MICHIGAMME

This gift shop in a renovated 1897 storefront is a striking contrast to the defunct pool hall across the street.

Nestled on an inlet on the northwest shore of seven-mile-long Lake Michigamme, this old mining village once had a population of 1,000 and two sizable hotels when several mines operated in the vicinity. (It's pronounced "MICH-i-GAAH-me.") The first and biggest mine, the Michigamme Mine, was just northeast of the village across Highway 41 on the western slope of Mt. Shasta behind the Mt.

Loydies Pool Hall & Saloon on Main Street recalls Michigamme's less sedate era when mining set the tone of the town. Built in the 1880s, it stayed open into the 1920s.

Shasta Lodge. The mine produced almost a million tons of iron ore until it shut down in 1900. Although the area around the mine is fenced off, rockhounds still like to sneak in and sift through the waste rock surrounding the mine shafts looking for once-plentiful "black diamonds," shiny garnets now hard to find.

While the little village of Michigamme was built to serve an adjoining iron mine, visitors and cottages on 4,360-acre Lake Michigamme are now what keep the sleepy community going. This is the view from the former Philomena on the Lake resort-motel, soon to become Moose Country Lodge.

The village was first settled in 1872. At its peak in the late 1890s, it had not just two hotels but four general stores, eight saloons, two grocery stores, two "fancy" shops, two shoe stores, a big sawmill, and a broom factory. After the mine shut down, the village avoided becoming a complete ghost town because of its location on the shore of 4,360-acre Lake Michigamme, well-known for good fishing. Sports fishermen bought many of the homes the miners left, turning the village into a little resort. Abe Cohodas of Marquette, who made a fortune in the produce business, built a big log lodge on the lake, briefly a bed and breakfast, now no longer visible to the public.

Henry Ford started another boom in the 1920s when he opened the Imperial Mine one mile to the west of Michigamme, in a place still called Imperial Heights. Like many of his Upper Peninsula locations, it was never a money-maker. It closed in the 1930s.

Lake Michigamme, one of Michigan's largest lakes, reaches a depth of over 70 feet. Its rocky 95-mile shoreline and underwater structure make it good, if challenging, for fishing. It's especially well known for big muskies. A 40-pounder was caught in the 1970s. Smallmouth bass are also abundant here. Van Riper State Park, closer to Champion than Michigamme, has a public boat launch and a sandy swimming beach. (A small beach is right in Michigamme at the foot of Main Street.) Van Riper also has convenient short trails that take hikers into rugged moose country terrain not far from U.S. 41.

In 2006, the motel at the quaint Philomena Resort, fabulously sited with a long view east down the lake, has given way to a cleared slope. The new owners, from Marquette, have divided it into eight lots for condo cottages, to be known as Moose Country Lodge.

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