Fort Wilkins

Douglass Houghton, Michigan's first state geologist, conducted a systematic geological survey of Michigan and the Upper Peninsula from 1837 to 1845. In the area around Copper Harbor once mined by Indigenous people, Houghton sampled veins of copper. His 1841 report made the deposits known to American citizens and entrepreneurs. The region opened after area Ojibwe ceded the land to the United States under the 1842 Treaty of La Pointe. In 1843 the Michigan copper rush began. Potential conflict between the Ojibwe and copper miners and plans to enforce the total removal of the Ojibwe led the federal government to build Fort Wilkins in 1844. Captain Robert Clary led Companies A and B, Fifth Regiment Infantry, to the Keweenaw Peninsula in May 1844 to build the fort-named after Secretary of War William Wilkins. Built in 1844 to act as a buffer between copper miners and the local Ojibwe, ensure civil order, and support federal authority and land claims, Fort Wilkins quickly became irrelevant. There was no armed conflict with the Ojibwe, and the region's harsh environment drove away all but the most determined miners. In 1845 Fort Wilkins' garrison was halved to prepared for the Mexican-American War. The remaining garrison was transferred to Texas in 1846. From 1846 to 1855 a government caretaker maintained the fort. From 1867 to 1870 the army regarrisoned the fort with Civil War veterans due to limited space elsewhere. Maintenance costs led the government to abandon the fort on August 30, 1870. To preserve the site, Houghton and Keweenaw Counties purchased the military reservation in 1921. In 1923 they deeded it to the State of Michigan and it became a state park.