Houghton grew dramatically after its incorporation as a village in 1861, when it had two thousand residents, a wood frame commercial district, and few industrial buildings. By the copper district's peak production from 1900 to 1920, the population of the village and surrounding township had reached nearly ten thousand, forcing the city to expand and change. It first spread southward up the hill from its original waterfront core, while repeated destruction and construction divided the central section into distinct zones: docks, warehouses, and industrial buildings along Portage Lake; hotels, saloons, and retail businesses centered on Shelden Avenue; and, farther uphill beginning along Montezuma Avenue, a residential neighborhood with homes, schools, and churches. The city also expanded east and west. To the east, successful merchants and the mining class built homes along College Avenue, and the Michigan Mining School, which began in rented downtown space in 1885, established permanent roots there on land donated by state senator Jay Hubbell; later, fraternities, sororities, and college students became a significant part of East Houghton. On the west side, residential development began in the 1880s and 1890s, then accelerated after the Copper Range Company was formed in 1899 and built railroad and shipping facilities along the western waterfront, prompting construction of warehouses, commercial buildings, and housing. More recently, Houghton annexed large blocks of surrounding Portage Township for retail and commercial development. As the city expanded outward, its central core also changed through new stores, office blocks, social halls such as the Independent Order of Odd Fellows hall built in 1910, and fires that sometimes destroyed individual buildings and sometimes larger stretches, including seven buildings on Shelden Avenue in 1953. After local copper mining ended in the late 1960s and scheduled ship and rail service was lost, downtown Houghton was reshaped again as the economy shifted toward service, education, and tourism, leaving some historic buildings disused while others were adapted to new purposes.