A few miles from the main entrance to Porcupine Mountains State Park is the small town of Silver City. Next to an old boarded-up gift shop is a mangled propeller. It is about all that remains of a B-17 bomber that crashed in the Porkies. On April 18th, 1944 the B-17 was on a training mission when it left Sioux City Iowa headed to Marquette. During the flight an engine caught fire and they were ordered to land in Duluth Minnesota for repairs. Unfortunately, the underpowered airplane was not going to make it. Fortunately, the crew bailed out and landed safely on the ground. The bomber crashed in the trees somewhere south of the Lake In The Clouds
The flight crew managed to walk to Silver City. At the time, the old boarded-up gift shop was a bar and the airmen waited there for their rescue. The military quickly came in and recovered the wreckage of the airplane especially the machine guns that were onboard. One of the propellers was left at the bar in Silver City as a reminder of the incident. Fragments of the wreckage can still be found in the forest but it is a ways off one of the hiking trails and you have to bushwack your way through the trees to find it.
P.S. believe it or not, the B-17 propeller is not the only bent-up one on display in the Upper Peninsula. You can read about the one on my post HERE
Lost In Michigan Books are ON SALE at Amazon. You can see more by clicking HERE
Thank you for Subscribing to Lost In Michigan, If you have not subscribed yet, It would mean a lot to me if you did.
