Dodgeville, MI

Dodgeville is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Houghton County, Michigan, just south of Houghton in the Upper Peninsula’s Copper Country. The 2020 census counted 391 residents. Its post office uses ZIP Code 49921, and the community’s roads lead into a landscape of woods, old mine ground, and Lake Superior’s Keweenaw country. Dodgeville has no separate municipal government, but the post office keeps its name on the map.

The community was established in 1901 when the Dodge Copper Mine opened, and the post office followed in 1912. Copper mining shaped the Upper Peninsula’s settlement pattern, bringing workers, rail lines, and small communities close to the mines. Copper Country weather and forest make the old mine setting impossible to miss. Dodgeville’s own story is compact: a mining beginning, a postal address, and a location just outside Houghton. It remains a small Copper Country place where the former mine and the surrounding forest still show the shape of the local roads.