MARENISCO

Region: Ironwood & the Gogebic Range

Community Presbyterian Church.

This little village on M-64 just south of U.S. 2 has a town hall, post office, grocery, and popular café, arranged with a few other buildings around a large village green, now the Marenisco Township Park. A curving street of millworkers' houses winds south from the park. Most employed residents drive west to the Ironwood area to work. Until early 1997 a substantial local employer, Norco Windows, was right in Marenisco, but new owners bought the company and consolidated its local operations elsewhere.

Like other old U.P. lumber settlements, Marenisco was a lively place soon after its formation. The Milwaukee, Lake Shore & Western Railway platted Marenisco in 1887 as a center for nearby pine logging. (Today the railroad bed is an all-purpose trail from Ironwood to Iron River used by snowmobilers and ATVs/four-wheelers.) Within two years Marenisco had a big sawmill, four boarding houses, two hotels, and five saloons. Today the village has shrunk to the point that in 2004 the Marenisco school system had only 68 students. It has consolidated with Wakefield schools.

Unlike most old U.P. logging towns, Marenisco no longer has even the vestige of a downtown. This simple park is the village's central focus.

It's quite a contrast to see across the Wisconsin line Presque Isle 12 miles south. Its lakes have lots of small resorts; Marenisco's are in the Ottawa National Forest. Affluent, civic-minded people from Madison and Chicago have second homes in Presque Isle. The village has an area community center, with library, meeting space, recreational facilities, native plants garden, a historical museum, a rambling restaurant, and more. Most buildings are completely coordinated in tasteful northwoods style and sided with logs.

Today, however, things in Marenisco are actually looking up. More retirees have moved to the Michigan side of the Wisconsin state line because Michigan taxes have been lower. (Who knows what the future holds during Governor Rick Snyder's administration?) Marenisco Township seems to have gone up in population, an anomaly in Michigan. Marenisco native Bruce Mahler retired here after a career in law enforcement, including special investigations for the Air Force. He's now the police chief and area promoter. His wife, a physician, started a clinic in town. The local activity hub had been the Hungry Bear Family Restaurant and attached Laundromat, which was extensively damaged by fire. The kitchen had to be torn down, and the restaurant owners were part of an exchange that gave the building to the township. Community leaders decided to use it as the core of a library. Fundraisers are underway. Meanwhile, the laundromat and restaurant have been rebuilt as the Wild River Café across the street.

Incidentally, the Marenisco name is an acronym with an unusual background. It's drawn from the first syllables of "Mary Relief (Niles) Scott," the wife of landowner Emmet Hoyt Scott. A onetime mayor of LaPorte, Indiana, he was an investor in railroads, lumber, and manufacturing. She was a Swedenborgian (now called "New Christian"), a small denomination based on the beliefs of Swedish scientist Emanuel Swedenborg. An unusual memorial window to Mrs. Scott is in the tiny Swedenborgian church at 812 Indiana Avenue in LaPorte.

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