Miscowaubik Club (Calumet, Mich.)

The Miscowaubik Club was established as a private membership club on January 28, 1903 in Calumet, Michigan and continues today as one of the oldest clubs in Michigan's Copper Country. In formal organization, the Club was intended "for the encouragement of athletic exercises, and for the establishment and maintenance of places for reading rooms and social meetings." Yet, the Miscowaubik Club proved different from other clubs in one important respect. It had the backing of the Calumet & Hecla Mining Company, the region's most successful mine, and some of the area's most influential mining men. The Club remained tied to Calumet & Hecla for more than seventy years. Ownership and maintenance of the building, provision of steam and electric utilities, even the payroll of Club employees was managed through the mining company. But the closure of the company's Michigan copper mines in the 1960s required changes in the club. By 1976 the organization completed its transition into a truly independent organization, taking ownership of the club house building, surrounding property, and a brand new furnace. The end of copper mining in the Keweenaw did not spell the end of the Miscowaubik Club. The Miscowaubik Club remains one of the Midwest's oldest continuous private membership clubs. Through the hard work of its employees, board of governors and membership, the organization has overcome substantial challenges to continue in the "encouragement of athletic exercises and maintenance of places for reading rooms and social meetings." (excerpted from Calumet's Miscowaubik Club by Erik Nordberg, S:\Archive\Private\Projects\Miscowaubik).