Victoria, a Ghost Town Brought Back to Life: Upper Peninsula, Michigan

The Victoria Mine was located in Ontonagon County in the Upper Peninsula, operating from 1849 until 1921.

Previously, in the mid-1700s, missionaries found a mammoth copper boulder in the area and after a few tries at operating a mine, the area’s first mine finally was open for business in the 1840s. The mine was taken over by the Victoria Mining Company, who owned a handful of other mines in the Upper Peninsula.

With the mine’s success, a town was needed. Naming a new town after the company, “Victoria” soon had eighty houses for miners and their families, a general store, school, and stamp mill. Wages of the day seem meager to us, but back then the miners worked ten-hour days for one dollar, which was later hiked up to two dollars.

Get our free mobile app

Copper soon started to run out and many of the other mines shut down – but the Victoria stayed open past World War I.  Once the war ended, so did the town of Victoria. The homes and businesses were abandoned and left to rot and decay. Finally in the 1970s, Victoria got a resurrection and some old homes and cabins were brought back to life.

If you pay a visit, you may get confused: now known as ‘Old Victoria’, the town sits along the highway about a half mile north of ‘New Victoria’, which is nothing more than a couple of homes and abandoned buildings.

Tours of Old Victoria kicked off in 1976 and are still being held. You can see a few miners’ cabins, boarding house, and family home.

MORE GHOST TOWNS!