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1956 Map of White Pine

Name: 1956 Topographic Map of White Pine
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1982
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1982

About this map

The Porcupine Mountains dominate this 1950s survey of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula copper country, rising sharply above the southern shore of Lake Superior. The landscape is a study in early industrial extraction and the burgeoning preservation of the Porcupine Mountains State Park. Evidence of the region’s mineral wealth is concentrated near the settlement of White Pine, where the White Pine Mine and an extensive Tailings Pond indicate the scale of mid-century operations.

Further west, the map reveals the remnants of older mining efforts, including the Union Mine, Carp Lake Mine, and Cuyahoga Mine tucked away near Cuyahoga Peak. These sites, along with the former townsite of Nonesuch, represent the boom-and-bust cycles of the Ontonagon copper range. From the natural beauty of Lake of the Clouds to the industrial utility of the Big Iron River drainage, the map captures a pivotal era where tourism and timber management in the Ottawa National Forest coexisted with deep-shaft mining.