Jacobsville - Michigan's Upper Peninsula

<html> <head> <title>Jacobsville - Michigan's Upper Peninsula</title> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1"> <META Pragma: No-Cache> <META name="Pragma" No-Cache> <META Cache-control: No-Cache> <META HTTP-EQUIV="expires" CONTENT="Wed, 26 Feb 1997 08:21:57 GMT"> <META name="description" content="Profile & history of this long abandoned, once important remote quarry-town at the southern entrance to the Portage Waterway."> <base href="http://hunts-upguide.com/"> <link href="/style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> <center> <table width="100%" bgcolor="#F5F5D5" cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 border=0> <tr> <td width="18%" colspan=2 height=82 bgcolor="#306799" valign="top"> <table width="100%" cellpadding=22 cellspacing=0 border=0> <tr> <td align="left"> <b><font size="-2" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"> <font color="#FEE384">We welcome<br> your comments<br> experiences &<br> corrections.<br></font> <img 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alt="|"></td> <td width="18%" rowspan=3 valign="top"> <a target="_top" href="/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/dehunt/click.pl?nextfile=http://hunts-upguide.com/up_travel_map.html"><img src="/ads/Small_map_ad_ver_6.gif" border=0 ALT="UP Travel Map ad" width=160 height=418></a> <p>  <center> <script type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script> </center> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan=5 width="100%" height=9> <img src="images/1x1.gif" width=790 height=9 alt="---"></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="17%">  <table width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0> <tr> <td width="100%" valign="top">  <table width="100%" cellpadding=10 cellspacing=0 border=0 bgcolor="#306799"> <tr> <td valign="top" bgcolor="#306799"> <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-2"> <b> <a class="sidebar" href="/" target="_top">Home</a><br> <img src="images/1x1.gif" width="85" height="5"><br> <a class="sidebar" href="keweenaw_peninsula.html" target="_top">Back to Keweenaw Peninsula</a> <img src="images/1x1.gif" width="85" height="20"><br> </b> </font> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="100%"> <table width="100%" border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=10 bgcolor="#FFE09B"> <tr> <td align="left"> <img src="images/1x1.gif" width=100 height=10 alt="-"><br> <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"> <center><font color="#C82F2C"><b>JACOBSVILLE<br>POINTS<BR>OF INTEREST</b></font><br> </center> <font color="#263692" size="-2"> <p> <a name="e1337"><b>Torch Lake Township Park.</b></a> A pleasant, remote park with swimming, fishing, and picnicking spots ... <a href="http://hunts-upguide.com/jacobsville_torch_lake_township_park.html"><font color="#C82F2C">more</font></a> <p> <p>   </font> </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> <tr> <td>   </td> </tr>  <tr> <td align="center"> <script type="text/javascript"> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script> </td> </tr> </table>  </td> <td valign=top width="1%" bgcolor="#F5F5D5">  <img src="images/1x1.gif" width="9" height=500 alt="|"> </td> <td valign=top width="63%">  <table width="100%" cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 border=0> <tr> <td valign=top align=center bgcolor="#018650" colspan=2> <center> <img src="images/1x1.gif" width="30" height=8 alt="-"><br> <b><font color="#FFFFFF" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><a class="whitelink" href="keweenaw_peninsula.html" target="_top">Region: Keweenaw Peninsula</a></font></b><br> <img src="images/1x1.gif" width="100%" height=3 alt="-"><br> <h1>JACOBSVILLE</h1> <img src="images/1x1.gif" width="30" height=8 alt="-"></center></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="63%">  <table width="100%" cellspacing=0 cellpadding=8 border=0> <tr> <td align="left">  <font face="Georgia"> <img src="images/1x1.gif" width=15 height=6 alt="-"><br> <center> <table cellpadding=3 cellspacing=0 border=0 width=299> <tr> <td> <img src="http://hunts-upguide.com/photos/58.gif" width=299 height=226 alt="Jacobsville Lighthouse" border=0> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-2"> <b>Jacobsville Light (1870) long guided ships into the lower Portage Waterway that cuts through the Keweenaw. Now it's a B&B.</b> </font> </td> </tr> </table> </center><p> ONE of the Upper Peninsula's most remote communities, central Jacobsville today is not so much a village as a scattering of homes around an historic church and an old lighthouse, with newer homes with dockage along the Portage Waterway. But in the year 1900 it numbered over 600 people. Most were here because of the uncommonly high quality of local red sandstone, named after the community, which itself was named after the developer of the quarry and company housing. <B>Iron precipitate</B> gave Jacobsville sandstone, also called <B>brownstone</B>, its <B>red </B>color. At the quarries that flourished here, simple mechanical wooden pole cranes would load heavy slabs of this valuable building stone onto schooners for transport.<br><br>Although Jacobsville is only a dozen miles southeast of Houghton as the crow flies, it's a 40-minute drive via Lake Linden because the Portage Waterway and Torch Lake have create an isolated peninsula. At first, residents could only get here by boat, but a road from Lake Linden was completed in 1888. Even then, for many years the mailman would boat across the waterway to Chassell, get into another car, and deliver Jacobsville's mail.