If you travel far enough into the rugged wilderness of Ontonagon County between the town of Ontonagon and Porcupine Mountains State Park you’ll come across a rather surreal site. Sitting miles from anywhere along a lonely stretch of road sits a suburban utopia of well manicured lawns and quant little ranch houses laid out along curving roads that casually move to and fro through the landscape. It’s almost as if you’ve stepped back into time, visiting a surreal 1950′s landscape straight out of Pleasentville (minus the black and white of course). Congratulations, you’ve discovered the old mining town of White Pine.
The White Pine Mine itself dates back to the late 1800′s, though its current configuration was born only a half century ago. Established in 1954 by the Copper Range Company, the White Pine Mine was a project partially financed by the government to help procure copper supplies during the Korean War. The mine worked a unique deposit that required a great deal of milling and processing to procure, requiring the erection of a massive milling and smelting facility.
Along with the mine Copper Range erected itself yet another company town. This time, however, the company took a slightly different approach. The sterilized conformity of turn of the century community planning was replaced by the free-flowing suburban attitudes of the 1950′s. Salt boxes and two story gabled homes were replaced by ranches and split levels, set back from the road on good sized lots platted along curving streets. The homes were spread out around a centralized town square that was home a grocery store, church, meeting hall, and school.
The project was a success, and the mine prospered and grew. Before long the small company town had expanded substantially, becoming a modern community of several thousand people. The town received its own mall and recreational center, gas station, and several more schools. Yet like all company towns, the community was cursed with the ever present specter of the the mine’s closure. In 1994 the inevitable finally happened, as the mine closed for good due to rising costs and environmental concerns. The town of White Pine was given its death notice.
Fast forward 18 years and the old mining town has amazingly continued to hold on to life, primarily as a bedroom community of retirees, snow birds, and workers from the neighboring state park. But the lack of a major industry has managed to take its toll, as the exciting opportunities offered by the communities entrance sign are all mostly absent today. Yet we were intrigued as we passed by and decided to drop by and take a look at the old town and see how things are going.
The first thing you notice upon entering White Pine is this small gas station right alongside the main road. The old station is closed today, and by the lack of pumps and the large dirt covered area that the tanks have been removed as well. Too bad the old price sign wasn’t still intact, it would be neat to see .99 cent gas once again.
Across the street sits a massive building adorned with large yellow tiles spelling out “Mineral River Plaza”. This would be White Pine’s very own mall, which is rather amazing to me considering the towns location far and away from anything.
Here’s a look inside that mall, in what looks like a shot taken during construction. Not large by any stretch of the imagination, but impressive none-the-less considering its location. I wonder what stores could be found here? Local flair or actual well none outlets?
From the desolate and overgrown nature of its parking lot, it looked as if the mall had been closed for some time. At least we knew it had a laundry once.
Just down the road from the mall you find yourself in the town center home to a large parking lot and several monuments. These monuments include a large totem poll and this massive piece of copper. Unfortunately it wasn’t accompanied by any type of sign or plaque, so I have no idea what it represents.
Nearby sits yet another piece of copper, but this one was not in its raw form. This was a large piece of refined and smelted copper, reportedly the first to roll of the assembly line at the newly built smelter. The plaque commemorates the completion of the smelter and the great future awaiting the town. (the bleeding copper from the ingot is a nice artistic touch, though I’m sure not intentional)
Across the street was one of the town’s schools, and the only one still in use by the look of things. This part of the building housed a pool, if the 80s era digital pictographs along its outer wall are any indication. It looks as if a large loading door has been torn out of the facade, so I doubt the pool is in use any more.
Nearby we find a building that was not quite in such good shape. I have no idea as to its original purpose, but it may have been another school.
The largest structure in town seems to be this old apartment complex, which consists of two large two story wings set perpendicular to each other.
Here’s a front shot of the second building in the complex. I love the siding choice, gives it an even more ruined look today. It doesn’t look to have been occupied in quite some time.
From there we took a drive around to check out the 50′s suburbia presented to us. Amazing the town had quite a few people out and about, and more then a few sitting on their porches watching our every move. Before long we felt rather awkward and decided to cut our tour short. While much of White Pine’s amenities are no longer available, it would appear that the town is still very much alive and kicking in the residential department.
I think those larger buildings are the former Lacroix Hospital and Substance Abuse Treatment Center which closed some years ago?
Did you get anyshots of the money area
And By Money I Mean Mining
Did you get a close up that 500 foot stack?
I disagree with your statement about the company town being a success; but only in part. I took a course at MTU with Lankton and I remember him touching on the marvelled idea of white pine attempting to mimic the paternalistic (I think that’s the right word) of mining companies of old. But because of White Pine’s close proximity to towns like Ontonagon and others, and the advent of the automobile and car pooling; there was success of having workers living “on-site” but to no where near the degree of mines that sprouted out of nothing in the late 1800s & early 1900s.
Very interesting to see the dynamic shift in necessity that way. The idea that a mining community as it was known to C&H or Quincy really can’t ever be achieved again.
Cool to see the pictures and great post. Reminds me of the drive out every other year to play White Pine in basketball in HS.
