Qualla: Quincy Smelter: The Last Copper Furnace Standing

Quincy Smelter: The Last Copper Furnace Standing: Introduction

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris857, CC BY-SA 3.0. A township once received a smelter as payment for a water tank. That transaction, in 1999, was just the latest improbable chapter for the Quincy Smelter, a complex that had already survived the Great Depression, a Superfund designation, and decades of abandonment on the shores of the Keweenaw Waterway. Built in 1898 on stamp sands left behind by the old Pewabic mill, the smelter was designed to save the Quincy Mining Company roughly $100,000 a year by processing copper on-site instead of shipping raw ore to Boston or Detroit. It did exactly that for over three decades, turning the Keweenaw Peninsula's native copper into refined metal while the industrial age demanded every ounce the Upper Peninsula could produce.

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Image: Chris857 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Quincy Smelter: The Last Copper Furnace Standing: Built on Sand and Ambition

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris857, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Quincy Mining Company incorporated in 1848, during the earliest years of the Michigan copper rush. For decades, Quincy relied on stamp mills to crush copper-bearing rock and shipped the semi-processed mineral to distant smelters. But by the late 1890s, output justified buildi...

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Image: Chris857 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Quincy Smelter: The Last Copper Furnace Standing: Depression, War, and Decline

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sharon Mollerus, CC BY 2.0. Low copper prices and the Great Depression forced the Quincy Mining Company to cease operations on September 22, 1931. The company boarded up everything, including the smelter. When copper prices recovered in 1937, the mine reopened, but instead of firing the smelter back up, Qui...

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Image: Sharon Mollerus | CC BY 2.0

Quincy Smelter: The Last Copper Furnace Standing: From Superfund to Sanctuary

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Light, CC BY-SA 4.0. The EPA placed the smelter within the Torch Lake Superfund site in 1986, adding it to the National Priorities List. When the Quincy Development Corporation's condominium plans fell through in 1999, Franklin Township acquired the smelter in lieu of payment for a water tank it had ...

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Image: Chris Light | CC BY-SA 4.0

Quincy Smelter: The Last Copper Furnace Standing: The Only One Left

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Light, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Quincy Smelter holds a distinction no other industrial site in America can claim: it is the only remaining copper smelter from the early 20th century in the United States. The EPA has called it the best-preserved copper smelter in the country, and the Keweenaw National Histor...

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Image: Chris Light | CC BY-SA 4.0