The mining location around the Montreal Mine, the world's deepest iron mine (4,337 feet). looks more like a tidy New England village today than a former industrial site. It's a pleasant place for walking or biking. Montreal's 132 white-painted company homes consist of four different models of Aladdin kit-built houses from Bay City, Michigan. They even have porches - an almost unheard-of amenity in mine company housing. Montreal's neighborhoods resembled working people's neighborhoods in towns like Ann Arbor or Flushing.
Today's city of Montreal also incorporates Gile, the lumber town just across the Montreal River at the head of the Gile Flowage (Gile is pronounced with a hard "g.")
Montreal was a company town of the Cleveland-based Oglebay Norton Company, an idealistic, paternalistic company that believed a contented work force would be easier to deal with. Oglebay Norton began in 1854 as a sales and shipping agent for iron ore. In 1890 it took over operations of John D. Rockefeller's Lake Superior iron mines. When Rockefeller and Carnegie created their combined mining, steel, and shipping trust in 1901, Oglebay decided to stay independent and focus on shipping, but to develop and own mines as well.
Today Oglebay Norton is a diversified industrial minerals and aggregates and transportation firm. Its Great Lakes freighters are familiar to boat watchers. Check the about us/history section of its web site, www.oglebaynorton.com for an interesting, intertwined tale of business on the Great Lakes.
The City Beautiful movement in town planning was in full sway when Montreal was being planned, and Oglebay Norton adopted its ideas in developing Montreal, beginning with its first 20 houses in 1907. (The picturesque company town of Ramsay between Bessemer and Wakefield also inspired Montreal.) In Montreal, trees lined boulevards. Alleys served chicken coops and cow barns, and a common pasture and herdsman was provided for mining families' cows.
The village recreational center sponsored plays, art classes, dances, and bowling - like a company-sponsored version of Grosse Pointe's War Memorial and Birmingham's Community Center. Vines, maples, and firs softened the outlines of industrial buildings. Today at the village's east entrance vines cover the long, impressive machine shop on the south side of Hwy. 77.
In a type of corporate paternalism akin to Henry Ford's, a company nurseryman planted a vine of some kind by every house, and hostas as foundation plantings. Employees were given seeds and shown how to plant them. Children's play lots were left vacant at every other corner. The company painted houses (white superseded the original plan for a subdued Arts and Crafts palette), mowed lawns, and put up and took down storm windows to insure a tidy appearance.
Many families appreciated this compensation for the danger, drudgery, and lower pay of mine work. Some, however, including many Italians, resented this paternalism. Italians built their own houses in a neighborhood to the west of town.
Exhibits on the Montreal Mine and the lives of iron miners are at the Iron County Museum in Hurley and the Wisconsin Travel Information Center on U.S. 2 at U.S. 51.
When the Montreal Mines closed in 1963, 600 workers lost their jobs. Many went to the American Motors plant in Kenosha. Homes were sold for $2,200 to $3,500. Skiing was then being developed as a linchpin of the area's postindustrial economy, and skiers from the Twin Cities, Milwaukee, and Chicago joined former miners and retirees in buying up the bargain homes. Skiers have become important property owners. One well-heeled skier, Peggy Carter, bought 11 homes. She envisioned Montreal as a ski and summer resort, and worked to recreate the historic Flambeau Trail over old logging roads. She helped start the Iron County Historical Society and led a movement to keep the houses white.
The history-minded rehabbers from outside the area ruffled many local feathers by raising maintenance standards. Eventually Peggy and George Carter took over the Iron Gate Inn. Now it's The Inn at Montreal, owned by Dick and Doree Schumacher since 1979. For a few years the Schumachers even operated a boarding school for promising high-school age skiers at The Inn and adjoining houses, but couldn't get permission for a planned expansion.
Back to Ironwood & the Gogebic Range
|
|
|
|
MONTREAL
RESTAURANTS,
LODGINGS
& CAMPGROUNDS
These are our choices, not ads.
|
MONTREAL
RESTAURANTS
|
MONTREAL
LODGINGS
|
MONTREAL
CAMPGROUNDS
|
|
