The founding of the settlement of Hancock began during the summers of 1847 and 1848, when a small group of prospectors laboring on a rugged hillside (later named Quincy Hill) discovered a sequence of prehistoric Ojibwe copper mining pits, stretching out for 100 feet along the local amygdaloid lode.

The discovery formed the basis upon which the Quincy Mining Company was created in October 1848, under a special charter granted by the legislature.

[20][11][15][21] On 20 August 1860, Bishop Frederic Baraga and Reverend Edward Jacker selected lots nine and ten of block eight in the village for the purpose of constructing a church.

[23] On 11 April 1869, Hancock was struck by the worst fire in the community's history when a stovepipe in a local saloon where the post office is now exploded and engulfed the building in flames.

The fire destroyed some 150 buildings, including every store in the village and almost all other businesses, the wooden bridges that had stretched across the ravines, and 120 homes.

[29][22][30][31][23][27][13][14] Famously, Mary Chase Perry Stratton, the founder of the Pewabic Pottery, survived the 1869 fire without injuries.

[13] In 1877, Gustave Diemal, an immigrant from Germany and the 1870 sheriff-elect of Keweenaw County, arrived in Hancock and opened a jewelry and watchmakers shop.

[20][15] In 1876, Alfred Elieser Backman arrived in Hancock and served as Copper Country's first pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.

[27][36][38][23][37] Suomi College was founded in September 1896 by Nikander, and on 21 January 1900, it completed its first building, now affectionately called "Old Main" on Quincy Street.

[13][27][36][39][15][40][37] Like a large handful of historic buildings in the city, it is made of Jacobsville Sandstone[13][14] and built in the Richardsonian Romanesque style.

[27] Also in 1900, the Book Concern of Suomi College was established as the publishing house of the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.

[13] On 28 August 1896 the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hancock was struck by lightning, which killed the assistant pastor and then-recently appointed Suomi College instructor Jooseppi Riippa after he had just dismissed 50 children because of the severe weather.

[18][15][48][11] After having broken ground for the construction process in August 1903, on 5 June 1904 the St. Joseph's Medical Center was dedicated in a public ceremony.

[13][50][51] A year later, the Copper Country Limited line of both the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad and the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railway, began operations.

This was in response to his pleas to Governor Woodbridge N. Ferris and President Woodrow Wilson for proper investigations into the Italian Hall Disaster.

The kidnapping, beating, and subsequent "deportation" to Chicago by officials of the area has cemented its place in local memory.

The Quincy Mine resumed its operations in 1937, but discontinued them in 1946, one week after Japan surrendered in 1945, ending World War II.

[15][25][47] Joint preparations with Houghton were carried out in 1963 to install a sewage disposal plant to prevent the contamination of Portage Lake.

[15] During the United States Bicentennial in 1976, then-Finnish President Urho Kekkonen visited the Hancock area and entirely filled the Michigan Technological University ice arena when he gave his official address to the local Finnish-American community.

[27][62][63] In 1990, a rundown former Catholic church on Quincy Street was renovated extensively with traditional Finnish architectural styles and officially became the Finnish-American Heritage Center.

[66] Hancock is connected to Houghton by the Portage Lake Lift Bridge, which crosses the dredged Keweenaw Waterway.

[27] In recognition of the large number of Finns in the area, some street signs in Hancock are written in both English and Finnish.

[80][18][89] Every June, Hancock and Houghton host a festival known as Bridgefest to commemorate the building of the Portage Lake Lift Bridge, which united both the communities of Copper Island and those in the southern portions of the Keweenaw Peninsula.

The East Hancock neighborhood is part of the city and consists of many old Victorian-style houses which were once owned by mining company officials.

Doctors' Park is a neighborhood in West Hancock near the former Portage View Hospital Building (now the Jutila Centre of Finlandia University).

[18] The Jack Stevens Rail Trail runs through Hancock and continues 14 miles north to Calumet on a now-abandoned Soo Line Railroad grade.

Jacobsville sandstone, quarried at the Portage Entry of the Keweenaw waterway, was brought there by barge, cut, and used to construct Old Main.

The college quickly outgrew this building, and in 1901 a frame structure, housing a gym, meeting hall, and music center was erected on an adjacent lot.

[96][97] Several parts of the campus of Michigan Technological University are also in Hancock, including a former MTU "underground classroom" in the Quincy Mine.

[98] Indian Trails bus lines operates a terminal at the Shottle Bop Party Store, 125 Quincy Street.