Gay is an

unincorporated town An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Keweenaw County Keweenaw County (, ) is a county in the western Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 2,046, making it Michigan's least populous county. It is also the state's largest county by total ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

. It is 12 miles from

Lake Linden Lake Linden is a village in Houghton County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 1,020 at the 2020 census. The village is mostly within Schoolcraft Township, though a tiny portion lies in Torch Lake Township. History Lake Linden ...

Copper Island Copper Island is a local name given to the northern part of the Keweenaw Peninsula (projecting northeastward into Lake Superior at the western end of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, United States of America), separated from the rest of the Kewe ...

at the western end of the

Upper Peninsula The Upper Peninsula of Michigan—also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P. or Yoop—is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula b ...

. Local government is provided by Sherman Township.

History

The town was named after Joseph E. Gay, one of the founders of the Mohawk and Wolverine Mining Companies. Gay had explored around the Keweenaw Peninsula, searching for areas where mining and milling could be viable. This proved successful in 1896 when Gay followed up on the discovery of copper by a lumberman named Ernest Koch, establishing the Mohawk Mine in nearby

Mohawk Mohawk may refer to: Related to Native Americans *Mohawk people (Kanien’kehá:ka), an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York) *Mohawk language (Kanien’kéha), the language spoken by the Mohawk people *Mohawk hairstyle, from a ...

to take advantage of the situation. In need of an improvement in their copper production, the

Mohawk Mining Company The Mohawk Mining Company was a major copper mining company, based in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan, that was established in November 1898 and lasted until 1932. The company, between 1906 and 1932, paid out more than $15 million in shareho ...

built the Mohawk Mining Company Stamp Mill in Gay in 1898.Ghost Towns of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan from the copper mining of the 1800s
/ref> The mill processed copper from the Mohawk Mining Company and the Wolverine Mining Company. The residual sand from the stamping process was dumped into Lake Superior, increasing the town's land area greatly. The mill closed in 1922, leaving only the large smokestack and ruins remaining. At its peak, Gay had 1,500 residents across 117 homes. These residents worked at the town's office, warehouse, blacksmith, dock, pump house, and the copper

stamping mill Stamp or Stamps or Stamping may refer to: Official documents and related impressions * Postage stamp, used to indicate prepayment of fees for public mail * Ration stamp, indicating the right to rationed goods * Revenue stamp, used on documents to ...

. Children attended the town's 250-student schoolhouse. However, the town began to decline after the 1922 closure of the stamping mill. 11 years later in 1933, the Mohawk Mining Company ceased operations in the area. The town struggled on, eventually losing its last industry, logging, in 1965 as railroads left the region.

Stamp Sands Restoration

Starting in 2019, the EPA has provided $3.7 million to the

United States Army Corps of Engineers The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the military engineering branch of the United States Army. A direct reporting unit (DRU), it has three primary mission areas: Engineer Regiment, military construction, and civil wo ...

to begin dredging the

stamp sand Stamp sand is a coarse sand left over from the processing of ore in a stamp mill. In the United States, the most well-known deposits of stamp sand are in the Copper Country of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where it is black or dark gra ...

s at Grand Traverse Harbor near Gay. This is being done in an attempt to restore fish spawning grounds, as well as protect the Buffalo Reef in Lake Superior.

Gallery

File:GayMichiganSchool.jpg, School File:GayBar GayMichigan.jpg, A bar in Gay, Michigan

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Keweenaw County, Michigan Unincorporated communities in Michigan Michigan populated places on Lake Superior Populated places established in 1898 1898 establishments in Michigan