Category Archives: Forgotten Places

The House In The Hills

Posted on by Posted in Forgotten Places, Houses .

I came upon this old forgotten house somewhere in the Chippewa Hills area. It looks as if it has been worn down from years and years of Michigan weather. If walls could talk I can only imagine what stories they would tell. I wonder when the last Thanksgiving meal was shared inside.

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Autumn is Over

Posted on by Posted in Forgotten Places, Winter Wonderland .

Autumn has come and gone. I get asked when is my favorite time of year to photograph and without hesitation it is Autumn. The vibrant color like nature’s fireworks only happens for a short time and then it’s only memories until next year. I know winter does not officially start until December 21st but it feels like it has started already.

The perfect day for me is a warm day with the sun shining on gold, red and yellow leaves. looks like I will have to wait about a year for that day again. In the meantime, I do have more Autumn photos to share. Thank you all for taking the time to read my posts.

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The Hard Scrabble Ghost Town of Keno

Posted on by Posted in Forgotten Places, Ghost towns .

Heading north out of St. Helen I went past this old building. I am not sure if it was a school, boarding house, or what. It looks like it has been standing for a long time. I looked on the map and it shows the name of Keno. I am wondering if it is the last remaining structure from the forgotten town.

From the research I did, I found out that the area was originally known as Hard Scrabble. The Hyde family came to the area from Virginia and were early settlers. The town was given the name of Keno and Sarah O. Wheeler became the first postmaster in 1910. I am not sure what happened to the town in later years, I can only assume the timber was cut and lumberjacks moved away.

P.S. They should have kept the name Hard Scrabble. I am thinking no one would forget a town with such a tough-sounding name.

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Dollar Settlement

Posted on by Posted in autumn, Forgotten Places, upper peninsula .

Traveling down the road that follows the Lake Superior shoreline I came across this old Pullman car. It’s somewhere between Brimley and Paradise. According to the map, the town is or at least was Dollar Settlement. I could not find any info about this sparsely populated town. Someone told me that the old railroad car was brought in to convert to a diner, but it never materialized. Now it just sits in Dollar Settlement watching tourists pass by.

PS. I saw once were Robert Dollar the founder of Dollarville near Newberry built a dock on Lake Superior for his sawmill and lumber company. I am guessing that is where Dollar Settlement got its name from, but I have never been able to confirm it.

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The Yellow House

Posted on by Posted in Forgotten Places, Houses, upper peninsula .

If you have ever driven down 28 across the central part of the U.P. you know it seems like that road goes on forever. One of the towns it passes through is McMillan. I was mesmerized by this old house near the center of town. At one time it’s faded and peeling yellow paint was vibrant and new. I imagine everyone in town must have known which house you were describing when you said the “Yellow House” The old house seems to be forgotten about but if it could talk I am sure it would have some stories to tell.

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Schools Out Forever

Posted on by Posted in Forgotten Places, Schools .

I took a photo of this old schoolhouse a few years ago. It stands, or more like stood, on old M-21 between Capac and Imlay City. I was scrolling through Facebook and I happen to notice a photo of an old school. someone commented that it was recently demolished. I then realized it was the schoolhouse near Imlay City

I am glad I got a pic of it while it was still standing. slowly the old schoolhouses are disappearing. They are a reminder of days past and how things have changed over the decades. I am not sure if they changed for the better or worse, but they have changed.

Reminder, I will be giving a presentation at the library in Marysville on October 21st. at 6:30pm you can find out more info HERE http://www.stclaircountylibrary.org/EventInfo.aspx?id=27001

I will be at the Tamarack District Library in Lakeview on Tuesday, October 29th at 6pm

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The Mystery House

Posted on by Posted in Forgotten Places, Houses .

I was going through some of my old galleries and I came across this old forgotten house. I can’t remember even taking this photo let alone where it is located. It was in a gallery of photos from the Leelanau Peninsula so I am assuming the old house is located somewhere in the peninsula. Oh well, maybe I will discover it again on another trip.

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The Revelation Inside the Old Mill

Posted on by Posted in Forgotten Places, Grain Elevators .

North of Glen Arbor in the Leelanau Penisula is an old grist mill that sits along the Crystal River. It looks like many other hundred-year-old mills used for grinding grain, but this one has a unique story to tell. Long after it stopped grinding grain into flour during the 1970s it was turned into a world-class recording studio. You would have never guessed it from driving past this old forgotten structure. I just assumed it was and always has been a mill, but besides grinding flour it was cranking ou the tunes.

It was going to be turned into an arts and crafts center, but the plans fell through and architect Fred Ball ended up with the building. He decided to turn it into a recording studio calling it the Glen Arbor Roller Mills Recording Studio. He spared no expense purchasing state of the art 16 track quadraphonic soundboard and the latest equipment. Acclaimed audio engineer Bill Porter, who was instrumental in shaping the “Nashville Sound” and worked with Elvis along with other big named artist learned about the project. Porter helped with getting the studio set up and had engineer George Augspurger who worked on Los Angeles’s Village Recorder Studios help with the new studio in Glen Arbor.

I could find a lot of information about the equipment in the studio, but what I could not find is a list or any artists that recorded in the historic old mill. I imagine being secluded in northern Michigan in the 1970s it was difficult for artists to travel to it and had a relatively short life as a recording studio. A small sign is posted on the mill’s porch for a nearby resort called the Homestead, so I assume they own the historic building and have plans for the future, but I am thinking it will probably not be a recording studio.

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Zeba Mystery Church

Posted on by Posted in Churches, Forgotten Places, upper peninsula .

Not far from the town of L’anse is the small town of Zeba and close by is this little church. It stands along the shoreline of Lake Superior’s L’anse Bay Lake Superior. I am sure it was a church with the cross proudly mounted to the top of the steeple. Other than that I don’t know anything about it. I can only imagine it has seen some beautiful sunsets over the bay and some ferocious winter snowstorms all while holding services inside for funerals, weddings, and baptisms.

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Camp Sidnaw

Posted on by Posted in Forgotten Places, upper peninsula .

The small town of Sidnaw in the central-western Upper Peninsula was home to one of several POW camps throughout Michigan. The camp was originally built as a CCC camp and after the capture of thousands of German soldiers in Africa, they were sent to the United States to be held as POWs.

Because of the large number of American men serving in the war the lumber industry requested POW’s be used to help with the labor shortage. 251 Germans were held in Sidnaw from February of 1944 until April of 1946. The camp did not have a fence around it just a couple of guard towers to watch the prisoners. It was not much of an issue. Most prisoners were young men who were drafted into the Nazi Army and would rather work in the sawmills than be shot at by the allied troops. One issue that did have was with the conservation officers who complained about the guards using machine guns and hand grenades to hunt deer while they POWs were out logging. The U.S. government sent limited supplies to the camp and some fresh venison was a welcomed meal.

Nothing from the camp remains. The guard towers stood for a long time, but they are gone now. I saw this old shack next to the tracks in town, and I can only imagine this little building saw many trains pulling in and out of town with POWs and supplies.

Near Brimley is the remains of another former POW facility called Camp Raco, you can read my post about it HERE

If you want to know more about the POW camps in Michigan I highly recommend reading the book by Gregory D. Sumner titled Michigan POW Camps in World War II. It was compelling to read, I did not know so many POWs were sent to Michigan to work in the fields and forests. You can check out his book on Amazon HERE

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