Michigan Ghost Towns: Of the Upper Peninsula (Michigan Ghost Towns III) [Paperback]

R. L. Dodge (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 22, 1994

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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Thunder Bay Press (September 22, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0934884021
• ISBN-13: 978-0934884020
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,048,826 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Informative and helpful, January 6, 2000

By 

Jerry - See all my reviews

This review is from: Michigan Ghost Towns: Of the Upper Peninsula (Michigan Ghost Towns III) (Paperback)

This is a good, informative book which is primarily a listing of ghost towns existing in Michigan's misunderstood Upper Peninsula, but also includes pictures and interesting facts about most of the towns. It offers a pretty good history of the region.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointment as a photography guide, January 20, 2002

By 

Michael Johnson (Livonia, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Michigan Ghost Towns: Of the Upper Peninsula (Michigan Ghost Towns III) (Paperback)

I was hoping to photograph some old ghost towns in the U.P. so I felt this book would help direct me to interesting sites. I hate to be so negative about a local topic but it did not even start to meet my expectations. The book is not easy to read even as interesting history. The book will not give you many details on how to find ghost town artifacts. Most of the book details the growth and death of towns. However, most of these are very short in length and are very dry in the telling. Many of the book's details leave off in the early 70's.

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of history, but no maps, October 13, 2011

By 

J. Lee (Rochester, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Michigan Ghost Towns: Of the Upper Peninsula (Michigan Ghost Towns III) (Paperback)

I bought this book (6th Reprint, 1996) to use as a reference on a road trip to the Keweenaw Peninsula on the upper peninsula of Michigan. One of the objectives of my trip was to explore some abandoned copper mining towns. The book turned out to be of very limited usefulness, and certainly not a stand-alone guidebook. It provides at least a bit of history (mostly resident names culled from old Post Office records) about each of hundreds of different ghost towns. But there are no maps showing where any particular ghost town is located. Nor is there an index. To look up a particular ghost town, first you need to know which county it's in, since the listings are organized by county (one chapter per county). For most town entries, there's absolutely no description of where they're located; you will need to get that information somewhere else.

For a more concise listing of U.P. ghost towns and their locations, do a web search for Ghost Towns of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.