Nowhere is the humble penny celebrated more than in the center of Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula. Shiny, pure copper versions are fashioned into earrings, necklaces and key chains. And a tarnished, well-used coin dug from someone's pocket is the opening prop for this day's tour of one of the nation's most atypical national parks. ¶ "It may be more or less worthless, but it's still of value for the story that's inside," says ranger Dan Brown, holding up the coin. ¶ That story is the centerpiece of Keweenaw National Park -- a park with no clear boundaries and little focus on natural beauty, though that's found in abundance in the region's untouched forests and along its craggy Lake Superior coastlines in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The story is told through a loose collection of museums, historic buildings, mine tours and ghost towns that once were among the state's most thriving and affluent settlements and now are spread across the Keweenaw Peninsula.
Hitting the streets
Brown's walking tour of Calumet's industrial area and historic downtown is free. Once the nation's biggest mining settlement, the city has a definite ghost town vibe, as if the tens of thousands of people who once caught streetcars to travel past the towering brick-and-sandstone buildings have simply vanished.
But the copper-rush era is dialed slowly into focus as Brown asks the group to make out words such as "ladies suits" on the side of the Vertin building -- now a thriving art gallery, but in the late 1800s the largest and trendiest department store north of Chicago.
God's little acre
Mining life was about hard work, danger and community. And that's movingly depicted in subtle ways by the many sandstone churches whose steeples rise high above town. One section is known as "God's Little Acre" for the number of churches located there, and it's no accident, Brown tells our group. To keep workers happy and productive, the progressive (and profitable) Calumet and Hecla company donated land for churches. On their own, visitors can tour the beautiful but imposing St. Paul the Apostle -- founded by Slovenian Catholics -- with parishioners serving as guides (noon-3 p.m. daily) to point out subtleties you might otherwise miss. The stained-glass windows, for example, represent the patron saints of workers in peril, including St. Barbara, the patron saint of miners.
The walking tour ends near the remains of Italian Hall, now an archway and park memorial to the 73 people who died tragically on Christmas Eve 1913, in the midst of a party for the children of striking mine workers. Someone falsely yelled "fire," and in the resulting panic, people were crushed in a locked stairwell.
Going under
