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REGION
SEVEN
Escanaba, Menominee & the Green Bay Shore
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The flat to rolling land bordering Green Bay's western shore of Green Bay is both fertile and temperate by U.P. standards. Locals call this area the "banana belt." Its mean temperature of 45° F is about the same as Big Rapids or Clare, Michigan cities far to the south.
With many dairy farms and a large acreage of hayfields, Menominee County leads the U.P. in agriculture revenue. Farming took hold early to
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supply lumber camps. Today Menominee County milk and cream is shipped north to Jilbert's Dairy in Marquette and south to Wisconsin cheese makers.
The region's development has been shaped by the lumber empires that harvested the timber riches along its south-flowing rivers. Escanaba, Menominee, and its Wisconsin twin city of Marinette were destined to grow rich because of their locations at the mouths of the Escanaba and Menominee rivers, the longest good logging river systems that flowed into Lake Michigan. The sawmills at their outlets could easily ship great volumes of lumber to Chicago, an enormous market itself. First the burgeoning city had to be rebuilt after the 1871 fire. Then it developed myriad rail connections to growing towns and cities on the vast and largely treeless prairie to the west.
The ethnic mix here today largely reflects the immigrants in logging camps: Germans, French-Canadians, Norwegians, Swedes, and some Irish and Poles. There are fewer Finns, Italians, Croats, and Slovenes than on the iron ranges. The descendants of these immigrants have long been assimilated. In just 2.5% of Delta County and 3.7% of Menominee County homes is a language other than English spoken, half the percentages in most U.P counties. (Michigan's overall rate is 8.4%.)
Today, a hundred years after lumbering's heyday, you can still see many of the grand results of the riches made by local logging and sawmill tycoons Their mansions and impressive downtown buildings make Escanaba, Menominee, and Marinette interesting places to explore.
The land has finally recovered from the devastation of clearcuts, forest fires, and the resulting erosion. Land not suited to farming reverted to the government for nonpayment of taxes. That land, augmented by land purchases from hunting licenses and natural gas drilling on state land, is the basis of the Hiawatha National Forest and the Escanaba River State Forest. This public land is managed both for recreation and harvesting timber. Many area rivers offer good trout fishing and, when water levels are high enough, scenic canoeing.
Of all the great logging rivers in Michigan and Wisconsin, only the Saginaw and Muskegon compare with the Menominee River. Wide and long, it forms much of the Michigan-Wisconsin border, along with its tributaries, the Brule and Paint. The combined Menominee River system watershed is the longest of any in the Upper Peninsula. The Brule's headwaters are west of Iron River, over 120 miles from the Menominee's mouth. Lumber barons worked their way up the rivers to Iron Mountain, Iron River and beyond. As the 20th century dawned, logging was waning. The last Menominee River drive was in 1917.
The area has been something of a backwater ever since the timber gave out. Escanaba and surrounding Delta County have grown a little in recent years, thanks to more industry and also to some tourism. Menominee County has finally stabilized at about 25,000 after losing population for years, in part because of competition with adjoining Wisconsin. Until Michigan's property tax reduction in the 1990s, Wisconsin enjoyed a competitive advantage in attracting new businesses.
Fishing is a major draw to this area. Little Bay de Noc has been rated by USA Today as one of the world's ten top fishing spots, especially for walleye. Professional walleye fishermen regularly travel here on their tournament circuit. Deer hunters come here because the region, with its relatively light snowfall, has the U.P.'s greatest concentration of deer.
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HELPFUL AREA INFORMATION
For visitor info on Escanaba, Gladstone, Rapid River, and Fayette, contact Bays de Noc Visitors' Bureau. Call (800) 533-4FUN or (906) 789-7710 or visit www.deltafun.com. Or stop by the easy-to-find downtown office at 230 Ludington across from the House of Ludington, near the lighthouse and marina. It's open weekdays from 9 to 5. It's an info source on charter fishing and publicizes area lodgings with 10 or more rooms..
