A few years ago, my friends Rodger and Jayne purchased a hundred-plus-year-old house in the sleepy little town of Michigamme, in the middle of the Upper Peninsula. It is about an 8-hour drive from Kalamazoo. We head up to Michigamme almost every July and use the house as a home base for exploring the surrounding areas.
Their house is on Main Street next to the old Community Center that seems to be the hub of the town’s activities. While walking and biking around the hilly town, we admired the handful of old wooden buildings still standing and the nice houses along Lake Michigamme.
Michigamme, like most of the other towns in this part of the UP, is an old mining town. Many of the towns were once much larger, and slowly declined as the mines dried up and the workers and their families moved away. Many remnants of the old mining days still remain.
Michigamme currently has a population of 252, but with the growth of nearby Marquette and its picturesque setting on Lake Michigamme, it is seeing a resurgence of people moving to the area.
Scenes from the 1959 movie, “Anatomy of a Murder”, were filmed at the Mt. Shasta Restaurant. In the 1980’s, moose were flown to the UP and dropped in Michigamme, to repopulate the thinning population. Van Riper State Park is nearby.
On our way up, Rodger mentioned that we were having dinner at Congress Pizza in Ishpeming. My initial thoughts were to go to a nice restaurant rather than some pizza place, but boy was I wrong!
Congress Pizza prepares their pizza by putting full slices of cheese down on the pie, and then on top of that the sauce and ingredients. The place is legendary and packed with people and local memorabilia all over the walls. It was voted best pizza in Marquette County. The pizza cooks for 12 minutes in a 550-degree, gas-fired brick oven. One of the most popular items is Cudighi, a ground pork that they make themselves. The ground pork comes from a local meat market and they add eight spices, including clove and nutmeg.
Congress Pizza gets its name after the U.S. Congress. The first owner, A. Louis Bonetti, received his first liquor license in 1934 – the year after prohibition was rescinded by Congress. He named it in honor of the legislative body.
Ishpeming was first settled in1854. The 1880 population of 6,100 is about the same as it is today. It was 12,000 in its mining heyday in the early 1900s, Tom Izzo coached here as well as former NFL football coach Chuck Fairbanks. It is home to the National Ski Hall of Fame. The Green Bay Packers played their first road game in Ishpeming in 1919.
Lots of wonderful old buildings and houses line the streets of Ishpeming. We enjoyed wandering through downtown after our pizza. It seemed that there was an old bar on every corner with names like The Wonder Bar, Jacks Tee Pee and The Paradise. Poking our heads in a few, the interiors appeared not to have changed much in the last half century or more.
Negaunee is nearby and was founded in 1845. When the mines closed in the early 20th century, the majority of the residents left due to the extensive underground tunnel cave-ins. Many very large houses had to be moved that were in the area of the old mines with tunnels under them. Many steps leading up to where the old houses were are still visible. In 1954, an NBA basketball game was played there. Negaunee is still the smallest city in the U.S.to host a major league game of any sport. It is seeing a resurgence of residents and tourists. We were told that we needed to try a pizza at Tino’s and it was great. It opens at 4 p.m. and a few minutes after we entered on a weekday the place was packed. The owner’s son was our server and we learned that his family has owned it since 1982 and it had been around long before that.
After our pizza we walked down the street to the Upper Peninsula Brewing Company in a large old brick building that was once a slaughterhouse.
They serve great beers in a cool old building with outdoor seating.
During our days we headed north to Lake Superior, hiking along the rocky shore and stopping at water-falls along the way.
Silver Falls is near Skanee and isa very easy waterfall to get to. A short dirt road leads to a small parking area, and you will be able to hear the falls once you exit your vehicle. A walk of a few hundred feet brings you to the upper drop, as the river becomes constrained and suddenly narrows to squeeze between rock walls. The lower falls are even more dramatic.
Canyon Falls is south of L’anse and is a very popular falls with a nice hike back to the falls through the woods.
The Sturgeon River rushes through a steep canyon with steep cliffs on both sides. We ran into younger folks who were “cliff jumping” off the 30 foot walls into the river be-low. We considered it for a moment but decided to not risk our life and limb.
Our trip ended with a great drive along US-2 to the Mackinac Bridge as we discussed all the places we want to see on our next visit!
