RUNNING south from Fort Wilkins for over 250 miles, the Military Road now consists of only a few lines in old history books and some roadside markers. At an earlier time in the human history of the Superior region, however, it was a very important avenue for trade and travel.

The route was first established by Indians who traded Keweenaw copper to tribes in the south. For hundreds of years copper moved overland to the Green Bay area for exchange and shipment to Meso-american cultures located in what is now Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Utilitarian as well as sacred objects were formed from the malleable metal.

For reasons unknown, these cultures disappeared and with it the native commerce in red metal. The route traffic continued in later years with the advent of the fur trade and tribal movements stimulated by the dislocation of war and seasonal considerations of food supply.

By the mid 1800s, the territories of Michigan and Wisconsin had become states of the Union and opened to white settlement. The burgeoning demand for raw materials in an increasingly industrial country lead to the re-discovery of abundant natural resources in the wilderness of northern Wisconsin and the UP Keweenaw copper and huge tracts of pine forests made the region both economically and strategically important.

At this time, the old trade route needed many improvements. In 1861, the U. S. Post Office improved the route to deliver mail to the scattered farms and logging camps. A year later, the U.S. Government granted land to Michigan and Wisconsin to build a military wagon road from Fort Howard at Green Bay, Wisconsin to Fort Wilkins on Lake Superior. The Military Road was constructed because of concern that the normal water route might be cut off in a future war. Very few soldiers ever traveled the route, however. Its most significant contribution was in opening the way north for loggers and settlers to the sparsely populated region of northern Michigan.

This Lake Superior trail was chosen because it skirted the many swamps, rivers, bogs, and lakes that cover the countryside. In its entire length, few bridges were built. At the time of early Indian trade and up to the cutting of the Portage Lake between Houghton and Hancock, foot traffic and wagons kept to narrow areas of high ground through the marshy areas and along the rocky northern coast of the Keweenaw.

Today, very little of the original road is still visible. Major highways such as stretches of M 45 and M 26, as well as many town streets are located on or adjacent to the old trail. In Keweenaw County, parts of the old trail are still present between Eagle River and Eagle Harbor and around the Agate Harbor area to Copper Harbor and old Fort Wilkins itself.

The road also played a significant, though little known role in the discovery of the great Calumet conglomerate copper lode. In the 1850s a young man from Detroit named Ed Hulbert was hired by the government to run the survey on the Military Road between Portage Lake and Copper Harbor.

During the course of this work, young Edward, with an eye toward his future financial success, noted chunks of unusual copper bearing ore laying on the surface in a section of land occupied by low, marshy land and a lone road house that offered refreshment to travelers moving between the north end of the Peninsula and the newly established towns of Houghton and Hancock. During off-hours he explored the area more closely and found an old pit, partially filled with centuries of debris, that contained chunks of copper stashed many years earlier by Indian miners. He also determined that below the surface of this material was a large vein of the strange copper- bearing rock he had found samples of on the surface.

Since the land was owned by an East Coast mining firm, and his immediate funds were somewhat limited, Ed kept this information to himself until several years after his contact with the government had concluded and he was able to secure the financial muscle of several Massachusetts’s investors to buy the entire section and raise the funds to sink an exploratory shaft on the site of the old pit in the 1860s.

The huge formation of copper rich conglomerate rock produced the huge Calumet and Hecla Mining Company that became the greatest producer of copper in the world and dominated the development of the region for the next 80 years.

Farmers in southern Houghton County have unearthed old buckles and even a bayonet dropped by some weary soldier as he tramped through the woods. Although crossing private property, I have hiked some of this section. You can almost hear the creaking of wagon wheels and the muffled sound of hobnail boots that passed here so many years ago.