I live a bardic exile in Calumet, an old ghost copper mining village in Michigan's upper peninsula Keweenaw territory. Copper was discovered in l843 and the enormous ore deposits triggered America's first mining boom.
In the l950's and l960's the Keweenaw copper mining began to decline. Ore deposits were either played out and had vanished, or shafts had been extended too deep to make further mining activities profitable.
The l9l0 census estimated the population of Calumet at 40,000 citizens, while today local records show only 8l0 people living in the village. Arthur Thurner's Calumet Copper and People best describes the painful transition of Calumet becoming a ghost town.
“With the mines closing and people leaving, streets turned drab, 'for rent' signs
went up on now-shabby store fronts, house exteriors weathered in the wintery
blasts were not repainted, and, sandstone buildings once the pride of the community
stood empty.”
The THUNDER SANDWICH photographs were taken in the apartment rooms over the old bowling alley on Fifth Street in Calumet. They graphically resemble several other
Village structures that are in similar states of deterioration.
While staring at the apartment rooms through my camera lens I was reminded of the Tennessee Williams play “Suddenly Last Summer.” The leading actress, a sad and depressed Violet Venable quietly whispering “debris, debris, and debris.”