The Delta County Chamber of Commerce is a membership organization, more about business and economic development than tourism. The same building at 230 Ludington houses it and the Visitors' Bureau. Also open 905 weekdayys. Call (906) 786-2192 or visit www.deltami.org
The twin cities of Menominee, Michigan, and Marinette, Wisconsin, have loads of visitor information not just for their areas, but also for their entire states - and their broadly knowledgeable state travel information staffs will also mail information. . . . . The Michigan Welcme Center is in a quaint log building on U.S. 41 (1343 10th Ave.) at the foot of the Interstate Bridge by the M&M Plaza shopping center in central Menominee. (906) 863-6496. Open daily 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Central Time year-round. Wheelchair-accessible. If the small parking lot is full, continue on U.S. 41 to the adjacent M&M Plaza shopping center and take the stairs up to rear of Welcome Center. (Parking and access from M&M is not wheelchair-accessible.) Visit travel.michigan.com for some online info.
Marinette County, Wisconsin calls itself "the waterfalls capital of Wisconsin." Lakes and fishing make inland Crivitz a vacation hot spot. To find out more about the area and all of Wisconsin, stop in season at the Wisconsin Travel Information Center on Riverside Drive in downtown Marinette next to the Stephenson Public Library. To get there from U.S. 41 and Michigan now that the Interstate Bridge is closed until Dec. 2005, cross the Hattie Street Bridge and immediately turn left onto Riverside Drive, proceed to downtown. Parking entrance is across from Best Western. Call (715) 732-4333. It's normally open from April through October daily from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Central Time. Much info is also is on 24-hour night racks, year-round. Wheelchair-accessible. But because the Interstate Bridge is closed for 2005, the Wisconsin Travel Information Center may be closed. Queries are referred to the Marinette Area Chamber of Commerce (see below), which also distributes tourism publications on weekdays. Or visit www.travelwisconsin.com.
At this time Menominee and Marinette are represented by two chambers of commerce - the result of a turf battle that many members of both chambers hope to resolve soon. Meanwhile, here's the scoop. The River Cities Regional Chamber of Commerce, based in Menominee, will mail tourist info about Menominee and Marinette; call (906) 863-2679 or visit www.rivercities.net/tourism
and fill out the inquiry form. The web site of the Marinette Area Chamber of Commerce, www.marinettechamber.com, has more specific tourism info. Call (715) 735-6681 or stop in at 601 Marinette Avenue/U.S. 41 six blocks south of the river.
PUBLIC LANDS
There's a lot of public land, largely wetlands and swampy forests, in Delta and Menominee counties (Michigan) and Wisconsin's Marinette County.
Extensive areas of public land in the eastern part of Delta County, from the Rapid River area on east, are part of the Hiawatha National Forest. Its highway office and interpretive center has the usual helpful handouts and maps, plus a small nature bookstore. 8181 U.S. 2 on the south side of U.S. 2 three miles east of Rapid River. Open weekdays from 8 to 4:30 p.m. Call (906) 474-6442 or look in at www.fs.fed.us/r9/hiawatha
Considerable state land in Delta and Menominee counties includes lots of land on and near the shore of Green Bay. It is part of the Escanaba River State Forest, with a Michigan DNR management office in Gladstone at 6833 U.S. 2/U.S. 41/M-35 (906-786-2354).
Marinette County, Wisconsin, is an unusually large county extending north past Crivitz to Niagara just south of Iron Mountain. It has extensive areas of public land under state and county ownership. Excellent detailed maps for every area are in the free 8.5" by 11" promotional book "Marinette County: Waterfalls Capital of Wisconsin." Ads and detailed color maps of waterways, boat landings, and public land make it a a treasure for tourists, hunters, snowmobilers, and more. Get it at the Wisconsin Travel Information Center. It's also available by calling, e-mailing, or stopping (Mon-Fri 8:30-4:30 Central Time) at the Marinette Area Chamber of Commerce downtown at 601 Marinette Ave. (715) 735-6681; (800) 236-6681. www.marinettechamber.com. The information-rich Marinette County web site, www.marinettecounty.com, has loads of links to get online maps of county parks and of trails for walking, bicycling, and ATVs in different parts of the county. A Wisconsin DNR regional office is in Peshtigo (715-582-5000; www.dnr.state.wi.us).
