The Old West doesn’t hold the monopoly on ghost towns.
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula was once known for its vast resources, including timber, copper and iron. That iron had to be smelted somewhere and Fayette, on the shores of Lake Michigan, was the place. Fayette had the most productive iron-smelting operations in the Upper Peninsula, shipping the finished pig iron to the rapidly industrializing cities of the post-Civil War Midwest.
The smelting operation lasted until 1891, when the Jackson Iron Company ceased operation at the town. Iron production in the Upper Peninsula was diminishing and so was the local hardwood needed for the fires of the blast furnace.
Fayette drew in nearly 500 residents to man its blast furnaces and support the operations. Most were immigrants from Canada and Northern Europe, common in Michigan mining towns. After the blast furnace operation shut down, many workers left for other jobs. However, some did stay behind in the area and set up farms.
Fayette was not abandoned right away. First, the town became a little resort and fishing spot. Later, in 1959, old Fayette became Fayette Historic State Park, preserving an early Michigan industrial town, of which few survive.
What remains of downtown Fayette, Michigan.
The double blast furnace that sustained Fayette for 24 years.
The right-side smelting room. That is one big fireplace.
One of the charcoal kilns for making the charcoal necessary to smelt the iron ore.
The blast furnaces sat right next to Snail Shell Harbor. The finished pig iron could easily be shipped off to major industrial centers from here.
Also on the Snail Shell Harbor were the company stores.
And the butcher, where frozen meat carcasses could easily be off-loaded from the ship to shelves. The butcher house also served as a town hall.
Town hall in the front and butcher in the back. Economical.
Across Snail Shell Harbor from the furnace was the Middle-Class housing area. Let’s explore.
A ramshackle saltbox surrounded by weeds.
The best preserved of the houses was the nicest, the Superintendent’s House. Of course, the guy who ran the place would have had the nicest house.
Some of the rooms were decorated behind Plexiglas.
The hidden away Doctor’s House.
Most of the middle-class houses were fairly small but were much nicer than the laborer’s homes.
Back in town, we have the company office and the machine shop.
The most prominent building in town was the hotel. Its life continued while Fayette was a still a resort town.
The front desk area of the hotel, behind some super reflective Plexiglas.
The poor laborers of Fayette lived on the other side of town of the Middle-Class workers. Their homes no longer remain but would have been built in a long row of 30 log cabins along the lakeshore. The homes would have been often one or two rooms, with a loft and a shed on the side for animals. The state park recreated an example on the foundations of one of the original houses.
A very idealized recreation of one of the laborer cabins. The true cabins were much more ramshackle.
Fayette Historic State Park is a great excursion along the shores of Lake Michigan. While I normally go to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for the waterfalls and the lakes, I really enjoyed the bit of history I found here. It was great finding a ghost town not surrounded by a desert for once.
Check out my next update where I visit Pinnacles National Park, in California!
or
Check out more national parks and other public lands!
