Much of White Pine was developed in the 1950s as a company town for miners at the White Pine mine. Mining companies in Michigan often built and leased housing to workers so that miners could live adjacent to mine operations. This allowed mining companies to attract workers with families, which were believed to improve retention rates by ensuring miners were socially and financially invested in the town created by the mining company.
White Pine was developed as a typical post war suburb. Many dwellings were single-story ranch homes, although a trailer park and apartment complex were also built. The community never developed fully as the Copper Range Company envisioned. The automobile transformed how workers commuted where previous mine sites had workers walking from nearby housing to the mine, many workers by the 1950s preferred driving up to 90 miles a day to remain in their current homes rather than move to the company town.[4]
The community of White Pine was listed as a newly-organized census-designated place for the 2010 census, meaning it now has officially defined boundaries and population statistics for the first time.[6]
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, White Pine has a total area of 5.00 square miles (12.95 km2), all land.[7]
^ abLankton, Larry D. (2010). Hollowed Ground : copper mining and community building on Lake Superior, 1840s-1990s. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press. pp. 251–303. ISBN9780814334904.
^Romig, Walter (1986) [1973]. Michigan Place Names. Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press. ISBN0-8143-1838-X.
