The story
Central Mine — usually just called Central — was one of the richest copper mines on Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula. Organized in 1854, it struck a fissure of native copper so productive that a Cornish mining town of more than 1,200 grew up around it, complete with a coronet band, a fine schoolhouse, and a stone Methodist church built in 1869 in the style the miners had left behind in Cornwall.
The lode was rich but finite, and when it pinched out the mine closed in 1898. Within a couple of years Central was empty, its families scattered across the copper country and beyond. Then, in 1907, a new railroad reached the site and the former residents came back for a reunion — and they have kept coming back ever since. On the last Sunday of every July the old Methodist church fills for a service, the one day a year the ghost town is not a ghost town.
The Keweenaw County Historical Society preserves the church and several of the frame houses, and the site is part of Keweenaw National Historical Park. The rest is foundations and mine ruins going quietly back to the northwoods.
What remains today
The 1869 Methodist church, restored miners' houses, and mine ruins, cared for by the Keweenaw County Historical Society within Keweenaw National Historical Park.
Questions from the field
- What is the Central Mine reunion?
- A homecoming service held in the old Methodist church on the last Sunday of July, kept up since 1907 by descendants of the mining families — the one day a year this Keweenaw ghost town comes alive.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Central Mine — GPS-verified visits earn an inked stamp.
File a field report
Road conditions, what's still standing, what's gone — your report joins the record.
Add photographs
Credited, dated, and preserved as part of Central Mine's permanent record.
No field reports yet — sign in to file the first.
Primary sources for this record
- — USGS GNIS feature 622986
- — Keweenaw County Historical Society — Central
- — National Park Service — Keweenaw National Historical Park