Here is a list of past Copper Country schools that are either no longer operational or now gone from demolition or disrepair.

Like many growing, working-class regions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Copper Country had its share of vice. Large numbers of men, many of them unmarried, moved into the area as mining, lumber, and railroad jobs reshaped its streets and neighborhoods. In their limited hours away from work, these men looked for ways to spend their time off. As a result, the expanding towns saw not only a proliferation of pubs and saloons, but also what newspapers of the time described as “dens of vice,” “houses of ill fame,” and “disreputable houses.”

Cora Doolittle Jeffers spent nearly sixty years shaping education in the Upper Peninsula. Her devotion to students and Adams Township schools helped transform the district into a place known across Michigan for strong teaching, steady expansion, and genuine opportunity. She opened doors for the students of Painesdale High School and beyond, championing physical education long before it was common and standing firm for women’s right to vote in the Copper Country. Her life is filled with remarkable achievements, and each one reflects a woman whose influence reached far beyond the classroom.