Fort Wilkins Historic State Park at Copper Harbor preserves Fort Wilkins, a U.S. Army outpost established in 1844 during the Keweenaw copper rush. Built to keep order, protect shipping, and ease tensions involving miners and Ojibwas after the Treaty of La Pointe, the post proved larger than circumstances required, as major unrest never emerged. Its garrison left for the Mexican-American War, and the fort was largely abandoned before a brief post-Civil War reuse from 1867 to 1870. Michigan created the state park in 1923, preserving surviving and reconstructed buildings, the nearby Copper Harbor Lighthouse, and a vivid record of how the copper boom transformed Michigan’s northern frontier.