What is the Keweenaw Time Traveler?
The Keweenaw Time Traveler project is creating an online interactive historical atlas that will completely change how we learn, share, and explore the history and heritage of Michigan’s Copper Country.
We are connecting the past environments and the people who lived in them across time and space in a highly-interactive map-driven interface that we call the Time Machine. We are building the Time Machine now but we will need your help. The project relies on Citizen Historians (HINT: that is you!) to help build up the data and contribute your knowledge, stories, photographs, and memories of the Copper Country.
What is the Time Machine?
Imagine having nearly all of the region's historical maps in one place, scanned in high-definition!
This first stage of the project is starting to come online now: click here.
Imagine these maps being fully searchable, just like how you lookup locations on Google maps.
We are working on this now!
Imagine having the rich historical archives of the Copper Country including federal censuses, city directories, mining records, newspapers, and photographs all linked to a map from the time they represent in history.
Yup, we are working on this too!
Plus, all those records will be linked to each other over time! Want to know who was owner of the bakery on Quincy Street in 1920? Who was in the Class of '45 at Calumet High? What business used to be in the building next to your house, or where you ancestor used to live?
With your help, this will be possible too!
The Keweenaw Time Traveler is focused on the histories of the Keweenaw Peninsula, which extends seventy-five miles into Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. This is home to the Copper Country which was the first and among the largest copper mining regions in the United States, providing three-quarters of the nation’s copper during the height of electrification and industrialization. Several dominant mining companies recorded with high precision not only their industrial processes of mining, milling, and smelting, but also the changes they made to the physical, social, and urban landscapes of the region. These changes were recorded on hundreds of large-format, very detailed maps which sit preserved but scattered between various archives and museums across the region. We are bringing these collections together into one space-time linked digital archive covering the region from about 1880–1970
Map Your History!
We will be bringing the Keweenaw Time Traveler to various public events over the next several years including Bridgefest, the Houghton County Fair, Pastyfest, and others. We will also be holding workshops to get your feedback about how to make the Time Traveler more fun and easier to use. You can help us gather data from the maps and documents we have already scanned, and then you can begin to add your own stories of past places, people, and events in the Copper Country. Help us Map Your History!
Want to get involved now? Click the contact us link below
