I go to the baking isle in the grocery store and see all the little blue and white boxes of Jiffy Mix. They remind me of the grain elevator/plant in Chelsea where it is produced. It’s like a giant box of Jiffy Mix. It is nice to have products made in the USA but it is especially wonderful to get products made in Michigan. Now I am hungry for cornbread.
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This old building that looks like a stone motel was the old Echo Valley Resort. It overlooks Johannesburg Lake and is now part of the Louis M. Groen Nature Preserve. I am not sure when it closed, but it must have been really special to stay in it back in the day.
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I saw this little barn in the town of Rosebush, a few miles north of Mount Pleasant, and like so many other barns in the area, it has a round or arched roof. The Round roof gained popularity in the 1920’s after WWI as it was found to have more room for storing hay and other items in the loft of the barn. The roof configuration is sometimes called Gothic, Gothic-Roof, Arched-Roof, or Rainbow-Roof. After World War II barns with no sides were built with just an arched roof like a Quonset Hut.
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This old General Store sits in Huron City near the tip of the Thumb. It was built in 1885 after the great fire of 1881 that swept through the forests of the Thumb. It closed in the 1950s and is now part of the Huron City Museum.
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The remnants of the old Halliwell mine can be found in the Porcupine Mountains. South of the visitor’s center on S. Boundry Road is where the mine once stood after it was constructed in 1895. The mine sunk two vertical shafts but it never made a profit and closed in 1908.
After the mine closed is when it gets a little interesting. Two brothers, George and Gus Biggie live at the mine. They were born in the Porkies in the 1890s. They attended school at the nearby ghost town of Nonesuch where their father ran a general store. They lived in the old office of the mine and raised chickens, grew a garden and guided hunters and tourists to make a living. When the Michigan took over the land to create the state park they were given special permission to live at the old mine. After they had both passed away in the 1970s the mine structures were removed. Only a few remnants of the mine remain along with a fenced off hole where the shaft was sunk into the earth.
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This old house stands in Flint near Powers Catholic High School. The school was originally the Michigan School For the Deaf. A historical marker stands next to the house and reads:
The Superintendent’s Cottage, completed in 1890, is the oldest building on the campus of the Michigan School for the Deaf. With the exception of the masonry work, the cottage was built almost entirely by male students. In addition, students made the furniture for the house in the school’s shops. The building reflects the craftsmanship of the boys who studied under instructors Edwin Barton and James Foss. Student labor saved the state money while preparing the boys for future employment. Construction of the cottage began during an 1880s diphtheria epidemic when faculty housing was reorganized to make room hospital space. Beginning with Francis Clarke and his family, who lived in the house from 1892 to 1913, every superintendent has resided in the cottage.
In 1848 the Michigan legislature established the Michigan Asylum for Educating the Deaf and Dumb and the blind. Flint was selected as the site for the new institution. The first student arrived on February 6, 1854. After the School for the Blind opened in Lansing in 1880, the Flint facility began serving only deaf children. The curriculum, which combined academics and practical training. emphasized “market gardening and general farming.” Boys studied carpentry, printing, tailoring and farming, while girls learned the sciences of cooking, sewing, darning and patching. The schools mission was to educate deaf children so that they “may earn a living … may have culture enough to enjoy that living … (and) may be fitted for citizenship.
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The Legs Inn, in the town of Cross Village, is named for the stove legs that trim the roofline. It is a popular stop along M-119 at the north end of the Tunnel of Trees.
The building was built by Stanley Smolak. He came to the United States in 1912 from Poland and settled in Cross Village in 1921. During the 1930s Smolak enlisted the labor of Odawa and other area residents to construct the inn from locally gathered timber and stones. A self-trained artist, Smolak used tree roots, limbs and driftwood to carve fantastical creatures into furniture and decorative objects used in the inn. He called his carvings “natures oddities.” Until his death in 1968 at age eighty-one, Smolak continued his creative work at the inn, which had become a social center for the community.
One more thing. Just to let you know, Lost In Michigan Volume one is part of Amazon’s special GET 3 FOR THE PRICE OF 2. you can see it HERE ( I am not sure when the special sale will end )
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When you hear the words “the thing” you probably think of John Carpenter’s movie from 1982 staring Kurt Russell, but that’s not what this post is about. Outside of Memphis (Michigan of course, I am not that lost that I am in Tennessee) is a historical marker for ” The Thing” It marks the location where Thomas Clegg and his father put a steam engine on a wagon in 1884 making it the first self-propelled vehicle in the state and probably the country. They built the contraption in their machine shop and drove it for about 500 miles before they sold the engine to a creamery. I imagine them standing around the shop looking at the wagon and the steam engine grunting like Tim Allen and figuring out ways to give it more power. The marker stands where the shop once stood since it was demolished in 1936.
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The White River Lighthouse is at the mouth of the White River on Lake Michigan near Whitehall. Construction of the lighthouse began on August 28, 1875. It was a common design used on the Great Lakes including, McGulpin Point near Mackinaw City and Eagle Harbor in the Keweenaw.
The lighthouse was deactivated in the 1960s and operates as a museum today. It is a nice place to visit and check out the artifacts and climb the tower when it is open. You may also see the ghost of a former keeper. You can read more about that on my post HERE
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Little Girls Point is a county park that stands along the Lake Superior shoreline west of Ironwood. A stone shed stands in the middle of the park. I am not exactly sure what it is used for, maybe an old well pump house. It is a beautiful place to stop for a picnic and watch the waves on Lake Superior.
The name of the park is a curious one and it has a unique story. Legend has it that a young Chippewa woman named Leelinaw lived with her family further to the north in what is now the Porcupine Mountains State Park. She loved to paddle her canoe along the shoreline of the great lake they call Gitche Gumee (Lake Superior). She was told not to stop at the point covered in pine trees because it was haunted by Puk Wadginees or “the little men of the wood”.
On the day of her wedding Leelinaw ventured, out as she had done before, and stopped at the point to explore the grove of pine trees. She never returned and by nightfall the point was searched using torches but she was never found. A wooden sign stands in the park telling the story of Leelinaw and her disappearance.
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