Because the native Indians held copper as sacred, it took some time for explorers to uncover where it was that the copper came from.
By 1800 there had been enough evidence for mass quantities of a very pure grade of copper in Keweenaw Peninsula (which is the Upper Peninsula of Michigan) that Congress passed a resolution to study the copper. By 1820 it was confirmed that the Keweenaw Peninsula held worthy amounts of a very pure copper. Had the area not still been in possession of the Indians, the first metal rush in America would have been copper. The Gold Rush of Georgia in the late 1820′s preceded the copper rush for that fact alone. By 1843, the peninsula became part of the American territories and the copper rush was on.
In 1848, Samuel O. Knapp, an Agent for a company which would eventually become the Minnesota Mining Company, was out looking over a snow covered hillside and noticed a line of indentations in the snow. He followed these for a ways until he came to a cave like opening.
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