The Tamarack Mine was first opened in 1882 to work the seamless copper riches of the Calumet Conglomerate Lode. Though C&H had successful bought up most of the property along the lode’s most rich sections, it had failed to snap up property on its western borders. The Tamarack was established to take advantage of this mistake by buying up that land for themselves and sinking series of vertical shafts down to intersect with the conglomerate lode at depth – some 2000 feet below the surface. It was a daring plan, but one that enabled the mine to become one of the largest of the region – possibly greater then even C&H itself.

The Tamarack consisted of five shafts, the deepest of which intersected the conglomerate at a astonishing 4600 feet below the earth – nearly a mile straight down. Assisting these deep shafts was an impressive surface plant complimented by a sprawling worker community known as Tamarack. The mine built itself a large mill on the shore of Torch Lake, and built itself a short line railroad to haul its rock out to it for processing. The mine would produce nearly 400 million pounds of copper during its lifetime and produce a significant profit for over 20 years.

The Tamarack would continue to operate up to 1917, at which time the again mine would be sold to C&H for an astonishing $3 million dollars. By that time CH had already reached the levels that Tamarack was operating, so the goliath simple shut down its competitors operations and concentrated on its own. The mine would, however, recover a great deal more copper from the Tamarack’s expansive tailings down at Torch Lake.

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