Michigan Ghost Towns

Michigan: the way it was. Michigan Ghost Towns compiles settlements and communities that have faded into Michigan's history and legend: ""Baraga County's $2,000,000 Ghost Railroad"" (Reprinted from the September 23, 1964 Issue of the L'Anse Sentinel by permission) A few rusty nails, some old telegraph poles and a bed grown over with brush and trees in the Huron Mountain district is all that remains today of a $2,000,000 railroad which never ran a train of cars and failed to bring in a cent of revenue. For several years men labored in the wilderness to lay 35 miles of tracks through rocky gorges and swamps from the mining town of Champion (now a ghost town) to Huron Bay. At Huron Bay an immense ore dock, buildings and homes were erected in preparation for a rush of business which the promoters of the Huron Bay and Iron Range Railway thought would make them wealthy. Pequaming: One of the largest ghost towns in the Upper Peninsula with buildings still standing is Pequaming. Located about 8 miles north of L'Anse, the huge smokestacks and water towers are visible from the L'Anse waterfront where the remains of the once prosperous industrial town lies at the tip of a tree-covered peninsula jutting out into the Keweenaw Bay. Emerson: Named after Chris Emerson, Saginaw millionaire lumberman and considered by some an eccentric. Thousands of tourists travel highway M-123 between Eckerman and Paradise each summer and visit the Tahquamenon Falls area, unaware that they pass near the site of this one-time lumbering and fishing village at the mouth of the Tahquamenon River where it empties into Lake Superior. What was once a road to the site is now a marsh- and weed-grown trail almost impassable by automobile. A spring flowing from a weed-covered mound is about all that remains where the town once was.

Based on the popular Lost In Michigan website that was featured in the Detroit Free Press, It contains locations throughout Michigan, and tells their interesting story. There are over 50 stories and locations that you will find fascinating.

From Aabec in Antrim County to Zutphen in Ottawa County, from Hell to Hooker, Michigan Place Names is a compendium of information on the origins of the state's geographical names. With alphabetically arranged thumb-nail sketches, Walter Romig introduces readers to a host of colorful personalities and episodes which have achieved notoriety, though sometimes shortlived, by devising or lending their names to the state's settlements. Romig spent more than ten years researching and documenting the entries to which he added an extensive bibliography of sources and an index of the personal names used in the text. For the curious, the librarian, the genealogist, or the historian, his book is an indispensable resource. Michigan Place Names is another "Michigan classic" reissued as a Great Lakes Book.

Michigan has had several towns that have been abandoned or disappeared over the decades. Some were sawmill towns or mining towns that faded away after the trees were cut or the mine closed. Some towns moved when the railroad tracks passed them by and others faded away for some other reason. They show up on the map and sometimes have an old abandoned building or cemetery that mark their existence. This book tells the stories of some of the many towns that faded away. It has locations and things to see if you choose to visit them. Some locations in this book are places that are like ghost towns. They are modern construction made to look old or a collection of historic buildings in a park. They may not be actual ghost towns, but they are still fun to visit and explore. No matter where you live in the Great Lake State there are towns and stories in this book that are near you. There are places in the Detroit Metro area all the way to the Keweenaw Peninsula in the Upper Peninsula. If you love exploring Michigan and its history, this book is a great way to learn about the state's past with locations of some interesting and forgotten ghost towns or places similar to one.