I saw this little wooden church in Palmer southeast of Ishpeming in the Upper Peninsula. The town of Palmer was established in 1872 and is named after mining executive L.C. Palmer. Which makes sense because there is an enormous mine just outside of town.
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I saw this little old barn on Love Road near Bellevue. I don’t know anything about it but I thought it was a pretty looking little barn.
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Michigan has a few historic towns you can visit, but there is one that few people know about. It is located way up in the Keweenaw Peninsula between Calumet and Copper Harbor on US-41. A small brown and white sign that simply reads ” Central Mine Visitors Center” points to the old town. Most tourists just think it is a simple little visitors center for one of the many former mines in the area, but they are mistaken.
Central Mine is the name of a company town that was built by the copper mining company of the same name. The mine was open in the 1850s and closed in the 1890s after the copper ore was depleted. The town at one time had a population of 900 residents. The miners who were mostly immigrants from Cornwall England moved away after The Central Mine turned off the pumps and sealed the shafts. In the 1950s, the last permanent resident in the town of Central Mine left.
The Keweenaw County Historical Society owns 38 acres of the old Central Mine site and town. It operates the visitors center located in a former house. The society has also restored several houses and building in the old town. Some are open to visitors and decorated with antiques from the period they were built.
When I visited, the small town was strangely quiet. I could walk through the open houses and explore the area. It was like stepping back in time going into a house over a century old and the items inside from back in the day. If you visit be sure to stop by the visitors center first and look at the map since some of the property is still private and closed to tourists.
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Driving around the farm fields east of Shepherd I came across this old building which looked like a schoolhouse or church or township hall or maybe all the above. I took a few pics and then when I got back home I looked it up on google and found out it was in the township of Coe which was named after Lieutenant Governor George A. Coe in 1855.
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It’s hard to miss this grand old house standing in downtown Niles. Henry A. Chapin and his wife built this beautiful queen ann home in 1882. Henry lived in it until his death in 1933 and then donated it to the city of Niles which used it as their City Hall for several years.
Chapin built one of the first general stores in the area. He did well as a merchant but it was his property in the Upper Peninsula that he gained his fortune from. In 1865 he purchased a large tract of land near Iron Mountain. A vast deposit of iron ore was discovered and the Chapin Mine was opened. “Mr. H.A.” as he was known, received up to $300,000 yearly in royalties from the mine. The house is now used as a historical museum.
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Fort Wayne in Detroit has a long history that spans several decades since it was built in the 1840s Many of the buildings have been abandoned by the army and left to decay. A non-profit group has been working on saving the old fort and its many structures from the ravages of time.
During my visit, a tour guide told me of some of the hauntings on the historic property. He pointed to a tunnel that leads to a gun and cannon location and said ” That is one of the most haunted places in the fort” He said a few years ago some workers were taking a lunch break. They decided to get out of the summer heat and sat in the old tunnel to eat their lunch. The men went running out of the tunnel and have never been back to the old fort. When they were asked what happened they said while sitting down and eating their lunch a civil war soldier in full uniform came out of the stone wall. He slowly walked passed them and down the tunnel without saying a word before disappearing into thin air.
The fort has never seen a battle or fired any guns or cannons at an enemy. Many soldiers trained at the fort during the Civil War. A few died and were buried on the fort grounds. Eventually to make room for expansion of the fort the headstones and bodies were moved to a nearby cemetery down the road.
The old fort hosts ghost tours in the fall. They are extremely popular and you need to reserve your spot in advance. you can find out more about them HERE
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I saw this old mill in Bellevue. I stopped and went down by the river to get this stunning view of the stonework and the river. I did not know at the time it was a house until I read the historical marker.
Horatio Hall built this mill for Manlius Mann in 1854. Powered by water from the Battle Creek, a three-ton overshot waterwheel in the basement turned three pairs of millstones that ground grain from local farmers into flour. Before vertical grain elevators came into use, a rope hoist in the western roof peak lifted grain to the appropriate level. It was manually pulled through the corresponding vertical door to be processed. Grain products produced here included corn meal, bran, white whole wheat and biscuit flour. In 1873 Mann sold the mill to Hiram Ovenshire and Danial D. Gardiner. Ovenshire became the sole owner in 1881. Around 1888, to increase replaced the millstones with steel roller mills and the waterwheel with two forty-three-horsepower turbines.
The Bellevue Gothic Mill produced many flour products and brands, including Blue Bird flour, marketed by Abraham Butler, a former dry goods store owner. By 1929 the mill yielded up to sixty barrels of Blue Bird flour per day. In 1949 this was the only mill within a fifty-mile radius that still produced flour. Hiram Overshire’s descendants, whose surnames included Ovenshire, Hollenbeck and Butler, owned the mill until it closed in 1975. In 1977 the Stockhausen family purchased the property. They restored the exterior and renovated the interior for an adaptive reuse as a private residence. In 1982 they installed two hydroelectric generators in the basement, allowing them to supply renewable power to the community.
I found this video on Youtube about the renovation of the old mill. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnDWibKuH2E
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Lost In Michigan 2020 wall calendars are now IN STOCK. Thank you so much to everyone who got one last year. Your support helps me with expenses to do this website. I sold out of calendars last year at the beginning of December so if you really want one, be sure to order them soon.
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Located around Charlevoix are some unique houses constructed out of stone with thatched roofs. Many people refer to them as the “mushroom houses” because of their unique construction. They were built by self-taught builder Earl Young using locally sourced building materials. One of the more interesting houses he built is known as the ” Half House ” because it has a flat wall on one side like it was sliced in half. The houses are privately owned and not open to tourists, but driving around town you can see some of the whimsical looking homes.
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You probably heard the phrase ” win one for the Gipper ” at a football game or from the Knute Rockney movie where a young Ronald Reagan played George Gip. What most people don’t know, is the Gipper was a Yooper.
George Gipp was born in 1895 and raised in Laurium on the Keweenaw Peninsula. He entered Notre Dame intending to play baseball for the Fighting Irish. While on campus, he was recruited by Knute Rockne for the football team, despite having no experience in organized football. During his Notre Dame career, Gipp led the Irish in rushing and passing each of his last three seasons (1918, 1919, and 1920). His career mark of 2,341 rushing yards lasted over fifty years. Gipp is still Notre Dame’s all-time leader in average yards per rush for a season
Gipp died at age 25 of a strep throat infection and pneumonia on Dec 14, 1920, two weeks after being elected Notre Dame’s first All-American by Walter Camp.It was on his hospital bed that he is said to have delivered the “win just one for the Gipper” line and said to Rockne;
“I’ve got to go, Rock. It’s all right. I’m not afraid. Some time, Rock, when the team is up against it, when things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys, ask them to go in there with all they’ve got and win just one for the Gipper. I don’t know where I’ll be then, Rock. But I’ll know about it, and I’ll be happy.“
After his death, A memorial was erected in Larium honoring the football hero and Yooper.
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