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68 HOuGHTON—There is no mistaking the polychromatic victorian building atop the hill overlooking the Keweenaw Canal. it is the Houghton County Courthouse. its opulent style is witness to the copper boom that happened in the area in the late nineteenth century. But unlike many of the industrial installations that were razed or abandoned after the copper heydays, the courthouse stands largely in its original form. Houghton County was organized in . in its early history, the county seat was rather transient. The offices of the lake Superior Company housed county meetings from  until . Then they were held in the Phoenix Copper Company building outside of its mine. Eagle River, the current county seat of Keweenaw County, was the seat of HoughtonCountyfromuntil,whenthelegislature split off the northern territory as Keweenaw County. A contract was struck in  for a frame structure courthouse on the site of the present facility. it was replaced by its grand successor in . As Houghton’s population grew, from  in  to several thousand, it decided to spend $, on its new courthouse. The cornerstone, featuring a miner’s coat of arms and containing a copper box filled with artifacts, was laid on July , . Due to extreme heat, the planned winding procession was cut short, and everyone walked instead in a straight line to the construction site. J.B.Sweatt,anarchitectworkinginMarquette,designed the building. His style was a Midwestern interpretation of the Second Empire school, revived from the classicism used in French architecture in the seventeenth century. The large tower and the wide wings of the two-and-a-half-story building create a tension between horizontal and vertical. Chimneys and the pointed gables of the dormers add to this feature. There are contrasting yet complementary colors too. The bulk of the exterior is yellow, or Milwaukee cream, brick. local red sandstone lines the windows and parts of the walls. The oxidized copper roofing tosses in a mellow green. An intricately carved wooden cornice also encircles the building. inside, the courthouse features a number of quaint touches, including a round cage filled with lottery balls for jury selection and engraved signs instructing persons not to light matches on the woodwork or walls. in , noted advocate Clarence Darrow appeared in the courthouse because of a large labor strike in the area. Houghton County HOuGHTON COuNTY 69 Tucked away in the southwest corner of the building are a ,-foot five-story addition and a parking deck. Covered parking can come at a premium in the winter when heavy snow falls. The addition is virtually hidden by the front of the building, which, except for surrounding development, is just as it appeared at the dedication in . Along with the addition, Houghton County undertook a considerable renovation of the interior and exterior existing structure. To coincide with the centennial of the courthouse and the sesquicentennial of Michigan’s admission to the union as the twenty-sixth state, the courthouse was rededicated in . A u.S. flag with twenty-six stars that flew over the u.S. House of Representatives in Washington and the State Capitol in lansing was raised over the courthouse. it was an event that no doubt would have impressed the namesake of the county, Professor Douglass Houghton. Dr.Houghton was appointed the first state geologist in , and his geological investigations are credited for bringing people and money to the region when he discovered evidence of vast deposits of valuable minerals. He made voluminous annual reports of his findings, focusing most of his time in the upper Peninsula between  and . He drowned at the age of thirty-six on the morning of October , , when water overcame his open row-and-sail boat in lake Superior off the coast of Eagle River. His remains were found the next spring, and he was buried in Detroit’s Elmwood Cemetery. Within a mile of where he met his fate, the Keweenaw Historical Society, the Home Fortnightly Club of Calumet, and others from both Houghton and Keweenaw County erected a monument in his honor at Eagle River. it is composed of a number of irregularly shaped upper Peninsula stones bonded together, along with a copper plaque commemorating his untimely death. Several miles down the Keweenaw Peninsula stands Dr. Houghton’s other great monument, built of stone, copper, and wood for the county that bears his name: the unique Houghton County Courthouse. HOuGHTON COuNTY ...

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