Fayette Historic Townsite

On Saturday we arrived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with the idea of staying in a National Forest campground for a change of pace. There was one only three miles off of US2 between Escanaba and Manistique. Sounds perfect, right? Well, the road in was fine and although the campground only had ten sites, they were all empty. You'd think that would tell us something, wouldn't you? As we were unhooking the car, the mosquitoes arrived. Herds of them. We didn't even hook back up - just got out of there as quickly as possible. I don't know about Ron in the RV, but I was killing mosquitoes in the car for miles.

So we went on to Manistique. Once there, we checked the Michigan campground book we had gotten at the welcome center and under a large heading that said 'Campgrounds', we found four parks in the Manistique area. Well, long story, shorter, they were parks, but overnight parking was not allowed. Luckily, there was a Moose lodge who welcomed us like long lost relatives. Amazing.

Yesterday, we followed another of my father's recommendations and visited Fayette Historic State Park. I was a little leery because he said it was a ghost town and I know what that means to him - rusty and falling down stuff to photograph. He insisted it wasn't like that so off we went. Well, it was extremely well preserved and presented. Ron and I both were very impressed.

The town of Fayette grew up around what was once a very productive iron-smelting operation, with two blast furnaces, a large dock and several charcoal kilns. Between 1867 and 1891 it was a bustling community with as many as 500 residents, many of whom immigrated from Canada, the British Isles, and northern Europe.

This is the machine shop with the hotel in the rear. The hotel originally had a two-story outhouse! Sadly, that was gone.


Here I'm trying my hand at being artistic. That's the company office behind the lovely wheel.


Although the iron ore was brought by boat into this harbor, they quarried limestone from these bluffs to purify the iron ore.

Pretty wicked-looking clouds, huh? We heard rumbles the whole time we were there, but it never rained until we were leaving.

There were plenty of signs for Ron to read - and he even remembers what he reads! This is the heart of the operation behind him.


For those of you who are wondering about the process, here's your sign. (By the way, the word that I cut off is 'it'. Oops.)