Ghost towns Archives - Lost In Michigan

The Nonesuch Mine

Posted on May 17, 2023 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Ghost towns, upper peninsula .

The Porcupine Mountains in the western Upper Peninsula is the largest state park in Michigan. It is known for its hiking trails, waterfalls, and the Lake Of The Clouds. But few people know that hidden among the trees are the ruins of an old mining town. It also has an old stone lined shaft that sinks into the ground. It is rather spooky how it curves out of a hill and I can not imagine descending down into the earth from it. The hole is fence off now but you can still see it in the forest of the Porkies

Nonesuch is a type of copper ore that exists in sandstone and the town was named after the ore. Mining began in 1867 and ended in 1912.At its peak, the town had a population of 300 people and besides the mining buildings, it had a school, boarding houses, stables, and even a baseball team. Today stone walls can be found in the area where the town once stood. I also found some old cast iron machine parts including a large gear half-buried in the ground and held in place by a tree root.

The ruins can be found near the Little Iron River. A parking lot can be found off South Boundary Road with a trail that is about a half-mile long that will take you to the ruins. To find the parking lot drive straight south of the visitor center. A short road keeps going south where South Boundary Road curves to the west. Down that short road, you will find a small parking lot and an informational sign for the town of Nonesuch.

If you love exploring the Upper Peninsula I hope you will take a look at my new book Lost In Michigan’s Upper Peninsula available on Amazon HERE

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Butternut

Posted on March 24, 2023 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Forgotten Places, Ghost towns, small towns .

The small town of Butternut, or what remains of it, stands in central Michigan west of Carson City. It was founded in 1888 and believed to be named after a butternut cheese factory. It was once a prosperous town with a population of over 200 people. The town’s prosperity came from its location on the Toledo, Saginaw & Muskegon Railroad, which allowed for the easy transport of lumber and minerals. However, the town’s fortunes declined in the early 1900s when the railroad was abandoned. By the 1930s, Butternut was a ghost town and today only a few buildings and a couple houses still stand in the area.

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Sac Bay

Posted on January 18, 2023 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Ghost towns, upper peninsula .

Sac Bay is in the Garden Peninsula south of Fayette in the Upper Peninsula. It is a small bay on the shores of Big Bay De Noc and a town of the same name was started in 1853. It was given a post office in 1860, but was closed after a post office was opened in Fayette. This old building stands across from an old farm where the town once stood. It looks as if it was a general store at one time and then it had a metal addition added to it. There is a little county park along the bay and it is a nice quiet place to visit if you are at Fayette.

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A Ghost Town Bridge

Posted on January 8, 2023 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Ghost towns, Thumb .

Nestled among the trees and over a small creek is an old iron truss bridge. The sign hanging from the top beams reads: MICHIGAN BRIDGE AND PIPE CO. LANSING MICHIGAN. You can see the old bridge from M-25 near Port Austin and it was part of the old sawmill town of Port Crescent. The town started back in 1844 when Walter Hume built a hotel and trading post near the mouth of the Pinnebog River. A few sawmills sprang up in the area around the river and the town was known as Pinnebog but another town upriver had the same name. It was decided to change the name of the town to Port Crescent for the crescent shape the river made as it flowed into the Saginaw Bay.

The lumber town continued to thrive and even survived the Great Fire of 1871. Woods and Company built a large steam-powered sawmill with a brick smokestack that soared into the sky. The town had several houses and even built a large two-story schoolhouse to educated the children. By 1881 the lumberjacks had cut most of the timber, and what was still standing, was mostly destroyed by the great fire that swept through the thumb. Slowly houses and buildings were moved or dismantled and taken to the surrounding towns such as Port Austin and Bad Axe. By 1894 all the buildings were gone and very little remained of the once prosperous town. The trees were gone, but a few people realized the sand was valuable for glass making and copper smelting and began mining and shipping the sand around the Great Lakes.

By the 1930s sand mining operations have ceased and that would have been the end of the land being used for anything. After WWII and the prosperity that followed Michigan families began vacationing during the summer. The state of Michigan acquired the property along the shoreline in 1959 and established the Port Crescent State Park. Little remains of the town of Port Crescent. The old bridge is used for a hiking trail and the foundation for the sawmill chimney stands near the entrance to the campground. Next time you visit Port Crescent State Park, or drive past the sign for it on M-25, maybe you will remember the town and the hard-working lumberjacks who lived there.

