 | | Jacobsville Light (1870) long guided ships into the lower Portage Waterway that cuts through the Keweenaw. Now it's a B&B. |
Founded: 1885
Population: 76
One of the Upper Peninsula's more remote communities, 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. Iron precipitate gave Jacobsville sandstone, also called brownstone, its red 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.
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.
Jacobsville sandstone quarrying began in 1883. 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 striped, dotted, and spotted, depending on whether chemicals that repelled the red iron were also in the water that leached through the sandstone as it was being formed.)
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 | | 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. | 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 Chicago's "White City" world's fair of 1893, architects came to prefer the whites and beiges of Indiana limestone.
As local quarries closed, the area's many Finns switched to farming. Jacobsville with its cool springtime microclimate became known for strawberries. In the 1950s its strawberry festival drew big crowds until they became too large for the tiny community to handle. The festival moved across the Portage Entry to Chassell, where it is a high point of July.
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 WHITE CITY PARK and BEACH. operated by Torch Lake Township. The sandy beach with its gentle dropoff is an especially nice beach for swimmers and sunbathers, one of the area's warmest, with shaded picnic areas. Once this was a commercially operated beach and picnic grounds, reached by excursion boat from Hancock. The view across to the Abbaye Peninsula and Huron Mountains is serene. A long pier extends out into Keweenaw Bay, protecting the South Portage Entry. Some anglers fish off the pier. At its end is the SOUTH PORTAGE ENTRY LIGHT, a handsome four-story tower. The pier's smooth surface lets you walk far out, surrounded by water. (Walk up to the tower, and you'll see a "Danger!" sign warning walkers to stay 25 feet away from the tower and its ear-splitting foghorn, but the warning comes too late.)
Once it was a commercially operated beach and picnic grounds reached by excursion boat from Hancock. Here a long pier extends out into Keweenaw Bay, with the Portage River Lower Entrance Light, 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.
If you turn left from the end of Dreamland-Jacobsville road, you'll soon pass the small white community hall and then see a sign on the left at the head of a quarter-mile-long driveway to the beautiful little FINNISH EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH. This prim, white frame church was built in 1886 by a carpenter known for his skill with houses, sailboats, and skis, according to Kathryn Eckert in Buildings of Michigan. Today summer people and local residents keep up the church and use it in summer for Sunday evening vespers, held by volunteer clergy at 7 p.m.
Continue round the corner and you'll see the Jacobsville Lighthouse Inn (1869), now a bed and breakfast. Lighthouse tours including the tower ($5/person) are Sundays from noon to two or by chance. Call ahead if possible: (906) 523-4137.
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