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Houghton is the largest city and county seat of Houghton County in the U.S. state of Michigan. Located on the Keweenaw Peninsula, Houghton is the largest city in the Copper Country region. It is the fifth largest city in the Upper Peninsula, with a population of 8,386 at the 2020 census. Houghton is the principal city of the Houghton micropolitan area, which includes all of Houghton and Keweenaw County. The city of Houghton and the county were named after Douglass Houghton, an American geologist and physician, primarily known for his exploration of the Keweenaw Peninsula. Houghton has been listed as one of the "100 Best Small Towns in America" despite it being considered a city. Houghton is home to Michigan Technological University, a public research college founded in 1885. Michigan Tech hosts a yearly Winter Carnival in February, drawing thousands of visitors from around the world.
[edit] History
Native Americans mined copper in and around what would later be Houghton thousands of years before European settlement. "French explorers had noted... [its] existence [in the area] as early as the seventeenth century, [and in] 1772 Alexander Henry had prospected for copper on the Ontonagon River near Victoria."[1]
The last nearby mines closed in the late 1960s, but a school founded in 1885 by the Michigan State Legislature to teach metallurgy and mining engineering, the Michigan College of Mines, continues today under the name of Michigan Technological University and is the primary employer in the city. The first known European settler of Houghton was named Ransom Shelden, who set up a store named Ransom's near Portage Lake, though it is unclear whether this was in the same building as the 1852 Shelden and Shafer drugs, sometimes described as "the first commercial building constructed in Houghton," which Shelden owned with his son Ransom B. The main street of Houghton, variously called "Sheldon Avenue," (incorrectly) Sheldon Street, and Shelden Avenue, is named for him. In the 1970s the construction of a parking deck and the connection of downtown stores to create Shelden Center significantly changed the downtown. William W. Henderson was appointed the first postmaster of Houghton in 1852. In 1854, Ernest F. Pletschke platted Houghton, and was incorporated as a village in 1861. In Houghton's first days it was said that "only thieves, crooks, murderers and Indians" lived there. The postwar boom and increasing demand for copper wiring fueled the development of Houghton in the 1860s and 1870s.[2] Houghton gained in importance as a port with the opening of the Keweenaw Waterway in 1873, the waterway being the cumulative dredging and extension of the Portage Lake, Portage Shipping Canal and Lily Pond so as to isolate the northern part of the Keweenaw Peninsula into Copper Island. By 1880 Houghton had become "a burgeoning city" and in 1883, the railroad was extended from Marquette. 1909 saw the founding of what would later become Portage Lake District Library. During the bitter Copper Country Strike of 1913-1914, the Michigan National Guard was called in after the sheriff petitioned the governor. Houghton was the birthplace of professional ice hockey in the United States when the Portage Lakers were formed in 1903. Houghton is the home of the Portage Lake Pioneers Senior Hockey Team. The team's home ice is Dee Stadium, named after James R. Dee. Dee Stadium was originally called the Amphidrome, before it was severely damaged in a 1927 fire. Houghton was incorporated as a city in 1970. In the winter of 2001, Houghton was the site of one of the first lumitalos (Finnish temporary snow houses) to be constructed in the United States. [edit] Philatelic historyOn October 28, 2002, the first day of issue ceremony was held in Houghton for the "snowman stamps" issued by the United States Postal Service. One of the 2006 United States Postal Service snowflake stamps ("photographed in Houghton by Caltech physicist Kenneth Libbrecht using a digital camera and special microscope") were unveiled in Houghton. A pictorial postmark commemorating Winter Carnival 2007, "Ancient Worlds Come to Play in Snowy Drifts of Modern Day", was applied at the Winter Carnival temporary station in Michigan Technological University's Memorial Union Building, February 10, 2007. [edit] Philatelic History
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