by Daniel R. Fountain
© 1992
Lake Superior Port Cities Inc.
ISBN 0-942235-15-0
Ever since I was a child growing up in the small town of Ishpeming on the Marquette Iron Range, I had heard of the old Ropes gold mine, but never knew much about it. I shared a common misconception about gold mines,namely that they generally produced large nuggets of gold which anyone could find just by digging a bit. A couple of trips to the old mine's rock dumps and an ill-fated panningexpedition to Gold Mine Creek (armed with a tin pie plate and plastic bags for my nuggets and gold dust) quickly dispelled these ideas.
When, in the 1970's I began to hear that miningcompanies were surveying the area around the mine, I beganto search out the history of the Ropes and Michigan mines, which, as far as I knew, were the only gold mines in thearea. As I dug into the available resources, I learned tomy surprise that gold prospects were spread throughoutMarquette County and across the Upper Peninsula. This bookis my attempt to compile the stories of these mines andminers.
Michigan Gold is the only complete history of gold mining in Michigan. From prospecting in the 1840's to modern mining operations in the 1980's and 1990's; from the streambeds of Lower Michigan to the hard rock mines of the Upper Peninsula, the gold miners' stories are told in rich detail.
Michigan Gold earned the first annual Stuart D. and Vernice M. Gross Award for Literature in Regional History, awarded by Saginaw Valley State University in 1997.
Michigan Gold Contents:
Michigan Gold is available in bookstores across the Great Lakes states. Autographed copies are available from the author for $12.95 + $3.00 postage & handling from:
Daniel R. FountainLake Superior Port Cities Inc. publisher of Michigan Gold and Lake Superior Magazine.
167 East Buffalo Road
Negaunee, MI 49866-9721
Also available from amazon.com