Copper Culture State Park

A mown path curving through tall green grass toward scattered trees under a blue sky. — A mown path through the meadow, in July 2022.2022 · Photograph by Joe Steinbring

Copper Culture State Park is a 42-acre park just west of Oconto, on the Oconto River, and the Oconto County Historical Society runs it, along with a small museum that is open in the summer. About 4,500 years ago, people of the Old Copper culture buried their dead here, on a spit of sand and gravel that reached into ancient Lake Nipissing, which stood 20 to 25 feet higher than Green Bay does today. They hammered spear points, knives, fishhooks, and ornaments out of pure copper, some of it perhaps carried from as far away as Isle Royale in Lake Superior. The cemetery was excavated in 1952 by the Wisconsin Archaeological Survey and the historical society. The Menominee called the ridge Wasakiu, high sand banks, and about two-thirds of it has since been dug away for sand and gravel. I spent the early afternoon of July 18, 2022, there, a sunny summer day. There are four hiking trails and a really neat little museum, and I walked the mown paths through the meadows and the woods.

Photos from Copper Culture State Park

The park sign.
2022 · Photograph by Joe Steinbring
The marker for the Old Copper Culture Cemetery, put up in 1956.
2022 · Photograph by Joe Steinbring
A sign about the ancient shoreline here.
2022 · Photograph by Joe Steinbring