Located on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula also known as the Copper Country Synagogue.

The Keweenaw Peninsula juts north from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula into Lake Superior. Known as Copper Country, copper was discovered there in 1841 and has been the economic driver ever since. Peddlers, purveying to the miners, were the first Jewish settlers in the Hancock – Houghton area. One of the most notable was Jacob Gartner who came to America with his son Isadore from Breslau, Germany in 1880.

Jacob and Isadore peddled by foot for six years among the small towns in the area. With their savings they opened their first store, Gartner’s, in 1886. That store grew to be the largest department store in the area but the reason that Jacob Gartner’s name is still remembered is that the Copper Country synagogue, Temple Jacob, is named after him. By 1889 a congregation was established and by 1912 there were about 100 Jewish families in the area. Although many donated generously to the construction of the new synagogue, it was the generosity of Jacob Gartner that enabled the synagogue to open debt free. Jacob, who died while the building was under construction, never saw the new shul completed.

The building is constructed of indigenous materials: the foundation is of local sandstone, the walls are of brick and the roof is capped with a shiny copper dome topped by a Magen David on a spindle. It is believed that the architect was Henry L. Ottenheimer, who apprenticed in the same Chicago office as Frank Lloyd Wright.