Keweenaw Heritage Center at St. Anne's in Calumet, MI

Calumet in 1900 was a booming town in the center of Michigan’s copper mining industry. The largest company in the region, the mighty Calumet & Hecla operated its works between the villages that became Calumet and Laurium. The mines drew a diverse population, including Cornish and Scots, Finns and Swedes, and French Canadians. Experiencing prosperity in 1900, the village built a grand theatre and French Canadian Catholics built St Anne’s Church.

Built in 1900 under the Administration of the Reverend J. R. Boissonault, the French-Canadian Catholic Church was dedicated to St Anne. Designed by the architectural firm of Charlton, Gilbert and Demar, the structure was built of red sandstone from the Jacobsville quarry in the Gothic style with French Gothic ornament generously applied.

To serve the tastes of its French-Canadian parishioners, many of church’s details are derived from the flamboyant or rayonnant style of the late Gothic period in France.

The sandstone is cut in square and rectangular shapes, hammer dressed and randomly laid. The stones of the piers, water table and window surrounds are smoothly finished at the edge and hammer dressed toward the center. The stepped lancet arches of the portals show indications of horizontal tooling on the vertical faces of the arch.

Deconsecrated by the Catholic Church in 1966, the church briefly housed a flea market in the 1980’s. But it has been vacant or underutilized for more than three decades, and over that time, the structure received no maintenance.  Since 1994 the Keweenaw Heritage Center reversed this pattern of neglect that threatened one of Calumet’s most significant and dominant structures.