PAINESDALE

Region: Keweenaw Peninsula

Don Hunt

Modest miners' homes close to Champion No. 4 remain well maintained. Elsewhere across the peninsula, many if not most have been demolished or are abandoned.

As you pass through Painsedale along highway M-26, you'd hardly imagine that this was once a major copper mining town. It's at the southern end of a slender 26-mile-long strip that contained most of the huge quantity of Keweenaw copper shipped nationwide. The remaining mine hoist is tucked well out of sight in a hollow on the southern edge of town (see Champion No. 4 mine.)
The tidy, well-preserved copper mining town was created by Paine-Webber's founder. Today its major export is, of all things, water. A spring down in Champion 4's supplies water as far away as the city of Hancock, whose citizens boast it tastes better than Houghton's, which opted to use wells.

Return to Keweenaw Peninsula

PLACES AROUND PAINESDALE TO

Eat Sleep Camp