SIDNAW

Region: Keweenaw Peninsula

Little remains of Sidnaw's 1940s German prisoner-of-war camp, a riveting aspect of U.P. lore. Most striking is this tall, rather complex-looking guard tower, the last to survive. A sawmill is still active on the site just west of town.

Sidnaw, pronounced "sid NAH," (Ojibwa for "small hill by a creek") is on M-28, nine miles west of Covington and 20 miles southwest of L'Anse as the crow flies. Today it's known as the logging center of Henry Ford's hardwood empire and the home of a Civilian Conservation Corps camp later used as a World War II work camp for German POWs — with probably the only remaining POW camp guard tower.
Greater Sidnaw consists of "134 people and 19 bird dogs," according to Duncan Township supervisor Warren Jenkins, who retired from southern Michigan to live, hunt, and fish at his grandparents' old Perch Lake resort. Most residents are retirees, and most with Sidnaw roots. The township, which also includes Kenton, is 82% Ottawa National Forest land, with the Sturgeon River and gorge north of M-28 and two popular campgrounds and many lakes to the south.

After the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railroad arrived at Sidnaw and Kenton in 1889, lumbermen Thomas Nestor and Gunlak Bergland subdivided the village and started harvesting its white pine. Blessed with excellent transportation and top-quality lumber, Sidnaw boomed.

Investor Walter Prickett came to the area. He helped develop electric power by building Prickett Dam on the Sturgeon River just below the gorge and falls. (It's now owned by UPPCO; some recreational land is being off by Naterra Land Company.) He was a lumberman. And he built up a large and apparently profitable dairy and vegetable farm on cutover land. Its produce was shipped by rail — eggs to Chicago is a detail handed down over the decades. Columns of brick and stone can still be spotted, marking the perimeter of his land. The trim brick building with a white porch — it looks a little like a house — was Prickett's general store. Now it's the post office.

Sidnaw became Henry Ford's first Upper Peninsula project. His agent, Edward G. Kingsford, was already beginning to purchase the first of Ford's approximately 400,000 acres of timberland. In 1920 Ford built a lumber camp "the likes of which no sober lumberjack had ever dreamed," wrote Ford Bryan in Beyond the Model T: The Other Ventures of Henry Ford. Lumberjacks slept in bunkhouses with steam heat and electric lights. Smoking and drinking were prohibited. (Ford often intervened in his employees' lives to try and lift them up!) The cost of laundering dirty clothes was deducted from their pay of $5 a day. Locals called Ford's Sidnaw lumberjacks "lumber ladies."For more on Ford, look up the village of Alberta in this chapter, and see the introduction.

Ford was so proud of his model Sidnaw camp that he showed it off to his good friends Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone on their famous 1924 camping trip. The Grooms-Prickett Airport was developed on Sidnaw's north side. A fine brick school building was created with Ford's help. Both play a role in Sidnaw's future today.

But first, about the former prison work camp for German prisoners of war in World War II. From 1942 to 1945, the former Civilian Conservation Corps camp just outside Sidnaw housed 251 P.O.Ws and the two officers and 33 enlisted men who guarded them. It and four other Upper Peninsula P.O.W camps aroused great interest within and way beyond the U.P. after John Pepin, reporter for the Marquette Mining Journal, did a series of articles and then teamed up with Jackie Chandonnet to make a riveting film, The Enemy in Our Midst, three hours all told, about the POWs and interactions with their neighbors. It was shown to acclaim on WNMU-TV in Marquette.

Prisoners had cut wood for the Bonifas lumber company, used for crates to ship arms and materials. Most were draftees, though some were SS soldiers who greeted each other with "Heil Hitler!" After the war was over, some prisoners came back to the United States with their families, so the story goes.

One of Camp Sidnaw's three guard towers remains — perhaps because of the high-quality local timber used in building it. Today the guard tower, the school building, and the airport are at the center of things happening in Sidnaw.

The Enemy in Our Midst was seen far and wide, by people interested World War II on the home front, and U.S.-German POW relations. It appears that Camp Sidnaw's tower may be the only one standing anywhere. It has been moved near the entrance of the airport and is gradually being restored.

Sidnaw has long been a logging center. This logyard west of town sometimes has 5,000-cord stacks.

In the 1930s Sidnaw had a Civilian Conservation Corps camp that became a work camp for German prisoners of war during World War II.

Meanwhile, the airport has been purchased by Brad Frederick, a pilot from the Grand Rapids area. Since 2006, a festive Labor Day Fly-In has been held on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. It features rebuilt WWII planes flying from as far as Texas, combined with a crafts show. Each year more people come by plane and auto — rising gas prices notwithstanding.

Brad showed a film of Sidnaw to other Grand Rapids pilots, and took fellow pilot Jim Steketee up to see it. After "falling in love" with the area, he decided to buy the school and turn it into condos — for downstate pilots who'd like a quick getaway, with ORV access to fishing and hunting.

The newly formed South Houghton County Airport & Heritage Association is gathering artifacts and information, and creating a museum and community center in the deconsecrated 1935 Catholic church. The society is moving the guard tower — the only solution, given land ownership issues — to a corner of the airport, with a plaque. It's hoped that the museum and model condos will be ready for the 2008 Labor Day Fly-In.

Information on these events and many other local affairs can be had at the SIDNAW MINI-MART (906) 355-2257 on 3740 M-28 on the east edge of town, offering ice cream cones in summer. It's open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. but may close Sunday and Monday in slow times. Proprietors Tommy Thompson, the "mayor" of Sidnaw and his wife, Bev, are in the center of things. Tommy's sister, Dorothy Beck, is the historical society's curator, and she would love archival assistance (a great summer internship) and information about the go-getting Walter Prickett and other aspects of Sidnaw history.

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PLACES AROUND SIDNAW TO

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