Delaware Mine offers tours | News, Sports, Jobs

GRANT TOWNSHIP — Delaware Mine Tours, 12 miles south of Copper Harbor on US 41, has been welcoming visitors since July 5, 1977, when Tom Poynter and his wife, Lani, opened the mine to the public. The Poynters operated the site until September 2023, when Tom died suddenly. Poynter was known, respected and loved by the community, and for some time there had been concern about what would happen to his passion, mining.

Concerns were eased this year when Delaware was purchased in January by Tom’s daughter and her husband, Laurie and Bob Sullivan.

True to Tom’s vision, a long-term goal is to create a museum of copper mining in Copper Country, Bob said, from prehistoric times through the Delaware mine development period. That’s a long story.

In June 2023, Michigan Technological University’s Department of Social Sciences began a field archeology school at the Delaware Mine site, which is believed to have been mined between 3,000 and 8,000 years ago.

In modern history, the Delaware Mine began in 1845, making it one of the true pioneer mining enterprises in the Lake Superior copper mining region, just two years after the La Pointe Copper Treaty was ratified by the US Senate in 1843.

It was originally organized as the Northwest Mining Association. Two years later, in March 1847, it was reorganized as the Northwest Copper Company, and reorganized two more years later as the North West Mining Company.

In 1861, the company was dissolved and a new company was created, the Pennsylvania Mining Company of Michigan. Two years later, in 1863, 720 acres in the western part of the Pennsylvania Company were separated from the company, on which the Delaware Mining Company was organized. In those early years, he focused on native copper from fissure veins located in ancient volcanic rocks or the amygdaloid formation. Later, mining will focus on these deposits.

The Mining Historical Association’s report on the property states that from the 1860s to the 1880s, a number of new companies were formed to raise capital for further mine development. Several of the companies and mines had names reflecting their eastern investors, the Pennsylvania Mining Company (1861), the Delaware Mining Company (1863), a new Delaware Mining Company (1876) consolidating the old Pennsylvania and Delaware companies, and finally Mining Conglomerates. Company (1881). By the 1880s, the Conglomerate Mining Company had developed an extensive mining complex, employee housing, and a school in the town of Delaware.

Tours are available daily between 10:00 AM and 5:00 PM