The great Minesota mine was incredibly rich in copper, so much so that legend has it that one of its shafts had to be driven straight through a piece of mass copper so immense that it could not be removed from the ground (prompting the exclamation that the Minesota’s shafts were in fact lined with copper) Mass pieces of more then 50 tons were rather common, and the mine holds the record for the largest piece every discovered – over 500 tons in size. In the end the Minesota produced nearly 35 million pounds of the red metal, and went down in history as one of the richest mines of the district. Because of this was no surprise when the old mine was re-opened at the turn of the century for another go, this time under the more grammatically correct name of the Michigan.