<br><br>Jacobsville sandstone <B>quarrying</B> <B>began in 1883</B>. In five years over a hundred homes were built here. The village soon had a hotel, two saloons, a drug store, and a general store, none of which remain. Huge quantities of the distinctive red sandstone slabs were quarried over the years. (The sandstone may also be <B>striped, dotted, and spotted,</B> depending on whether chemicals that repelled the red iron were also in the water that leached through the sandstone as it was being formed.)<br><br> <table align="right" cellpadding=3 cellspacing=0 border=0 width=249> <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-1"><b>...continued below...</b></font> <br clear="all"> <hr> <center> <script type="text/javascript"> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script> </center> <hr> <tr> <td> <img src="http://hunts-upguide.com/photos/60.gif" width=249 height=460 alt="Jacobsville Finnish Lutheran Church" border=0> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" size="-2"> <b>Jacobsville Finnish Lutheran Church, built in 1888 to serve the Finns working in the red sandstone quarries here. Jacobsville sandstone built not only many U.P. buildings, but New York City landmarks as well.</b> </font> </td> </tr> </table> Most stone was shipped to Marquette and transported by rail as far away as New York City. Nearby, Calumet, Hancock, and Houghton have many impressive buildings of Jacobsville sandstone. (The entire rock formation, which goes well beyond Jacobsville, is known as the Jacobsville formation.) By 1900, the dark rich, colors of Jacobsville sandstone were becoming unfashionable. Influenced by the classic revival and <B>Chicago's "White City" world's</B> fair of 1893, architects came to prefer the whites and beiges of <B>Indiana limestone</B>.<br><br>As local quarries closed, the area's many Finns switched to farming. Jacobsville with its cool springtime microclimate became known for <B>strawberries</B>. In the 1950s its <B>strawberry festival</B> drew big crowds until they became <B>too large</B> for the tiny community to handle. The festival moved across the Portage Entry <B>to Chassell</B>, where it is a high point of July.<br><br>Today Jacobsville offers the patient, pokey visitor a number of simple pleasures. To get there, drive southeast from Lake Linden around Torch Lake. At Dreamland (marked by the quaint Dreamland Hotel and bar), turn onto Dreamland Road, which veers left and away from the water. At its end, in about eight miles, you'll be at the end of the road in Jacobsville. Turn right and you'll soon pass the former Coast Guard station and come to the <B>White City Park </B>with its beach. Once it was a commercially operated beach and picnic grounds reached by excursion boat from Hancock. Here a <B>long pier</B> extends out into Keweenaw Bay, with the <B>Portage River Lower Entrance Light</B>, a handsome four-story tower, at its end. The pier's smooth surface lets you walk far out, surrounded by water. Look to the left and you can catch a glimpse of the white tower of the 1870 lighthouse, now a bed and breakfast.<br><br>If you turn<I> left</I> from the end of Dreamland-Jacobsville road, you'll soon pass the small <B>white community hall </B>and then see a sign on the left at the head of a quarter-mile-long driveway to the beautiful little <B>Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church.</B> This prim, white frame church was built in 1886 by a carpenter known for his skill with houses, sailboats, and skis. Today summer people and local residents keep up the church and use it from summer through fall for <B>Sunday evening vespers, </B>held by volunteer clergy at <B>7 p.m.</B> Continue round the corner and the <B>Jacobsville Lighthouse Inn </B>(906-523-4137) will be at the end of that stretch of road. It has three guest rooms with shared bath, and it opened as a bed and breakfast in spring, 2005.<BR> <p align="right"><a href="keweenaw_peninsula.html" target="_top">Back to Keweenaw Peninsula</a></p> </font> </td> </tr> </table> </td> <td width="37%" valign="top"> <table width="100%" cellspacing=0 cellpadding=8 border=0> <tr> <td height="4" width="37%">  <img src="images/1x1.gif" width=15 height=1 alt="-"></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" align="center" bgcolor="#C7302D" width="37%">  <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica" color="#FFFFFF"> <b> <img src="images/1x1.gif" width=15 height=8 alt="-"><br> <font size="-1"> JACOBSVILLE<br> RESTAURANTS,<br> LODGINGS<br> & CAMPGROUNDS </font> <br><img src="images/1x1.gif" width=15 height=6 alt="-"><br> <font size="-2">These are our choices, not ads.</font><br> <img src="images/1x1.gif" width=15 height=8 alt="-"><br> </b> </font> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign=top bgcolor="#FFE09B" width="37%">  <img src="images/1x1.gif" width=15 height=9 alt="-"><br> <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"> <center><font size="-1" color="#C82F2C"><b>JACOBSVILLE<br>RESTAURANTS</b></font></center> <br> <font size="-2"> </font> </font> </td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#CDCCAD" valign="top"> <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"> <img src="images/1x1.gif" width=15 height=9 alt="-"><br> <center><font size="-1" color="#C82F2C"><b>JACOBSVILLE<br>LODGINGS</b></font></center> <br> <font size="-2"> </font> </font> </td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#B6DBA4" valign="top"> <font face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica"> <img src="images/1x1.gif" width=15 height=9 alt="-"><br> <center><font size="-1" color="#C82F2C"><b>JACOBSVILLE<br>CAMPGROUNDS</b></font></center> <br> <font size="-2"> </font> </font> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan=5 align="center">  <br> <center> <font size="+1" color="#454545" face="Verdana,Arial,Helvetica">Copyright © 1997-2007 Midwestern Guides</font> </center> </td> </tr> </table> </center> </body> </html>