druggistnut
Posts: 307
Joined: 1/7/2006 Status: offline
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George, Joseph James was in business from 1898 to 1908. He had a thriving business, while the mines held out. I have three variants of the quart hutch, three pint variants and three tooled crown variants. The particular bottle you have SHOULD have the makers mark SB & Co embossed on the heel. Look closely, sometimes it's pretty worn. The scarcity rating for your variant (Old Bottles & Jugs of Michigan's Copper Country-) is Scarce, 25 to 50 known. I know that the quarts are not seen that often, so you should have a $30-$50 bottle there. Here is some interesting info, and also explains the name change of the town of Red Jacket, which no longer exists. Bill What is now Calumet was settled in 1864, originally under the name of "Red Jacket",[4] named for a Native American Chief of the Seneca tribe. Until 1895 the name "Calumet" was used by the nearby town of Laurium, Michigan; present day Calumet was not legally named so until 1929. Red Jacket grew due to the copper mines in the area. It was incorporated as a town in 1867. The copper mines were particularly rich; the Red Jacket based Calumet and Hecla Mining Company produced about half of the USA's copper in the 1870s and 1880s.[5] In addition to copper mining and smelting, the region also supported the dairy industry and truck farming. By 1900, Red Jacket had a population of 4,668, and Calumet Township, which contained Red Jacket and nearby mining towns, had a population of 25,991. However, in 1913, Red Jacket suffered from mining labor strikes, and the population began to decline. 2000 census data gives 36,016 for the entire county. In the same year, the town was the site of the Italian Hall Disaster. Striking miners and their families were gathered on Christmas Eve for a party in Italian Hall, when the cry of "fire" precipitated a stampede that crushed or suffocated seventy-five victims, the majority of them children. The identity of the person(s) who started the stampede has never been determined. Folk singer Woody Guthrie's song, "1913 Massacre", is based on this event. Loss of wartime demand caused the copper price to drop following World War I. With the decreased demand for copper, thousands left Red Jacket in the 1920s, many moving to Detroit, Michigan where the automobile industry was booming. In 1929, Red Jacket and surrounding company towns including "Laurium, Hecla, and South Hecla" were reincorporated as the town of "Calumet".[6] To be even more confusing, the area once officially known as Calumet was then re-named to Laurium. During the Great Depression, almost all mines were shut down. As a result, many miners and their families left to find work. In 1950, the population of Calumet was 1,256 people. Small-time mining continued in the area, particularly during World War II until it was shut down completely by a labor strike in 1968.
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