Located in the heart of Michigan's Copper Country, Houghton County received its earliest settlers in the 1840s. After the Civil War, Houghton, named for Douglas Houghton, the state's first geologist, boomed. During the 1870s, the county's biggest copper producer, Calumet & Hecla Mining Company, mined 50 percent of the nation's copper. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Houghton County's 66,000 people made it the state's fourth most populous county.