White Pine

About six miles south of Lake Superior, in the western part of Ontonagon County, lies the town of White Pine, once home to one of the country's largest copper mines.  It is a station on the Chicago, Minneapolis & St. Paul Railroad, in Carp Lake Township. 

In 1880 Captain Thomas Hooper discovered copper mineralization in an outcrop along the Mineral River two miles east of the Nonesuch mine on land owned by the St. Mary's Mineral Land Company. Hooper aptly named it the White Pine mine for the beautiful hillside trees that abounded in the region. In the fall of 1880, with Byron H. White and Charles A. Parker, he opened up the White Pine mine, took out the first copper and shipped it. 

In 1915, Thomas H. Wilcox, a mining engineer, formed the White Pine Copper Company with himself as superintendent. Its settlement was given a post office as White Pine Mine on June 7, 1915. Axel G. Johnson was its first postmaster.  The mine closed about 1920.

The White Pine Branch of the Milwaukee Road was built during World War I to haul copper ore.  After the war, it was used to haul logs.

Following the recession of the thirties the Hamar-Quandt Company established a lumber yard in Ontonagon, Michigan in 1940.  This yard introduced the company to contracting, building the pilot mine shaft housing and twelve small houses for the White Pine Copper Mine.  Ontonagon, basically a one-industry town, did not permit the yard to live up to expectations.  The yard was subsequently closed to free funds for more profitable ventures.

The White Pine orebody was re-opened in March, 1953. The federal government, now contending with the Korean War, was concerned that the country had become a net importer of copper, provided the funds and a big contract to expand the mine and create a giant facility.  As the mine developed and flourished, the town of White Pine was rejuvenated, this time as a company town.  The mine's owner, Copper Range Company, laid out the town of White Pine to resemble American suburbia. It is a rather startling sight in the middle of wilderness, where bears are the reigning neighborhood nuisance. Ranch houses line White Pine's curving streets.   Its post office, renamed simply White Pine, was restored on February 1, 1954, with Clarence Broemer as postmaster.  At that time, 30 people lived in White Pine; by the early 1970s the population reached 1,800 people.   

New residents arrived from everywhere and the new town bustled with energy.  In one grade, the 50 students had been born in 42 different states and countries.  Early on, electricity was limited to 5 hours a day; in the off-hours, water was available from a town pump.  Mail was delivered to hundreds of mailboxes nailed to a wooden fence.  And there was mud everywhere.

The mine company built a hospital, schools, a shopping center, employee dormitories, a motel, apartments and 175 houses in three designs and five colors.  Copper Range also showed free movies, awarded scholarships and plowed driveways.  White Pine had one of the U.P.'s first dial phone systems.

One of White Pine's more unique structures was its portable Lutheran church, which could be taken apart and moved.  Catholics first met in a school, where the priest heard confessions behind a piano.  Water was free and fluoridated.  And talk about civic-minded -- in the 1968 general election, 477 of White Pine's 486 voters turned out.

When the venerable White Pine mine finally closed in 1995, this small company town suffered an enormous blow.  White Pine's population was tied to the fortunes of the mine.  Over the years, many stores went out of business, the hospital closed and the motel was razed - a grassy mound marking its grave.  BHP Copper North America bought the refinery in January 1998 and operates it with about 50 workers.  As for the big mine, it began filling with water on June 28, 1999.

Today those 1950s-built company houses are home to many retirees and employees of the nearby Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park. The town center is an enclosed town square with supermarket (now closed), post office, diner, barbershop, etc., surrounded by a parking lot. The noted Michigan architect Alden Dow designed the Konteka motel/restaurant/bowling alley complex across the parking lot with a nod to his mentor Frank Lloyd Wright. Now it's a snowmobile hot spot in winter, with sled rentals on-site.

White Pine's dwindling school-age population and mounting school expenses caused the high school to close in 2003. 

The former White Pine Copper Mine complex was acquired by the Ontonagon County Economic Development Corporation and has been developed into a new industrial park. All new utilities and infrastructure were installed, and the site is now home to six new businesses, several re-opened ones, and there are plans for additional enterprises.

A company called SubTerra is using the deep mine's highly stable 48° F to grow plants in a perfectly controlled year-round rapid growth environment. One contract was to grow a genetically-altered type of tobacco; its seeds may help treat cancer. Using 50 1,000-watt grow lights, they occupy 3,000 square feet at the top of the big cavern. SubTerra's facilities also ensure genetic containment and control against eco-terrorists who attack firms researching genetically modified plants.

The White Pine Copper Refinery purifies copper from the Hudson Bay Mining smelter in Manitoba. It has fired up its old 40-megawatt power plant and updated it. Its new subsidiary, White Pine Electric Power, sells extra power produced here to UPPCO, the U.P. power company.