On warm sunny days in the summertime you will find several beachgoers enjoying Lake Michigan at the beach in Empire. Next to the playground is a large concrete block and out of the top of it are large metal rods. It is the remnants of the Empire Lumber Company that operated from 1887 to 1917. George Aylsworth operated the first mill between 1873 and 1883. Potter and Struthers built a second mill in 1885, which T. Wilce Company purchased in 1887 and named it the Empire Lumber Company. The mill grew to be one of the largest and best equipped hardwood mills in the area, capable of producing up to twenty million feet of lumber a year. The mill was destroyed by fire in 1906, but was quickly rebuilt. The mill burned again in 1917. With most of the nearby virgin timber gone, the mill was not rebuilt and this concrete blocks stand as a reminder to tourists of the towns lumbering past.
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