Several private summer residences are among a dozen buildings left in this ghost of a mining town founded by three Chicago capitalists. Lumber for construction was hauled sixty miles from the LaFever Saw Mill on the upper Michigan River, and by 1903 there were sixty houses, four stores, four lodges, two hotels, and a newspaper in addition to the twelve mines producing copper sulfides, silver, and gold. A copper smelter was constructed on a hillside south of town in 1905, but it never operated, since declining mine production doomed the town to an early death. The smelter's concrete foundations are still visible, as are a few stretches of boardwalk and the ruins of log and frame houses. The town was named, apparently, for Pearl Wheeler, the first postmistress. The Wolverine Mine, largest and most productive of a dozen mines, is now a large ruin spilling out its mechanical guts.