ISHPEMING
Region: Marquette Range
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With a current population of about 6,600, Ishpeming stands out from all other iron-mining towns because it developed as the Upper Peninsula operations headquarters for Cleveland-Cliffs Iron, one of the country's biggest iron-mining companies for decades. The in-town skyline is punctuated by three monumental CCI headframes on Lake Shore Drive south of Lake Bancroft, on the west side of town. Headframes were where hoist ropes lowered and lifted cars (ore cars or, for miners, man cars) in and out of the mine shafts, some over a mile deep.
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| An Egyptian-style mine entrance to Ishpeming's famous, fabulously productive Cliffs Shaft Mine. Cleveland Cliffs Iron could afford impressive architectural embellishments because of the wealth it had amassed from its decades as the leading supplier of U.S. iron ore. |
Two of these big headframes were built of reinforced concrete to resemble huge Egyptian obelisks. They were designed by the noted Prairie School architect George Maher, according to the wish of CCI President William Gwinn Mather to combine beauty with utility. They stand out as aesthetic anomalies among the strictly utilitarian appearances of most other Upper Peninsula mining sites. (The Quincy Mining Company and Calumet and Hecla in Copper Country were among the few exceptions.)
The mines with the obelisk shafthouses were closed in 1955 with the opening of the Cliffs C Shaft. Its boxy headframe is even taller. It too was closed as new technology made it cheaper to mine the lower-grade ore bodies closer to the surface and concentrate the ore in easily shippable taconite pellets - a process visitors can see at the Tilden Mine tour, in summer by reservation only. One of the tall, striking obelisks is now illuminated at night as a reminder to motorists on U.S. 41 that Ishpeming, mostly obscured by a rail embankment, lies just to the south.
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| Ishpeming's downtown is made invisible to U.S. 41 traffic by the railroad embankment built by Cleveland Cliffs Mining not too terribly long ago. Motorists must know just where to turn. Here Westwood leads south from McDonald's to the handsome obelisk shafthouse of the Cliffs Shaft Mine, now part of an interesting local museum complex about mining, rocks and minerals, and Ishpeming history. |
Ishpeming has long been associated with skiing. Downhill ski-jumping contests, begun by local Norwegian residents, go back to the 1880s, the first held anywhere in the United States. The National Ski Hall of Fame on U.S. 41 celebrates Ishpeming's skiing history. Now ski poles adorn downtown streetlamps. Return to Marquette Range
Mining has been so big here that Ishpeming even had two blasting powder companies through the 1930s. Today mining remains the basis of Ishpeming's economy, what with CCI's Upper Peninsula headquarters and approximately 1,800 high-paying jobs at the nearby Tilden and Empire open-pit mines.
Few new industries have developed here to replace the steadily lost mining employment over the decades. An exception is the Robbins Flooring Company on Greenwood Street just southwest of downtown. Using hard maple from U.P. and Canadian forests, it specializes in gym floors, making basketball courts for the NBA and NCAA as well as for Olympic competition. Sometimes Robbins employees work overtime to keep up with demand, turning out four courts a day. Still, they have to compete for the prized higher-grade northern hard maple with six other flooring mills in a 250-mile radius, three in the Upper Peninsula and three in Wisconsin.
After remaining at a population of about 9,000 from 1890 into the 1950s, Ishpeming has steadily declined to its present size. Its once-vital downtown is now dwarfed by the commercial corridor along U.S. 41 to the north, along which at least 15,000 to 20,000 cars pass daily. Its new downtown is "Country Village," a strip mall several streets deep on the north side of U.S. 41.so many things are together, it would be possible for guests at its two motels to walk to destinations like shopping, the movies, a bowling alley, the very pleasant
Lately there's been more appreciation of Ishpeming's historic resources from many quarters. Rather than fading away, the memory of the late John Voelker (a.k.a. Robert Traver), trout fishing legend, author of Anatomy of a Murder, lifelong Ishpeming resident, seems to be gaining steam. He was a regular at both the Rainbow Bar down the hill from his house and the beautiful Ishpeming Public Library. A mini-museum honoring Voelker, the movie, and all manner of local lore is downtown at Congress Lounge & Pizza.
An Ishpeming Historical Society has been formed. It's located in the Cliffs Shaft Mining Museum complex. The ruggedly handsome stone 1891 City Hall on East Division has been renovated. City planners have prepared a feasibility study for the empty Mather Inn, the stately four-story downtown hotel, once a hub of activity at downtown's north end, on Canda at Main. Under its current owner, the hotel remains in limbo, however.
Still in demand are the fine old homes up on Strawberry Hill behind the Mather Inn. They were built for mine managers and business owners near the turn of the last century. Some mine captains had tunnels connecting their homes with the mine shafts they supervised.
In search of a ski hill that could propel jumps over the 165 feet maximum that Old Jackson Hill provided, in 1925 two Ishpeming Ski Club members found a wooded hill mid-way between Ishpeming and Negaunee. Volunteers cleared the slope and created the formidable 140-foot scaffold. Just a year later after a skier was injured making the jump, a local newspaper story dubbed it “Suicide Hill.” Jumps of as much as 340 feet have been recorded.
The famous wooden Suicide Hill ski jump, 280 feet high and 860 feet long, was built in 1925 on Cleveland-Cliffs Iron land between Ishpeming and Negaunee. It is still operated by the local ski club (906-486-4898).
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