Houghton County Courthouse reflected the prosperity brought by the late nineteenth-century copper boom, with an opulent High Victorian design, an irregular form, a polychromatic exterior, red sandstone trim, and a copper roof made from Upper Peninsula materials. Architect J. B. Sweatt of Marquette, originally from Chicago, was among the many architects who worked in Houghton during the building rush of the copper boom. Dedicated on July 28, 1887, the courthouse replaced a frame structure built in 1862. Organized in 1845, Houghton County once covered the entire Keweenaw Peninsula, with Eagle River as its first county seat. After the state legislature divided the county into Keweenaw and Houghton in 1861, the village of Houghton became the new county seat. Finnish settlers were predominant, alongside Scandinavians, Cornish, Germans, and French Canadians, and jobs were plentiful because the county stood at the center of the copper boom. In 1874, Michigan produced 88 percent of the nation’s copper, and Houghton County mines supplied 79 percent of that total; two years later, Michigan copper production reached 90 percent of the nation’s output. The Michigan Mining School opened in Houghton in 1886 and was renamed Michigan Technological University in 1964.