The large piece of copper on the concrete pedestal is a piece of float copper. It is just a few pounds short of three tons in weight. It was discovered by some fishermen on the east bank of a stream approximately 100 yards south of the shore of Lake Superior, near Redridge. It was on Copper Range mineral rights so a deal was made with the discoverers to disclose the location.
The piece of float was recovered by a winch on a cat and loaded on a flatbed and hauled to White Pine in 1986. It was placed on the left side of the entrance walk to the Administration building. After the mine closed it was donated to the township. It was originally intended to be eventually donated to the Seaman Mineral Museum but the last owners of the mine had other ideas.
The “blue” building is the original grocery store, barber shop, etc. for the townsite.
The large buildings in the complex were the original apartment buildings. They saw a number of other uses in their later, declining years. The hospital/clinic building was/is further along the road to the west.
The shafts of the original White Pine Mine are behind the Gas station, toward the townsite, along the Mineral River. The major stoping lies long the “developed” area between the new mall and the highway. The sites developed for further business expansion could never be used because they lie over stoped-out ground and could not be insured. The group within Copper Range that laid out the “expansion” never thought to ask the geology department where the old workings were located.
Ashley,
Copper Range was faced with a need to staff the new mine. The houses and apartments were an expedient way to get people to the site and house them. It is true that in the late 20th century the automobile was a viable alternative to living in a “company” town, but still, people did choose to live there. For a 21st Century example, look at the oil boom in the Dakotas. Housing is scarce and some oil companies are buying up motels to convert to boarding houses and some may be starting housing development. The primary extractive industries often have to develop infrastructure in remote areas.
I have read all of Dr. Lankton’s work available. I have noticed through the years that he has drifted more and more to the current PC position that capital is evil and 19th and 20th paternalism was the bogeyman designed to exploit the hapless worker. Look at the coal fields, and yes, he has a point. Look at the Copper Country, and not so much. Thurner and Hoagland have a more neutral view. We need to be careful not to judge the past by our present standards. What we think is absolutely terrible, our Grandparents thought was normal or a good deal. My maternal forefathers arrived in the Copper Country from what is now Germany in the 1840′s & ’50′s – with pretty much nothing. There are now hundreds of us spread around the country and almost all are doing well. It wasn’t easy but basically they were successful some with and some without the benefits of paternalism.
Yoop,
One department not consulting with another! NO!….LOL
Paul,
I couldn’t have said it better. This wasn’t the only company developed copper mining town, look at San Manuel during the same time period. Everyone I work with who lived there reminisce about the sense of community and how great the schools, medical care, etc were. A bygone era, unfortunately…
Yoop,
Our company has a land department (in another region) that made a deal to sell some land a few years back, only it had a gold deposit that was a target for exploration. The exploration group found out the land was sold only after they were nearly cited for trespassing. That group paid a fair bit of money to get it sorted put and the land back, to top it all off the land departmentis rumored to have still tried to claim the sale as win in their bonus justification. It happens everywhere I guess.
Paul. Thanks for the suggested readings and the insight about the Dakotas development. I hadn’t thought of those as examples – you start thinkin’ mines, and forget about the sister industries. Haha.
interesting…i was actually kinda curious about the “suburban ghost town”
More about the western oil and gas boom. My brother-in-law lives in western Montana, somewhat away from the worst of it. He reports of guys buying old highway tractors so they can live in the sleeper cabs. McDonald’s paying $20/hour. Super wages for field crews. And as a reflection of the single-male dominance of the population: among the top 10 professions needed and commanding the highest salaries in the area, (Doctors engineers, etc) are, excuse me, strippers. There seems to be a shortage.
Such are the factors that led to company towns in the 19th and 20th centuries. If mining returns to the Copper Country, White Pine might not be the last town built by a company.
I went to White Pine Elementary in the early 80′s and was always intrigued by this town. Compared to the other UP towns I knew, it was amazing for the town to have a mall, the High School to have a pool, etc. Yet everything was half empty. There was a whole lower level in the school that was empty. We would use empty classrooms for arts and crafts. Half of the mall had no tenants. The streets went on further than there were houses. They were still planning on White Pine becoming one of the biggest towns in the UP. It was one of those topics that was always coming up – expansion of the mine, etc. I can’t remember where the ice rink was, but that and the Porkies ski hill seemed like the social centers of the community (at least to a grad schooler).
I have to get back there sometime. I don’t even have any idea how to drive around the town.
I graduated from White PIne in 1985 and spent my whole childhood there. There wasn’t the big city things like big movie theaters and shopping malls, but all the kids in the town always found things to do. We would bike down to Silver City in the summer time and go swimming. In the winter which was from October to May just about we would ski at the Porkies. A few of us even worked there all four years in High School.
In the summer we would play basketball in the morning at the tennis courts and then move over to the little league field and play ball and then later in the day we would get a bunch of guys together and play football.
In the fall most of us would go hunting with our fathers.
I attended Gogebic Community College in Ironwood Michigan and during the summer after my 1st year at GCC I was one of the few kids that actually worked at the mine. I worked over at the SouthWest part of the mine. That was an experience that I will never forget as long as I live. My supervisor took me underground many times and each time was just as exciting at the first. I was amazed at all the equipment that was actually down there.
It was really hard to see that town lose that Mine. It was once truely a great place to live and I will never forget all my experiences growing up there.