White Pine Mine

The White Pine Mine itself dates back to the late 1800′s, though its current configuration was born only a half century ago. Established in 1954 by the Copper Range Company, the White Pine Mine was a project partially financed by the government to help procure copper supplies during the Korean War. The mine worked a unique deposit that required a great deal of milling and processing to procure, requiring the erection of a massive milling and smelting facility.

Town
Along with the mine Copper Range erected itself yet another company town called White Pine. This time, however, the company took a slightly different approach. The sterilized conformity of turn of the century community planning was replaced by the free-flowing suburban attitudes of the 1950′s. Salt boxes and two story gabled homes were replaced by ranches and split levels, set back from the road on good sized lots platted along curving streets. The homes were spread out around a centralized town square that was home a grocery store, church, meeting hall, and school.