surveyor douglas houghton went up and found natural iron ore and copper deposits. so in the last half of the 19th century, most of the lumber in the lower part of the lower peninsula was cut down and harvested. full-scale mining efforts began in the upper peninsula for copper and iron ore. when you are extracting the copper and iron ore, it rarely comes out perfectly pure. this is copper or that has other impurities in it that necessitated the building of some of michigan's first meltings to process, gorges, to take the raw toerials and purify them become the pure copper used in items such as ingots and pots and candlesticks and other things. all of this early manufacturing to process this raw or set michigan up to be a major manufacturing center in the early 19th century. some of the earliest manufacturing industries and michigan were related to transportation. we had carriage companies operating out of flint. railcar companies operating out of detroit. shipbuilding was a huge industry in detroit. one of the biggest early manufacturing centers in michigan's histor