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Chapter 6 Copper Cliff (1886–1939) From its humble beginnings in 1886, Copper Cliff started its journey as a mining camp, turning into a sulphur-barren village and then a formal town with a bustling commercial sector and distinctive settlement pattern featuring a high degree of ethnic segregation. It was, above all, an industrial centre and de facto “company town.” Copper Cliff’s position within the region remained dominant until 1905, at which time its population level fell below that of Sudbury. By the First World War, Copper Cliff was a compact settlement of some 3 000 residents. During the 1920s, Inco decided that no further housing would be permitted within the town’s boundaries; this corporate fiat ensured the continuity of Copper Cliff’s size and character for the rest of the twentieth century. Mining Camp After the discovery of ore in Snider Township by Thomas Frood in 1885, and its acquisition by the Canadian Copper Company (CCC), the company constructed a log boarding house. This building no longer stands: the only evidence of its location is now commemorated by a stone monument.1 The mine was originally known as the Buttes; however, because the property featured a gossan-stained surface suggesting copper, its name was changed to Copper Cliff. The same name was later given to one of the early settlements which developed near the mine. After acquiring a number of other copper mining claims in McKim and Snider Townships, CCC’s President Samuel J. Ritchie established the company ’s business headquarters in Sudbury and the industrial centre in Copper Cliff. His influence at the time was such that some citizens suggested Sudbury’s name should be changed to Ritchie, an offer that he politely declined.2 In the 1880s, the only connection between Sudbury and Copper Cliff was the little-used Sault Branch of the CPR. In 1886, Copper Cliff began as a mining camp. The same year, work was started in three mines: Evans (previously Eyre), Lady Macdonald (previously McAllister or No. 5), 98 Copper Cliff (1886–1939) and Copper Cliff. The Copper Cliff mine became the main focus of the CCC and the development of the mining camp. In May 1886, the company had a work force of approximately twenty-five, and by the end of the year the figure had almost tripled to sixty-five. Following the construction of a CPR spur line from the Copper Cliff mine to the Sault Branch, open-pit mining operations began. The “green” ore from the mine was roasted and further reduced at local blast furnaces before being sent as blast furnace matte to smelting operations in the United States and Europe.3 In 1888, a rough road was opened that permitted personal transportation between Copper Cliff and Sudbury by stagecoach, on wheels in the summer and on sled runners in the winter. The formal beginning of Copper Cliff as a company town can be dated from a survey prepared by John D. Evans, a company engineer, in August of 1886. The area covered by the planned survey became the neighbourhood of Anglo-Saxon employees and company officials (“the better class of … men”) and the business district. It became known as Copper Cliff’s English Town. An unplanned settlement called Shantytown also emerged, housing the immigrant labourers, many of them Finns, in rough, tarpaper shelters. Thus the tradition of ethnic segregation was firmly established at the outset. A third settlement was established in 1886 at the Evans mine, situated two kilometres southwest of Copper Cliff. Since it was known that smelting could reduce the ore to matte by a 6:1 ratio, the decision was made to erect a smelter in the mining camp. Known as the Old or East Smelter, it was built in 1888 east of Copper Cliff, where the slag dumps are now found. An open-air roast yard used to lessen the ore’s sulphur content was established in the same year between the settlement and the smelter. The smelting operation provided the focus for a fourth settlement known variously as Smelter, Smelter City, Old, or Old Smelter. Copper Cliff was the first mining operation where company officials were encouraged to bring their families to the area. To house them, twenty to thirty prestigious houses were built near the East Smelter site.4 This area’s lifespan, however, was short, and it disappeared after the plant was closed in 1902. The planning and construction of the company town at Copper Cliff loomed large not...

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