The Heart of Copper Country: 1905

I attended Michigan Tech in Houghton, Michigan back in the 1980s and took a class called something like "Social Geography". We traveled all over the Copper Country figuring out why towns were laid out in certain ways.

I do remember going through Calumet and finding rows of nearly identical houses like those shown in the photos above.

Turns out many of them were bulk-ordered straight from the Sears catalog!

The changing shadows across the photo are surreal, but somehow make it seem more physical. I can almost feel myself turning about on top of the hill, the warm breeze carrying the scents of fresh cut lumber and copper mill smoke.

Due to that 8,461px × 2,000px picture I now have the perfect reason to explain to my wife why I need a new monitor with a resolution of at least 9000 x 2400 so I can use that fantastic panorama work as a background.

She is an artist at heart and has a love of olden times and things so I believe I do have a shot.

Standing by the garden. Man, it's even tougher in black & white.

This is a superb reference point for anyone wanting to create a prototypical, period, industry-representative model railroad layout. Fabulous detail, and all authentic.

This picture is a real gift. A panoramic moment in time. I agree with RoccoB. One of the best ever in the Shorpy Collection and one that could easily take up a couple of hours of close examination. Thanks, Dave.

It was Malvina Reynolds who wrote "Little Boxes." Pete Seeger covered the song, but always gave credit to Malvina.

So much going on in this view I can look at it for hours.
It almost looks like it was all CGI work done by some FX studio.

The steep roof pitches also help prevent snow from piling up too quickly, but with the amounts alluded to you couldn't be too careful The houses shown set me to remembering the Pete Seeger ditty about all the houses that look alike, but, the name escapes me. The breadth of coverage is breathtaking, amazing. But that snowfall amount is staggering; we had 67 inches over three storms a short time back and thought that was bad.

Calumet is on the Keweenaw Peninsula -- the Upper Peninsula's upper peninsula.

U.P. snows are legendary, especially in the Keweenaw Peninsula, where 300-inch winters aren't that unusual. (Sticking far out into Lake Superior, it really gets nailed with Lake Effect snows.) Ladders nailed to roofs are there for a reason. When accumulated snows threaten to collapse the roof, the ladders give a foothold from which to clear off the stuff.

The reason for the roof ladders is to access the chimneys. You will notice that almost every roof ladder is placed along side a chimney, which in the day of constant use required frequent sweeping to prevent flue fires.

Probably arthouse, maybe Scandinavian?

with all the ladders on so many of the houses?

I can only imagine what the houses would look like if those logs decided to tumble down upon them there does not appear to be anything holding them back other than gravity.

This is puzzling. Can anyone explain why there are so many ladders up to and across the rooftops? Perhaps the first day of clear weather for repairs?

[What's more likely is that most of those ladders are always there, or there for months at a time. The reason might have something to do with snow. - Dave]

I spend a couple of weeks a year in the UP (Upper Peninsula for you non-Michiganders) near Calumet, and train cars carrying lumber south are still a common sight.