The Portage Stamp Mill was also founded nearby at Portage Lake in 1861. In the year 1860, the Keweenaw Waterway was dredged, widening the then-Portage River to allow more aqua transportation to Hancock, and neighbouring Houghton. However, the waterway was initially opened to ships in 1859. Also in 1859 was the debut of the Hancock Mine, which would later be called the Sumner Mine before being switched back to the Hancock Mine once more. The mine was situated on Quincy Hill near both Summit and Franklin Streets in an area that is now part of the modern-day Finlandia Campus. On 10 March 1863, the Village of Hancock was officially organized and the first officers were elected in the office of William Lapp, the justice of the peace and a pioneer lawyer of the time. Hervey Coke Parke was elected as the first village president. This is considered as the founding date of Hancock. M.J. McGurrin opened the first drug store in the village in 1865. There were also a few small grocery stores where James Artman sold handmade harnesses. The population of the town may have been about four hundred people in all, the majority of whom were miners who had occupied smaller houses near the vicinity of their workplace, the mines. On Sunday, 11 April 1869, Hancock is struck by the worst fire in the community's history when a stovepipe in a local saloon where the post office is now located had exploded and engulfed the building in flames. It soon spread across the village with the help of a strong west wind. The fire ended up destroying some 150 buildings, including every store in the village and almost all of the business places in general, the wooden bridges that had stretched across the ravines, and an additional 120 homes. At the time, Hancock had no fire department or fire equipment in the village, however, this short-lived fire had completely obliterated three-fourths of Hancock. It took two years to rebuild the village. Famously, Mary Chase Perry Stratton, the founder of the Pewabic Pottery, survived the 1869 fire without injuries. On 1 March 1871, in response to the devastating fire of 1869, the Hancock Fire Department was officially organized. In an 1883 publication the fire chief, Archibald J. Scott, stated that the fire department had 2,500 ft of hose on hand and that the water supply was ample. In 1872 the Hancock and Calumet Railroad (H&C RR), as well as the Mineral Range Railroad (MRRR) began their operations.