It weighs more than 40 tons
MARQUETTE -- At 15 feet in diameter and weighing more than 40 tons, it's considered to be the world's largest piece of float copper.
After being discovered in 1997 in Hancock, members of the Ancient Artifact Preservation Society teamed up with the Superior Watershed Partnership to make sure the copper wouldn't be melted down. Displaying the copper was a longtime dream of the late U.P. historian, Fred Rydholm.
"I call it a labor of love in honor of Fred. This was his dream to bring this copper here and to save it. We're happy to be helping him make his dream come true," says Superior Watershed Partnership's Executive Director Carl Lindquist.
Friday, the copper made the journey from the Keweenaw to its new home at Presque Isle Park in Marquette. And getting the copper here was no easy task.
"Well, the biggest problem that we experienced this morning was the rain. It was our road...it was a nice sandy road yesterday, but it turned into six inches of quagmire. Then they had a bulldozer, and the bulldozer just couldn't get any traction because of the mud," explains Ancient Artifacts Preservation Society President Glenn E. Devlaminck.
And it's not just Upper Michigan residents who will see the copper. A historian is filming a documentary about U.P. copper that will hopefully be released on PBS next year. And this piece of copper will be part of the film.
"It was kind of lost because it was buried under the soil and consequently none of the historic miners found it. It was left; that's the type of copper that the ancient miners would have found if they were from the glaciers that busted these all off from the veins that were exposed from volcanic activity," says historian Bob Kreipke.
The copper will stay on the truck until Wednesday when a crane will move it into its permanent location.
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