U.P. ghost towns for seger98.

[Mich. Wolverine]

Interior, Ontonagon county: the Milwaukee, Lake shore & Western Railroad came through here in 1888; the Interior lumber company begain operations that year, and a village of 41 buildings (including a church, school and town hall) developed; Finley Morrison became it's first postmaster on Dec. 17, 1888; Interior sawed it's last log in 1895, but lumber dressing operations were carried on for two more years; it's post office was closed on May 17 1897; it's cemetery sign, put up by someone from Paulding, says it is "forgotten by everyone but God".
Robbins, Ontonagon county: this lumber settlement in Haight township formed around the mill of the Robbins Lumber Company, of Rhinelander, Wis. and Franklin S. Robbins became it's first postmaster on Oct. 24, 1891; given a station on the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad in 1892; it's post office closed on Aug. 3, 1898, but was restored from Dec. 18, 1902 to June 30, 1911.
Hope this helps.

Wolverine.

[seger98]

Wolverine......... Thank you so much, I've been to both places but did not know that some one from Rhinelander Wi. owned, I've also been to Interior several times & the last time I actually was looking for a cemetery, have yet to locate it. Below is a token? coin? don't really know what it is, but it is from Interior!

Thanks again so much for the time you put into this post for me!

Chris

[Mich. Wolverine]

Seger, You are welcome and I hope that it will help you. It's not very often where you find information on how many buildings were in a town. I was suprised to see that. If you need any info on other Mi. ghost towns let me know and i'll see if there in my book.

P.S. Thanks for the picture, that is one cool token and in great shape to boot.

Wolverine.

[seger98]

Yeah, you can still see alot of the foundations at Interior, but I didn't think there was that many, 41, so that is good info! I still don't know what the 295 on the token is? Even if it is a token, at first I thought it was a metal that would be nailed to the end of a log to help identify the owner of the log as it floated down the Ontonagon river!

[Mich. Wolverine]

I think you are right about it being put on lumber, but I think that it was on cut lumber that was put on the trains for shippment. In the county that I live in they used log mark hammers to to mark the ends of the logs before putting them into the river, then sending the logs down the river to the mill. I'm no expert so I hope someone with more knowledge about this will chime in. It's still an awesome rare piece of history. Great find.

Wolverine.

[tokensmith]

seger98--what's on the other side of the token??

[thompy]

thats cool as heck Seger98, ive wanted to hit that area

[seger98]

seger98--what's on the other side of the token??

Tokensmith, there is nothing on the other side!

[seger98]

thats cool as heck Seger98, ive wanted to hit that area

Maybe this summer we can get together & do just that! I only stay like 25 miles from there in the summer!

[Mich. Wolverine]

Seger, I don't know if your intersted in bottles, but if you can see the foundations should be able to see the depressions of the outhouse holes. There will be relics and bottles in the outhouse holes and it maybe a gold mine of history. It's an old enough town so you should be able to pull out some really cool stuff.

Wolverine.

[seger98]

It's actually on Ottawa US Forest Service land and I don't think I'd risk getting caught digging up outhouses.

[Planet1mars (mike)]

i have a strong feeling that the U.P. is way under rated from what we know, i can almost asure there is more out there than what the books says

[seger98]

Seger, I don't know if your intersted in bottles, but if you can see the foundations should be able to see the depressions of the outhouse holes. There will be relics and bottles in the outhouse holes and it maybe a gold mine of history. It's an old enough town so you should be able to pull out some really cool stuff.

Wolverine.

Although Wolverine, I have found alot of different bottles around those areas, some just sticking out of the ground enough to see while metal detecting, also.... It seems like alot of people just through things over the edge of river banks, so I find alot that way!


Chris

[mpostma]

Hey Wolverine, Seger and Thompy,
Anyone read the book "Lumberjack" about logging around Manistique?
I thought it was very interesting. Had a great deal about log marking, lumber camps, a few ghost towns etc. What I found very interesting was the detailed description of how the camps, log drives and the business in general functioned.
The guy that wrote the book was the bookkeeper for the big lumber company that built Manistique, and he was a partner in buying out their interests when the big boom was about over.

My parents have a place in Blaney Park, so I will be over that way in the spring again.

Good Luck,
Mark

[oneeye]

I live in Muskegon, MI, which was known as the lumbering capital of the world during the late 19th century. There is a ton of lumbering and logging history here. We have lots of log ends in our local museum with the "log markings" or stampings. These were used to identify which lumber company owned the logs. They continue to bring up old logs in the Muskegon river and Muskegon Lake with these markings on them.

Thanks for sharing the interesting information on the ghost town. I love exploring the UP and spend time up there every summer wandering around.
Dan

[unclenutsy]

I have a pretty good book called...When Pine Was King by Lewis C. Reimann at Avery Color Studios in AuTrain, Michigan. Here is something to get you thinking....I may use a few different posts because of size. Sorry for the poor quality. Happy Hunting

[thompy]

Fayette is one place i would love to hit, the Jackson mine payed them in gold every month and the town was dry town, the charcoal kilns out af town along the tracks were also makeshift brothels and saloons, can imagine the gold coins lost with men staggering back to town, i just dont know how far the park extends down the tracks, detectors at Fayette are a big no no

[seger98]

I haven't read either one of those books, the ones I have read have all been about logging in Wisconsin, but I will look for those at the Ontonagon museum come this spring. Thanks for posting them,


Chris