County note shelf
Antrim County Porch Notes
Stories, practical details, outdoor places, tax quirks, and local history connected to Antrim County. This shelf has 3 practical notes and 11 local stories.
14 notes
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- History and culture From a Bellaire hardware store to a brewery that fills Elk Rapids Joe Short opened Short's Brewing in an old Bellaire hardware store in 2004, then outgrew it and moved the brewing into an Elk Rapids factory making tens of thousands of barrels a year.
- History and culture How tiny Ellsworth became a fine-dining destination Wes Westhoven turned a 1972 Ellsworth restaurant into a French-country pioneer with a legendary wine cellar, putting a village of a few hundred people on national gourmet maps.
- History and culture Mancelona's iron town, and the tar lake it left behind From 1882 to 1945 the Antrim Iron Company smelted iron with hardwood charcoal south of Mancelona — and dumped its waste in a pond that became a federal Superfund site.
- History and culture The Alden depot that six railroad men saved on their days off Built in 1907 as the Pere Marquette's finest station north of Grand Rapids, Alden's lakeside depot survived its empty years as a railroaders' vacation clubhouse before becoming a township museum.
- Outdoors The river you can only walk to on a boardwalk When a developer eyed a marshy stretch of the Chain of Lakes in 1969, neighbors banded together and built the Grass River Natural Area — 1,500 acres of cedar swamp laced with boardwalk.
- Outdoors The village named for sitting in the middle of everything Central Lake got its plain name from its spot dead-center in Antrim County's Chain of Lakes, perched on Intermediate Lake within a short hop of Torch Lake and a free village campground on the water.
- Outdoors Thirty miles of trail on hills the glaciers left Three local governments jointly own the 814-acre Glacial Hills near Bellaire, where a glacier-built tangle of ridges holds about 31 miles of mountain-bike, hiking, and ski trail.
- History and culture Bellaire and Shanty Creek Bellaire is Antrim County's courthouse village and Chain of Lakes hub, with Shanty Creek nearby as a four-season resort.
- Outdoors The Grand Traverse Bay shore and Elk Rapids Antrim County's Grand Traverse Bay shore centers on Elk Rapids, US-31, beaches, harbors, and prime waterfront buying questions.
- Outdoors Torch Lake and the Chain of Lakes Torch Lake and the Elk River Chain of Lakes shape Antrim County waterfront life and lakefront buying questions.
- Outdoors The Jordan Valley and Antrim's wooded interior Antrim County's inland townships offer the Jordan River Valley, Mackinaw State Forest, trails, acreage, and rural privacy.
- Home and property Well and septic in Antrim County Antrim County township buyers should expect wells and septic systems, with mandatory time-of-transfer checks in a few lake jurisdictions.
- Money and taxes Buying in a township? Watch for special assessments on top of your taxes Michigan township buyers should check for special assessments that can add separate road, sewer, water, lighting, sidewalk, or drain charges.
- Money and taxes In Michigan, you get two property-tax bills a year — not one Most Michigan property owners get separate summer and winter tax bills, with local rules deciding what lands on each bill.