Mug shot of alleged Manistique lawbreaker, Paul Bunyan?
Wright E. Clarke, editor of the Schoolcraft County Pioneer, often lamented Manistique’s undeserved reputation as a center of lawlessness. Nevertheless, word had spread across the peninsula that the growing village of Manistique was the 1880’s equivalent of Sodom and Gomorrah. Seeking the truth, the Marquette Mining Journal sent an investigative reporter to Manistique to ascertain the facts:
“Manistique, May 10, 1884—Manistique having been advertised far and near as a community given over to lawlessness and deeds of violence, and the major portion of its citizens as banded together for the perpetration of all the crimes against which laws have been ordained by powers both human and divine—a place to be shunned and a people to be feared—a representative of the MINING JOURNAL visited the village last week to learn, if possible, what the attraction is that called so many ‘dogs of Hades’ to one spot.