“The Seneca Mine began its life during the Copper Country’s adolescence – around 1860. Before then most mines across the peninsula were duds, lit off by excited investors only to fizzle away into nothing. Interest began to fade and new mines were slow in coming. But thanks to the unprecedented success of the Cliff, investors suddenly discovered a new found interest in the region. A new wave of mines began to spring up, a great deal of which set their sites along the rugged bluffs of the Cliff Range – the same formations along which the Cliff had found its own fortunes. One of the largest of these new mines was the Seneca, an endeavor whose namesake was one of the Five Nations – a coalition of native tribes that once dominated the region occupied today by the state of New York.”