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Houghton County, Michigan

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles

—digitized titles

42historic places

—earliest paper

1845formed

37,361pop. 2020

27cemeteries

—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 42 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1970; 2 are also National Historic Landmarks. Most listings are in or near Houghton, Hancock, Calumet.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for Michigan is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Houghton titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

26 of 42 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

42 listed properties

Property	City	Type	Listed
Big Traverse Bay Historic District	Lake Linden	District	1975
Bosch, Joseph, Building	Lake Linden	Building	1982
Calumet Downtown Historic District	Calumet	District	1974
Calumet Fire Station	Calumet	Building	1974
Calumet Historic District NHL	Calumet	District	1989
Calumet Theatre	Calumet	Building	1971
Calumet and Hecla Industrial District	Calumet	District	1974
Chassell School Complex	Chassell	Building	2009
College Club House and Gymnasium	Houghton	Building	1980
County Road C11-Pike River Bridge	Chassell	Structure	1999
Douglass House	Houghton	Building	1982
East Hancock Neighborhood Historic District	Hancock	District	1980
First Congregational Church	Lake Linden	Building	1980
Hancock Central High School	Hancock	Building	2018
Hancock Town Hall and Fire Hall	Hancock	Building	1981
Hoatson, Thomas H., House	Laurium	Building	1994
Houghton County Courthouse	Houghton	Building	1975
Jacobsville Finnish Lutheran Church	Jacobsville	Building	1976
Kaleva Temple	South Range	Building	1982
Keweenaw National Historical Park	Calumet	District	1972
Keweenaw Waterway Lower Entrance Light	Torch Lake Township	Structure	2014
Keweenaw Waterway Upper Entrance Light	Hancock Township	Structure	2014
Lake Linden Historic District	Lake Linden	District	2009
Lake Linden Village Hall and Fire Station	Lake Linden	Building	1981
Laurium Historic District	Laurium	District	2005
Lieblein House	Hancock	Building	1980
Michels, John J., House	Houghton	Building	1991
Old Main, Suomi College	Hancock	Building	1972
Painesdale	Painesdale	District	1993
Quincy Mine No. 2 Shaft Hoist House	Hancock	Building	1970
Quincy Mining Company Historic District NHL	Hancock	District	1989
Quincy Mining Company Stamp Mills Historic District	Osceola	District	2007
Quincy Street Historic District	Hancock	District	1988
Redridge Steel and Log Dams	Redridge	Structure	1992
Saint Henry's Evangelical Lutheran Church and Cemetery	Nisula	Building	2013
Saint Ignatius Loyola Church	Houghton	Building	1987
Shelden Avenue Historic District	Houghton	District	1987
Shelden, Ransom B., House	Houghton	Building	1980
Shelden-Dee Block	Houghton	Building	1982
Smith-Dengler House	Wolverine	Building	2008
South Range Community Building	South Range	Building	1981
Vivian, Jr., J., and Company Building	Laurium	Building	2003

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Houghton was formed in 1845 (1845-03-19) from Marquette, Ontonagon.

HOUGHTON created from MARQUETTE and ONTONAGON.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Houghton County population from 1850 to 2020 (Census historical series).

1850	1860	1880	1900	1920	1940	1950	1960	1980	2000	2020
708	9,234	22,473	66,063	71,930	47,631	39,771	35,654	37,872	36,016	37,361

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

National Park Service sites nearby

NPS

Park units within about 40 km of the county centroid (from NPS Public POIs; no API key).

Site	Type	Dist.
kewe	Park unit	29.6 km

Source: NPS National Datasets / Public POIs. The NPS Developer API requires a free key and was not used.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

27 cemeteries and 0 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 27 of 27 listed

Name	Lat	Lon
Alston Cemetery	46.75558	-88.74079
American Legion Cemetery	47.11194	-88.5436
Askel Cemetery	46.89034	-88.58256
Atlantic Mine Cemetery	47.1045	-88.63486
Calvary Cemetery	47.21158	-88.40233
Chassell Township Cemetery	47.02991	-88.52731
Elo Cemetery	46.88747	-88.63583
Forest Hill Cemetery	47.11214	-88.54039
Hecla Cemetery	47.23309	-88.44808
Jacobsville Cemetery	47.00196	-88.41792
Kargi Cemetery	46.91298	-88.56355
Kenton Cemetery	46.4935	-88.88873
Kitchie Cemetery	46.49799	-88.81708
Lakeside Cemetery	47.14353	-88.62067
Lakeview Cemetery	47.25381	-88.48761
Lutheran Cemetery	47.12556	-88.59583
Maple Hill Cemetery	47.21342	-88.40094
Mountain View Cemetery	47.07992	-88.65012
Nisula Lutheran Cemetery	46.76465	-88.78387
Oskar Cemetery	47.17138	-88.64805
Redridge Cemetery	47.14952	-88.73629
Saint Joseph Cemetery	47.12546	-88.59558
Schoolcraft Cemetery	47.25584	-88.43285
Sidnaw Cemetery	46.5072	-88.72076
Toivola Cemetery	47.01103	-88.83179
Waasa Cemetery	47.21297	-88.57345
Woodland Cemetery	46.8654	-88.90017

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Houghton County, Michigan

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.