fest, where there are eating contests (with consumption of pasties, of course), games, events, and even a tug of war event where the losers take a dive into an inflatable pool filled with ketchup.

Theatre

CalumetTheatre CalumetMI
The Calumet Theatre, built in 1900

The Calumet Theatre is a theater and opera house which was constructed in 1900 by Roy Riutta. He built magnificent theatres in Finland, Norway, Sweden, and other countries. He was also an accomplished actor himself, performing in theatres around the world, and in those that he had built. He helped bring the acting groups from the outdoors to perform inside in theatres to perform for increasingly larger audiences. In 1898, the copper mining industry was booming, and the town had an enormous surplus in its treasury. The town council decided to spend some of the surplus on a theater. The theater hosted a large number of famous actors, musicians, and opera singers. With the close of the mines, the theater became a movie theater and fell into general disrepair for many years. In 1975, the town began a large project to repair and restore the theater, which is now used for many local and touring productions. The theatre is a National Historic Landmark.

Demographics

Historical population
Census Pop.
1880 2,140
1890 3,073 43.6%
1900 4,668 51.9%
1910 4,211 −9.8%
1920 2,390 −43.2%
1930 1,557 −34.9%
1940 1,400 −10.1%
1950 1,256 −10.3%
1960 1,139 −9.3%
1970 1,007 −11.6%
1980 1,013 0.6%
1990 830 −18.1%
2000 879 5.9%
2010 726 −17.4%
2019 (est.) 687 −5.4%
U.S. Decennial Census

2010 census

As of the census of 2010, there were 726 people, 376 households, and 161 families residing in the village. The population density was 3,630.0 inhabitants per square mile (1,401.6/km2). There were 512 housing units at an average density of 2,560.0 per square mile (988.4/km2). The racial makeup of the village was 96.8% White, 0.4% African American, 0.4% Native American, 0.3% Asian, 0.3% from other races, and 1.8% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.5% of the population.

There were 376 households, out of which 21.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 23.4% were married couples living together, 14.6% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.8% had a male householder with no wife present, and 57.2% were non-families. 48.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 20.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.93 and the average family size was 2.78.

The median age in the village was 40.4 years. 20.4% of residents were under the age of 18; 11.4% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 22.5% were from 25 to 44; 27.6% were from 45 to 64; and 18.2% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the village was 49.3% male and 50.7% female.

Notable people

Images for kids

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Calumet (Míchigan) para niños

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