Comment by AngryData
4 days ago
Im not surprised, just a bit north of there the Keeweenaw Peninsula in Michigan has the largest deposit of native copper in the world and would have been fairly prosperous in that era trading copper and copper objects across the midwest and beyond among natives. You can literally dig solid copper nuggets out of the ground there. Just busting up random rocks from the area will show you bright shiny copper bits inside. Any area nearby would itself gain a lot of prosperity from the trade and have decent populations which incentivizes a lot of native farming to feed everyone.
Calumet, in the Keweenaw Peninsula (just north of Michigan Tech) was nearly made the capital, instead of Lansing, because of this!
It's incredible knowing this and going there today - it's a very small town with an absolutely anemic economy and extremely old homes that mostly haven't been updated. It really shows how much can change for a town in 100 years.
It is still just a little town, but the last couple years it seems to have gotten a bit more spark of money and life to it. Probably because people figured out there was cheap houses and land for sale in the area. Of course it all needs a lot of work to gut and update those old homes and other basic goods are more expensive because there ain't jack shit around except seasonal tourist shops.