Tag Archives: Manistique

The Christmas Tree Ships

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Chicago may not have an ocean, but we do have Lake Michigan. We are a maritime city. This is one day to remember that tradition, with the story of the Christmas Tree ships.

Around the turn of the 20th Century, the German custom of decorating Christmas trees was taking hold in Chicago. The closest evergreen forests were in northern Wisconsin and upper Michigan.

Each November a few lake schooners loaded up with trees and sailed them down to Chicago. Customers would come over to the Clark Street dock, go aboard a ship, and select their tree. It was fun way for city families to get into the holiday spirit. Read More...

Currans Buy Ossa Hotel – Escanaba Daily Press March 21, 1959

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Manistique – The Ossawinamakee Hotel in Manistique, regarded at the plushest in the area following its construction in 1883 has been sold by Carl Graves to Curran Chevrolet Sales here.

The hotel purchase was concluded Friday night by Graves and the three members of the Curran Partnership, Ellsworth, Leon and Donald Curran.   Plans for use of the building are indefinite.  Graves had owned the 42 -room wood structure the past nine years.  It houses a bar, restaurant and a Western Union office in addition to the hotel facilities. Read More...

Manistique’s “Big Fire”

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The fire on Friday, September 15th, 1893, was called Manistique’s “Big Fire”. The Fire began on South Walnut Street and spread to both sides of Cedar Street. Since all the buildings except one on Cedar Street were wood, the devastation was extensive. The fire on the West Side of Cedar Street stopped only because Blumrosen’s store was brick. Due to the wind and power of the fire, the volunteer fire department fought if for five hours, trying to stop it from consuming the residential district. Had it not been for an evening rain, the entire town would been ashes. Losses from the fire were around $75,000 (several millions in today’s dollars). As a result of this fire, the city passed an ordinance saying all buildings in the downtown area were to be brick buildings. Read More...

Southtown & Jamestown – Timber Boom Towns That Once Was

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The earliest reference to South Manistique or “South-town” is from the early 1880’s.  The town was developed around the Hall and Buell Lumber Company Mill.    The following description of Southtown is from Earnest Williams:  “Several houses in the town had four feet high fences around them to prevent the sand beach from blowing into the yards.  All the streets were sand and grass was basically nonexistent.”

Hall and Buell lad lumber rights around Southtown and on Indian Lake.  They cut the timber and floated it across Indian Lake to a “pull up” between Sunset and Harrison Beaches.  From there it was loaded onto their own railroad and brought to the Southtown mill (The railroad crossed old U.S. 2 near the current location of WTIQ and the gas pipeline). Read More...