Biographical Dictionary of Copper Country Architects
by Dany Peavey, Stevan Sliger, John Krystof, and Travis Dvorak. Architect: Charlton, Gilbert, & Demar Location: U.S. 41, Wolverine Built: 1899-1900 The Wolverine Copper Company was established in 1882. In 1898 John Stanton established Mohawk Mining Company five miles to the north and also gained control of the Wolverine. Fred Smith had been superintendent of… Read more Wolverine Copper Company Superintendent’s House
by A. K. Hoagland Architect: Duncan Campbell Location: 85 First St., Laurium Built: 1900 Contractor: Rathbone Campbell designed this modest house for Matthew Bessolo, an employee of Calumet & Hecla, who also served as a Laurium village trustee in 1905. The two-story house had an open porch and a cross-gable roof. Inside were double parlors connected… Read more Bessolo House
by A. K. Hoagland. Architect: Duncan Campbell Location: 208 Pewabic St., Laurium Built: 1900 When Duncan Campbell designed this house for himself, he placed it across the street from two of his other accomplishments: 205 and 209 Pewabic. His own house was slightly more modest, not having a tower, but it had a porch across the… Read more Duncan Campbell House II
by A. K. Hoagland. Architect: Duncan Campbell Location: 205 Pewabic St., Laurium Built: 1900 William J. Galbraith, a lawyer, had this house built for $5,000. Galbraith was involved in at least one famous case: he defended the deputies who were accused of killing strikers in their home in Seeberville, a neighborhood of Painesdale, during the 1913-14… Read more Galbraith House
by Morgan Davis. Architect: Charles W. Maass Location: 242 Iroquois St., Laurium Built: 1899 Contractor: Bajari & Ulseth Charles L. Fichtel, a druggist, commissioned this grand house in 1899. The newspaper described it as being in the “English style,” probably meaning Queen Anne Revival. The jerkinhead-gable roof, cross gable, three-story tower, porches and projections, and… Read more Fichtel House
by Dany Peavey, Stevan Sliger, John Krystof, and Travis Dvorak. Architect: Charlton, Gilbert, & Demar Location: 1019 College Ave., Houghton Built: 1899 Builder: H. Ferge of Milwaukee Painting and Decorating: Hamilton & Eade of Duluth John L. Rees, assistant cashier at the National Bank of Houghton, commissioned this two-and-a-half-story building with shingle-clad walls and a… Read more John Rees House
by A. K. Hoagland. Architect: Duncan Campbell Location: 325 Kearsarge St., Laurium Built: 1899 Henry Grimmer, a grocer, commissioned Campbell to design this relatively modest house and lived there only briefly. The newspaper said that “the style of architecture is colonial design, there being a large veranda in front with a balcony above it.” It went… Read more Grimmer House
by Dany Peavey, Stevan Sliger, John Krystof, and Travis Dvorak. Architect: Charlton, Gilbert, & Demar Location: Pewabic and 3rd streets, Laurium Built: 1898 This Shingle Style house has a Jacobsville sandstone first floor and the distinguishing shingles on the second floor. Numerous porches and porticos project, including a squat round tower at one corner and… Read more Vivian House
by A. K. Hoagland. Architect: Duncan Campbell Location: 209 Pewabic St., Laurium Built: 1898 Duncan Campbell bought this lot in 1898 for $500 and sold it a year later for $4,900, presumably with a new house on it. The buyer was Clara J. Douglas, who lived there with her husband, Frank, an insurance agent. In 1902… Read more Duncan Campbell House I
by Scott Hager Architect: William Pryor Location: 101 Willow Street (corner of First and Boundary), Laurium Built: 1895-96 Paul P. Roehm (1857-1925) was a contractor and coal dealer, but this house exhibits another of his lines of work, and that was masonry. A rare example of a Jacobsville sandstone house, this is a particularly ornate… Read more Roehm House