Cities & Towns - Mass City

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Title: Cities & Towns - Mass City
Photographer: Unknown
Subject Headings: Human Settlements - Cities and Towns, Seasons, Buildings - Dwellings - Housing, Single Family
Condition: Fair - Some marks at top of glass plate
Description: Mass City - Ontonagon Co. [View of the settlement in fall.]
Source of Description: Back of photo [cataloger]
Institution: Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections
Donor: Roy Drier
Date of Photo: undated
Medium: still image
Color: black and white
Size: 16.4 cm x 21.4
Polarity: Negative
Image No: MTU Neg 00643
Collection Name: Roy Drier Photograph Collection
Terms of Use: Rights to reproduce and distribute this image may be restricted. Contact the Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections for further information.
User Comments:
• This is a picture taken from the North West side of town looking south east. The Lukkarila's arrived in Mass City in 1905. My father (Walter) grew up in one of the five salt boxes" that are shown in the center of the picture in a row (four are pictured - duplexes built by the Mass Consolidated Mining Company). The white house pictured in the bottom right is the current Lukkarila house (for the last 50 years). The house to the right of that is what we call the Kettunen House as the Kettenun's lived there for over fifty years. Nante Kettunen was killed in the Mass Consolidated Mine in September of 1915 and Mrs Kettunen raised six kids by herself in Mass City. The Kettunen House looks dramatically different today than what is shown in this photogragh - most likely the house pictured was torn down and a house from "New Location" was moved (by logs) in the late 20's/early 30's. New Location was land south of the Mass Consolidate Mine in which houses were sold when the mine closed with the condition that they had to be "moved off the property." The wooded lot (pictured) south of the Lukkarila house is where the Contin House stands today (our museum). The Contin House was most likely another New Location House. Houses sometimes "moved" as many as three times (The old Mass Consolidated Mining Company Hospital).The railroad tracks shown in the lower left of the photo are the Mineral Range. This picture was taken just above rail scale which was located parallel to the rail line (you can see the second set of rails/switch in the photo). I assume all copper ore leaving the Mass Consolidate Mining Company was weighed here as well as the coal coming into the mine. The mine would be literally be behind the photogragher. There was an outhouse behind just about every house in Mass City at this time - indoor plumbing had not made it’s way to this town cut from the wilderness.This picture was taken somewhere between 1900 (Railroad built) and 1915 (new high school not shown) In the distance, are possibly two of the railroad depots - The Mineral Range Depot in the center of the field and the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Depot beyond that. The Mineral Range Railroad built their railroad specifically to move copper ore from the Mass Consolidated Mine to the MCMC stampmill thirty-four miles away at Keweenaw Bay.Jay LukkarilaICRUSHROCK@aol.com"
3/9/2007 4:04:46 PM by Anonymous