Category Archives: Ghost towns

The Forgotten General Store

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Bracing itself against the wind and snow for several years the remains of this old general store still stand in the small forgotten town of Dighton. Located a few miles south of Cadillac, the town was named after Dighton Marvin. At one point it had over 1000 residents and three sawmills. Not much remains of the old sawmill town today. A store and a few houses are all that is left of the once bustling community.

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The Ghost Town of North Unity

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In the 1850s, With the lack of work in Chicago, some Bohemian ( present-day Czech Republic) and German immigrants left the city and sailed Lake Michigan looking for paradise. They landed in Good Harbor in the Leelanau Peninsula. After trekking about 10 miles inland they found a beautiful piece of land to establish a new community they called North Unity. With the spread of Typhoid throughout Chicago, their family and friends left in October to start a new town in Northern Michigan. With winter coming they decided to build a large 150-foot long barrack. It was divided up inside with walls to house each family until they could build houses and establish farms in the spring.

The first winter was extremely challenging for the group. They had brought little supplies with them, and because of the winter, they were not able to grow food to feed their families. The local ponds and lakes were frozen over and they could not fish either. They purchased some corn from the local Indians and managed to keep off starving to death in time for the spring thaw.

In the spring they built permanent houses and farms and over the next few years, the little community began to prosper. Other people began moving to the little town in the Leelanau Peninsula. Eventually, a schoolhouse and a gristmill were constructed and John Shalda built a general store. Sadly in 1871 forest fires swept through Michigan and with it destroyed most of the buildings and houses of North Unity.

The people of the devastated community moved further inland to the area near the corner of M-22 and Bohemian Road. (County Road 669) They started a new community and built new houses and other buildings including a church. John Shalda built a new general store and a log cabin. Not far away a new school was constructed. Most of the buildings are gone and nothing remains of the original site of North Unity. The log cabin the John Shalda constructed and the old log schoolhouse can still be seen today along M-22.

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A Michigan Ghost Town

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When most people hear the words “ghost town” they usually envision an old deserted wild west town in the American southwestern desert. While many of the towns sprang up around mines for silver and gold, Michigan had several towns that were built around a sawmill. Michiganders were not mining for gold but they were earning it by cutting timber and selling lumber. The remains of one of the few remaining sawmill towns can be found within the Louis M. Groen Nature Preserve near Johannesburg.

The remains of the Johannesburg manufacturing Co. are deep within the preserve.  The buildings have collapsed under the Michigan snow but the framework of the old well pump is still standing. Rusty old trucks and equipment rest silently along the road that once leads to the town. If you are looking for something a little different to explore this summer be sure to check it out.

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The Forgotten Town Near The Falls

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I saw this old shack or house or whatever it was not far from the waterfalls I stopped to visit. Looking on the map I show both the town of Dixon and Forest Lake on the map and it is not far from Au Train Falls. I am not sure if this is the last remaining structure from the town. It was first named Dixon when it was founded in 1890 by the Clevland Cliffs Company which did a lot of mining of iron ore throughout the Upper Peninsula. It got a post office in 1915 but then it changed names to Forest Lake in 1921. The days of mining and lumbering are long gone and the area is mostly outdoor recreation used by hunters and fishermen and fisherwomen.

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Michigan Ghost Town of Porter

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Almost nothing remains of the town of Porter except for a few houses and an old service station. Michigan has or had a couple of towns named Porter and this one is along the Pine River between Midland and St. Louis. It was given a post office in 1869 and then it closed a few decades later in 1907. If you travel along West Pine River Road you may see the old gas station that people have told me was name Polly’s Place and hopefully you will remember the little town of Porter.

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Big Rock

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It is said that when an iceberg is floating in the ocean you can only see about ten percent of it sticking out of the water. That is the case for the giant boulder that is sticking out of the ground in northern Michigan. No one knows for sure how large the “big rock” is that protrudes from the ground, but it can be seen on M-32 between Gaylord and Atlanta. At on time a lumbering community was settled around it and was given the name Big Rock for obvious reasons. Nothing remains from the old sawmill town but the rock and a couple of signs describing it.

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The Ghost Town of a Ghost Town

Posted on by Posted in Ghost towns, small towns .

Believe it or not this small town in southern Michigan got its unique look from the invention of Kitty Litter. In the 1940s people used sand for their litter boxes and one day Ed Lowes neighbor asked him for some sand for her litter box. He gave her some dried up clay granules instead for her to try. She was amazed at how well it worked and that was the inspiration that created Ed’s multi-million dollar business Kitty Litter and Tidy Cat.

In the 70s Lowe had the idea of converting downtown Jones into a wild west looking ghost town for a tourist attraction. It seems like an odd location located between Cassopolis and Three Rivers. I am assuming he thought it would flourish with Swiss Valley Ski Resort being only a few miles away. Sadly the town did not attract the business Lowe was hoping for and slowly the buildings faded away. The town of Jones has several residents  and is not a true “ghost town” but the buildings along Main Street still have the remnants of the former tourist attraction facades

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The Ghost Town of Damon

Posted on by Posted in General Store, Ghost towns .

Not much remains of the town of Damon but an old general store and a few houses. In the late 1800’s it was a booming lumbering town with a hotel and school for the children o the lumberjacks. The town was the inspiration for the town in James Oliver Curwood’s book Green Timber. Located about 10 miles north of West Branch The town was first settled in 1878 and named for George Damon owner of the firm Cutting & Damon. It was given a post office in 1880 then closed in 1907. The post office was briefly reopened in 1911 but closed two years later in 1915. I only assume most of the timber was gone and there was little work for the residents and they moved on.

P.S. I still have yet to read Green Timber. I have a few other James Oliver Curwood books but I have not found a copy of Green Timber yet. I am sure I could get one from eBay but that is not as much fun as looking for one in a used book store.

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Ruins of Assinins’ Orphanage

Posted on by Posted in Ghost towns, Schools, upper peninsula .

Only a small portion of the orphanage is still standing hidden behind the trees. The building once stood three stories tall and housed several children. Located in the small town, which is almost a ghost town, Assinins Is near US-41 a few miles north of Baraga.

Assinins was founded in 1843 by Bishop Frederic Baraga, who came to the area at the invitation of Chief Edward Assinins. Baraga built the Old St. Joseph Orphanage and School on the site in 1860. Over the years the orphanage was expanded and other buildings including a school were built. The structures were last used in the 1960s and in recent years they have collapsed.

This is a pic from Wikipedia of what the building looked like in 2009

The area is now a National Historic District and next time you are traveling along US-41 it’s worth a quick stop to check out the area and old cemetery.

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Ghost Town of Hagensville

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hagensville Michigan

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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