EVENTS
For the Escanaba area, consult the calendar on www.deltafun.com or call (800) 533-4386. The Upper Peninsula State Fair is the third full week in August. Exhibits are mainly farm-oriented, with the familiar rides and big-name country entertainers of typical state fairs. . . . The Great Lakes Championship Rodeo is held each Father's Day weekend. . . .There's a free Civil War Encampment in Ludington Park the last weekend of June. The first weekend of August brings the Waterfront Art Festival to Ludington Park.
For Menominee there's the Brown Trout Derby at the end of July and the Waterfront Festival on the first full weekend of August, with a big parade, fireworks, music, and more.
Marinette Country hosts the Menominee River Century Ride on the last Sunday in June (bike rides begin at 15k) . . . On a weekend in mid June country music fans in campers descend on a field in rural Porterfield, Wisconsin, 7 miles outside Marinette, for the Porterfield Country Music Festival, "23 years of sweet country music" as of 2005. It's one of those events that just grew and grew. $75 or $80 buys a weekend (Thurs.-Sun.) of music by the likes of past headliners Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Suzy Boggs, Billy Ray Cyrus, Asleep at the Wheel, Bill Anderson, and Ricky Skaggs.
HARBORS with transient dockage
In Escanaba (906-786-9614; 906-786-4141; 800-700-9614; lat. 45° 44' 34"N, long. 87° 02' 05" W) with showers. In Gladstone (906-428-2916; off-season 906-428-2311; lat. 45° 50' 15" N, long. 87° 01' 00" W) with showers. In Menominee (906-863-8498; lat. 45° 06' 21" N, long. 87° 35' 58" W) with showers. A new State of Michigan harbor with transient and day-use dockage, picnic area, showers, dog run, and more opens at Cedar River between Escanaba and Menominee in July 2005.
PICNIC PROVISIONS and PLACES
? Ludington Park (see point of interest) on the waterfront in Escanaba is just about perfect. Most picnic areas are towards the park's south end. Pick up convenient, quality picnic fixings at Gus Asp's, 616 Ludington or takeout sandwiches at the Swedish Pantry.
? The big supermarket in Escanaba is Super One Foods. It's on the west side of North Lincoln/U.S. 41/U.S. 2, a couple blocks north of the M-35/U.S. 2 intersection as U.S. 2 heads north to Gladstone.
? Picnic spots off U. S. 2 as it goes east between Rapid River and Manistique are Little Bay de Noc Recreation Area with giant hemlocks (see Stonington Peninsula points of interest), remote Peninsula Point with its lighthouse tower (also look under Stonington), and the DNR boat launch at Nahma (see Nahma). Coming from the east? See Manistique chaper for its provisioning points.
? Menominee is loaded with good takeout options. See our restaurant section for Thai Cuisine downtown and the Serving Spoon Cafe on the waterfront. Or stop at the outstanding supermarket, Angeli's Central Market. It's at the foot of the Interstate Bridge in the M&M Plaza on U.S. 41.
? In Menominee & Marinette, three terrific parks on Green Bay are Henes Park off M-35 on Menominee's north side, the harborfront park on First Street in downtown Menominee, or Red Arrow Park in Marinette. All are located on our Menominee/Marinette map. There's also a picnic area at Stephenson Island, the downtown Marinette park surrounded by the Menominee River and reached by a footbridge or by car from the Interstate Bridge.
?All the parks along M-35 between Escanaba and Menominee have picnic areas and sandy swimming beaches. See our "Parks along Green Bay" map and look under "The Green Bay shore" and "Cedar River" for details.
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