Customer Reviews

Michigan's Lumbertowns: Lumbermen and Laborers in Saginaw, Bay City, and Muskegon, 1870-1905 (Great Lakes Books)

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History's not my thing, to be honest. Most of it is poorly writen and consist of merely fact after fact after fact. I like to read though. Novels are more my taste though. A good novelist will teach you far more than will a history book.

Kilar's Lumbertowns looks at the Rise and Fall of three pre-eminant lumber towns in an era where Michigan was giving its White Pine (of which the State had millions of Acres of primordeal forests) to a developing nation shortly after the American Civil War. The Towns are Saginaw, Muskegon, and Bay City.

Kilar's history here is really the story of how towns grew up in Michigan. Had there been no white pine, its safe to say that cities like Saginaw Michigan would never have been what they were. In a span of 35 years the lower part of Michigan's Pine Belt became transformed from remote frontier outpost into industrialized center of manufacturing. Things were great in these three towns. But then, quite suddenly, the Pine was all gone.

This book looks at the workers and the owners, and the unique and dynamic relationship of the two distinct classes. He uses statistics to tease out information and try to explane how the worker/owner demographic in each town affected that towns progression.

Interesting read. I had to read it for a class on Michigan History