Copper Country Explorer Field Guide No.1

Originally known as Red Jacket, the town of Calumet first formed to the north of the great C&H mine around 1864. As the mine prospered, the town of Red Jacket expanded in response. By 1900 the small town had managed to grow to nearly 5,000 residents, which when combined with the surrounding suburbs created a sprawling metropolis of nearly 30,000 people. Along the village's brick-paved streets were all the trappings of a modern metropolis: multi-floor department stores featuring the latest in European fashion, an opulent 1200 seat opera house boasting nationally touring stage plays and acts, and an elegantly manicured city park designed by one of the country’s most renowned landscape architects. However, by the 1960s the great Copper Empire had fallen from greatness, the great C&H was no more, and the village's fortunes were no more . Within a decade the village’s population shrunk to near obscurity and most of its businesses shut their doors. A city built for tens of thousands of people was now home to just under a thousand. As a result hundreds of homes were left vacant and dark, dozens of massive commercial blocks along the village's wide streets were abandoned , and the bells in the village's soaring churches were forever silenced.