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The Ghost Town of Hagensville

Posted on November 2, 2022 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Ghost towns .

After stopping at a roadside park to read about the devastating fire in the small town of Metz, northwest of Alpena. ( can read my post about Metz HERE) I wanted to go to the Presque Ilse Lighthouse (you can read my post HERE) and I knew it was northeast from where I was, so I just started heading north. A few miles from Metz I saw this old building that looked like it had been a boarding house, or saloon, or general store, or probably all the above. I stopped and got a pic but I really had no idea of where I was.

When I got home I found out on google maps that I was in Hagensville, or at least what was left of it. An old building and some modern day farms. According to records, I found the Post Office was open from 1886 to 1912 and that William Hagen was the first postmaster. He and Wilson Pines owned the local sawmill.

I can only imagine at the turn of the 20th century that travelers would stop by on their arduous journey across northern Michigan while at the turn of the 21st century travelers whizz by at 55 miles per hour, and if they blink, they will miss it.

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The Old Store in the Leelanau Peninsula

Posted on September 18, 2022 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in General Store, Ghost towns .

This old building stands in the Leelanau Peninsula not far from M-22. It is located where the town of Good Harbor once stood once stood along the shores of Lake Michigan between Glen Arbor and Leland. I am not sure if this building that looks like an old general store was part of the town but it looks as if it was built a long time ago.

In the 1860s H. D. Pheatt built a dock in Good Habor Bay to supply passing steamships with firewood. Over the next few decades, a couple of sawmills were built. The town had grown in population and had a hotel, general store, school, and some saloons. The interesting thing is Centerville and Cleveland townships boundary lines ran down the middle of Main Street in Good Harbor. Centerville did not allow saloons, so Good Harbor’s saloon was built on the Cleveland township side of the street. In1905 the last remaining sawmill caught fire and burned down. Because most of the timber had been cut in the area the sawmill was not rebuilt. in the 1920a the old wood buildings still standing in the empty town were dismantled and the lumber used to build them was sold.

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The Haunted Ghost Town of Iva

Posted on July 31, 2022 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Ghost towns, Haunted Places .

I found out about the old town of Iva north of Hemlock, in Richland Township, on the corner of Iva and Dice roads and I had to take a trip to see it since I don’t live far away. (Click HERE, if you wanna know where I live). I was expecting to find a few houses, but when I got there, I found this beautiful old building that looked like it used to be a general store. According to records, the post office in Iva opened December 7th 1894 with John F. Shovan as its first postmaster. The post office closed in October of 1904. I could not find any other information about the town, but I can only assume it was another lumbering town that existed until the trees were gone, and then the lumberjacks moved away becoming a farming community. I would think some of the residence of Iva who died are buried in the cemetery on Dice Road.

The general store was featured in a documentary by Haunted Saginaw HERE

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The Ghost Town of Deward

Posted on May 25, 2022 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Ghost towns .

This concrete block, with a metal eye in the top, sits along the Upper Manistee River. I think it was used by lumberjacks to pull logs from the river for the sawmill. It was part of the town of Deward northwest of Grayling. You can still find several concrete foundations and machinery supports. They are slowly being overtaken by the trees and vegetation. If you are looking for an adventure this spot in the state forest is a fun place to explore. You can read more about it on my post HERE

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The Ghost Town of Winona

Posted on May 18, 2022 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Ghost towns, upper peninsula .

The town of Winona sits at the base of the Keweenaw Peninsula near the Twin Lakes. There are a few houses there but for the most part it is a ghost town. During its heyday in the 1920s, Winona had restaurants, a brewery, sports teams, churches, boarding houses, a train depot, a saloon, stores, boardwalks, a school, and a barber shop. The town of Winona sprung up around the mines that were started in 1864. The mine closed in 1923 and soon after the town began to dwindle and eventually almost everyone moved away. I saw this old building being consumed by the forest. I am not sure what it was, but its rather large, so maybe a store or boarding house.

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The Old Building in Pequaming

Posted on April 29, 2022 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in General Store, Ghost towns, upper peninsula .

This old building stands in the trees in the Upper Peninsula town of Pequaming. There is not much remaining in the town today but back in its heyday it the entire town was owned by the Ford Motor Company. It was a sawmill town making lumber for Model-T bodies. I am not sure what this old building was, maybe a general store or an old boarding house. It seemed kind of lonely and forgotten surrounded by trees.

You can read more about Pequaming in my other post HERE

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