Houghton, Michigan

Houghton, Michigan is the county seat of Houghton County, Michigan. The city is located on the south shore of Portage Lake, primarily on the slope of a hill on the opposite side of the Portage Lake valley from Hancock. Houghton is named after Douglass Houghton, discoverer of copper nearby (though there is evidence indigenous peoples had mined copper in the area thousands of years before).

In the East Houghton neighbourhood is East Houghton Park, and along Portage Lake is the Waterfront Recreation Area, the principal feature of which is a large "Chutes and Ladders" playground. Also in the waterfront area is the Houghton RV Park.

Houghton's primary industry was copper mining until the last nearby mines closed in the late 1960s, but a school founded in 1885 by the Michigan State Legislature to teach metallurgy and mining engineering, the Michigan College of Mines, continues today under the name of Michigan Technological University and is the primary employer in the city.

The first settler of Houghton was named Ransom Sheldon, who set up a store named Ransom's near Portage Lake.

In 1854 Ernest F. Pletschke platted Houghton, which was incorporated as a village in 1867.

Houghton is the birthplace of professional ice hockey in the United States.

In the winter of 2001 among the first lumitalos to be constructed in the United States was built in Houghton.