Who discovered Copper?

Question

Specifically in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Answer 1

Nobody knows. Copper was one of the seven elements known to the ancients. Asking this questiopn is like asking who invented the wheel, or who invented the stone ax? We can never know.

Answer 2

Interesting question, but one for which there is no definitive answer. The aboriginal peoples used copper, but mostly it was free copper that they used. That is, copper that was available in surface ore. Later, people learned to mine for copper and crude copper mines, staffed by slaves (usually captives from another tribe) were used to dig, break and process the copper. In pre-historical times, there were worked copper deposits in many places in north america, in europe, and in china. So it's very hard to say who found it first!

Answer 3

Who Discovered Copper

Answer 4

Copper was first mined in that area by an ancient vanished race between 5,000 and 1,200 bc.

Answer 5

Copper was a prehistoric metal. It was fond uncombined and ancient peoples used it for jewelry and spear tips.The Indians of the upper peninsula

Answer 6

Um, David Copperfield?

Answer 7

The first mineral boom in the United States occurred in 1843 when people from all over the continent began to chase the copper, silver and iron of Michigan’s upper peninsula. These mines were in commercial operation for more than a hundred years.
Michigan has produced over 14 billion pounds of copper since mining began in 1844. Silver is often extracted along with the copper deposits. The copper mined in Michigan help fuel the industrial revolution that occurred in the US, because copper products were needed by the growing nation. All mining of native metallic copper ceased in the UP in 1969. Currently, Arizona leads the nation in copper production.
Michigan’s copper deposits were remarkable for their quality and purity. Bands of native copper were contained in outcrops 2 to 8 miles wide and of varying depth. The surface deposits first attracted the notice of Native Americans who dug out the easily accessible chunks and fashioned copper tools and adornments from them. The British and French saw the indigenous pieces but did little to exploit the resource.
Michigan’s unique contribution to archeology is found in the ancient copper mines of the Lake Superior region. The presence of copper in the rocks of the Keweenaw Peninsula has been known for centuries. Copper artifacts show that long before Europeans arrived, native Americans throughout the upper midwest used the metal for making a variety of ornaments, tools, utensils, and weapons. Much of the copper used by the Native American was "drift copper" — removed from the rocks by the glaciers and dropped randomly in the glacial debris. The Indians were made aware of the existence of the metal by masses of float copper carried south by the glaciers and left lying on the surface. Sometime in the remote past, an unknown tribe began to mine the native copper in the Upper Peninsula. They dug pits in the ground and separated the copper from the stone by hammering, by the use of wedges, and, possibly, by the use of heat. Thousands of hammers have been found in and about the old pits. Copper from these mines was widely distributed throughout the country, and it is probable that numerous tribes made summer pilgrimages to the Upper Peninsula to get supplies of the precious metal.
Copper jewelry and amulets worn by the Indians excited the interest of the early white explorers. They learned the Indians had not mined the copper but had found it scattered on the surface west of Pictured Rocks. Explorers from the time of the Jesuits on have searched without success for the "mother lode." Although the French explorers were told of the copper deposits by the Chippewa Indians in the early 17th century, no mining was attempted until late in the 18th century, and none of the French mining ventures were successful.
In the early 19th century, settlers moving westward from the eastern United States bypassed the UP because of its reputation as an inhospitable wilderness. However, favorable attention was drawn to the region by Douglass Houghton’s (images below) 1841 geological report describing the presence of copper on the Keweenaw Peninsula. Douglass Houghton was Michigan's first state geologist.

The first copper mine opened in 1771, and its owner, Alexander Henry, sent the massive Ontonagon Boulder--of pure native copper--to Detroit as evidence of the region’s richness. But speculative activity did not begin in earnest until 1841, hastened by the favorable reports of the first state geologist, Douglas Houghton. These reports, combined with publicity given the Ontonagon Boulder, sparked the first mineral rush in the nation, predating by several years the more famous California gold rush. Between 1843 and 1846, thousands of prospectors arrived from the East with the hope of "striking it rich."
These events brought a rush of copper-seeking prospectors into the Upper Peninsula in the early 1840s. Copper mining has been almost continuous in the Keweenaw Peninsula area for the 150 years since then. During that time over 12 billion pounds of native copper have been mined.

Answer 8

The Native Americans there were mining it long ago.

Answer 9

it was known since ancient times no buddy knows