Ingot

The last pour of the Quincy Mining Company’s Walker Casting Machine produced this brightly colored copper ingot in 1970. The smelter workers who cast it-- and who had cast thousands before it-- were the children and grandchildren of immigrants who had come to Michigan’s Copper Country in the 1800s and early 1900s. They toiled one last time in the light and heat radiating from the smelter’s 2500°F reverberatory furnace, enveloped in the steam billowing from the water baths cooling the freshly cast metal. Then this ingot was placed in the company office’s walk-in safe, where it and the other ingots from the last cast remained until Keweenaw National Historical Park acquired the building in 2001.

Industrialists financed Michigan’s copper mines for over 120 years, from the 1840s through the 1960s. During that time, over 10 billion pounds of native copper was refined and cast into different shapes and shipped to markets around the world. In many ways, this ingot represents the end of the mining and smelting industry in the Keweenaw. Yet copper still defines the region: first mined and used thousands of years ago by early American Indians, Keweenaw copper eventually ended up in Civil War ships and cannon, cross-country telegraph wire and transatlantic cable, and sculptors’ studios across the world. It may be a utilitarian metal, but this ingot represents not only a unique natural resource, but also pride, hard work, and the hopes and dreams of investor and immigrant alike.