Friday, September 10, 2021

133) Keweenaw National Historical Park

Visited: Wednesday, September 8, 2021

This park has an interesting story to tell; it's all about the history of the copper mining of the area.  But it's an oddly put-together site; the historic site, vis-a-vis the visitor center, is quite nice, but there are a _lot_ of other components to the site - a number of mines (which we passed on, not being anxious to go underground), and a number of hikes and the like.

The story of the Italian Hall panic of 1913 was rather heartbreaking - a union event there during a strike was interrupted by an anti-union person yelling fire, leading to many deaths in the panic.  The strike was, in many ways, the beginning of the end for the business.

We drove by a number of the mines, but the one other stop we made was at the Porcupine Mountains; it's a separate site - a state park - but was the most interesting of the many (many) areas recommended by the Keweenaw NPS site.  The Porkies are well worth visiting if you're in that part of Michigan.

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