Calumet and Hecla Mining Company
[citation needed] In 1864, Edwin J. Hulbert discovered a copper-bearing section of what became known as the Calumet Conglomerate dating back to the Precambrian age.
In August of that year, Shaw retired to the board of directors and Agassiz became president, a position he held until his death.
The company later built a second smelter in Buffalo, New York, which took advantage of the cheap electricity generated from Niagara Falls to electrolytically refine copper.
[citation needed] By 1897, the Calumet and Hecla's Red Jacket shaft had reached a vertical depth of 4,900 ft (1,500 m), making it the deepest mine in the world.
Beginning in 1915, Calumet and Hecla began reprocessing the stamp sands at Lake Linden, using a finer grind and ammonia leaching.
The mining superintendents (called "captains") were traditionally Cornishmen; the workers were often Finns, Poles, Italians, Irish, Slovenes, and other immigrant nationalities.
[citation needed] Historian Larry Lankton wrote that Calumet and Hecla's success resulted in increased benefits that "trickled down" to workers.
Lankton also noted that the company was willing, when necessary, to "control labor management relations", to use "coercion, covert manipulation, armed deputy sheriffs, or mass firings".
[13] Calumet and Hecla strived to create ideal communities around its mines and mills, in the hope that pleasant living conditions would help the company maintain a loyal and productive workforce.
"[14] Some credited Calumet and Hecla, as the district’s leading company, allegedly setting the pattern of improved living conditions followed by other mining operations.
Some writers credit Calumet and Hecla with being one of the first,[17] or even the first,[18] American company to set up an employee health benefits fund.
[20] When the company supplied consumer goods to employees, it used its buying power to provide coal, firewood, and electricity for its tenants at wholesale prices.
[22] A writer for Harper's Magazine visited a number of iron and copper mines of upper Michigan in 1882, but singled out Calumet and Hecla's labor policies for particular praise.
"[23] In 1898, the Michigan Commissioner of Mineral Statistics enthused that "no mining company in the world treats its employees better than Calumet and Hecla.
The Arizona Bureau of Mines followed with more than a page detailing the employee benefits at Calumet and Hecla in Michigan.
[25] However, Calumet and Hecla's labor policy, like that the other mining companies in the Copper Country, was rife with paternalism.
[29] In July 1913, the Western Federation of Miners called a general strike against all mines in the Michigan Copper Country.
[32] The US Department of Labor report on the strike noted: "The employees of the Calumet and Hecla Co. were better satisfied than those of any other company, and therefore a much smaller proportion of them joined the federation."
[34] On Christmas Eve 1913, the Western Federation of Miners organized a party for strikers and their families at the Italian Benevolent Society hall in Calumet.
Calumet and Hecla geologists drilled into a major lead-zinc ore body in Lafayette County in southern Wisconsin in 1947.
Today, many Calumet and Hecla company mines and buildings are part of Keweenaw National Historical Park.
[citation needed] Folksinger Woody Guthrie wrote and sang "1913 Massacre", a song about the Italian Hall disaster.
