Finding Fun in Michigan's Thumb
Posts and stories about Michigan history and stories from the Michigan Thumb region.
Huron City Michigan is a historic district and museum with buildings from the 1800s. The town was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. The tiny town is open for tours on Friday and Saturday during July & August.
One of the largest state parks in Michigan was once a thriving lumber town with over 500 residents.
Today only faint elements remain. A true ghost town in Michigan’s Thumb.
The times of greatest shipbuilding in the Great Lakes region was during the lumbering era. From 1839 until the early 1890s, the virgin old-growth Michigan forests were cut down to produce lumber for growing towns and cities in the lower Great Lakes. Michigan was the nation’s leading lumber producer from 1869 until about 1900. The only way to transport finished milled lumber from the shore side mills in the Great Lakes was by ship.
The Cartwheel Inn was an entertainment destination in Port Austin. Top bands and bikers from Detroit and Chicago would stop by for “fun.”
Editor Note: This is an excerpt of two reports that the Michigan DNR issued in 1977 and 2004. It offers a short history of the Saginaw Bay Fishery and the reasons for its collapse in the 1940s. The notes in the final part of this post reflect the situation on the Bay 15 years ago. … Read more
Grave robbing was a gruesome yet common crime in the late 1800’s as medical schools sought bodys for study.