HOUGHTON, a town of Michigan, U.S.A., in the produc tive copper region of the Upper Peninsula, on Portage Lake, oppo site Hancock; a port of entry, the county seat of Houghton county, and the seat of the Michigan school of mines (opened 1886). It is on Federal highway 41, and is served by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific, the Copper Range, the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic, and the Mineral Range railways, and by steamboats through the Portage Lake ship-canal. The popula tion was 4,466 in 1920 (82% native white) and was 3,757 in 1930 by the Federal census. Houghton was founded in 1841 and in corporated in 1867.