Hancock is a city in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. The population of Hancock was 4,501 at the 2020 census. The city is located within Houghton County, and is situated upon the Keweenaw Waterway, a channel of Lake Superior that cuts across the Keweenaw Peninsula. Hancock is located across the Keweenaw Waterway from the city of Houghton, and is connected to that city by the Portage Lake Lift Bridge. The city is located within Michigan's Copper Country region.
Hancock is considered a "cultural capital" for Finnish Americans. The city is home to the Finnish American Heritage Center, and was home to Finlandia University from 1896 to 2023. Some street name signs in Hancock are bilingual, reading in both English and Finnish.
The Weather Channel has consistently ranked Hancock as the third-snowiest city in the U.S.
History
The story of Hancock began during the summers of 1847 and 1848, when a small group of prospectors laboring on a rugged hillside (later named Quincy Hill) discovered a sequence of prehistoric Ojibwe copper mining pits, stretching out for 100 feet along the local amygdaloid lode. Upon inspecting one, they realized that the Native Americans were able to take copper in small quantities through these pits. The discovery formed the basis upon which the Quincy Mining Company was created in October 1848, under a special charter granted by the legislature.
The earliest building in what is now the City of Hancock was a log cabin erected in 1846 on the site of the Ruggles Mining Claim, halfway up atop the hillside; it is no longer standing as the site has been taken up by the Houghton County Garage buildings. It was owned by Christopher Columbus (C.C.) Douglass, who came to live there in 1852. The Quincy Mining Company founded Hancock in 1859 after purchasing the land from Douglass and building an office and mine on the site. The city was named after John Hancock, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Hancock's first store was built by the Leopold brothers in 1858; the store also housed the first post office. Samuel W. Hill, an agent for the Quincy Mining Company, platted the Village of Hancock in 1859. On 20 August 1860, Bishop Frederic Baraga and Reverend Edward Jacker selected lots nine and ten of block eight in the village for the purpose of constructing a church. It was on the northeast corner of what is now Quincy and Ravine Streets. The Quincy Mining Company donated this ground, but for some reason the official paperwork didn't go through for it until 2 July 1875.
In Hancock's earliest days, the village had been within the borders of what is now the Portage Charter Township, but on 1 April 1861 the area was set off and organized into a new township called Hancock Township. The Portage Stamp Mill was also founded nearby at Portage Lake in 1861. In 1860, the Keweenaw Waterway was dredged, widening the then-Portage River to allow more aquatic transportation to Hancock and neighboring Houghton. The waterway was initially opened to ships in 1859.
Also in 1859 was the debut of the Hancock Mine, later called the Sumner Mine before being renamed the Hancock Mine once more. The mine was on Quincy Hill near both Summit and Franklin Streets in an area that is now part of Finlandia Campus.
On 10 March 1863, the Village of Hancock was officially organized and the first officers were elected in the office of William Lapp, the justice of the peace and a pioneer lawyer. Hervey Coke Parke was elected as the first village president. This is considered the founding date of Hancock.
M.J. McGurrin opened the village's first drugstore in 1865. There were also a few small grocery stores where James Artman sold handmade harnesses. The population of the town may have been about 400, mostly miners who had occupied smaller houses near the vicinity of their workplace, the mines.
On 11 April 1869, Hancock was struck by the worst fire in the community's history when a stovepipe in a local saloon where the post office is now exploded and engulfed the building in flames. It soon spread across the village with the help of a strong west wind. The fire destroyed some 150 buildings, including every store in the village and almost all other businesses, the wooden bridges that had stretched across the ravines, and 120 homes. At the time, Hancock had no fire department or fire equipment. This short-lived fire obliterated three-fourths of Hancock. It took two years to rebuild. Famously, Mary Chase Perry Stratton, the founder of the Pewabic Pottery, survived the 1869 fire without injuries.