 Copper Falls Park lies near the west end of the Penokee-Gogebic Mineral Range, a ridge of rock formations that stretches from Ashland County 80 miles to Lake Gogebic in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.Copper was mined in the area during the Civil War, and in the 1880s there were two copper mines near where the log footbridge now is.Around 1900 Wells M. Ruggles had a crew digging for copper at what is now the southeast corner of the picnic grounds.