County note shelf
Delta County Porch Notes
Stories, practical details, outdoor places, tax quirks, and local history connected to Delta County. This shelf has 5 practical notes and 17 local stories.
22 notes
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- History and culture A lumber baron's widow built Escanaba an arts center The Bonifas Arts Center in Escanaba lives in a 1938 golden-Kasota-stone hall that Catherine Bonifas built in memory of her timber-baron husband; it became a regional arts hub in 1974.
- Outdoors Days River Pathway: nine miles of loops above the river Northwest of Gladstone, the Days River Pathway runs nine miles of stacked loops through pine and cedar ridges above the Days River, groomed for cross-country skiing in winter.
- History and culture How Escanaba got its own movie Jeff Daniels set his deer-camp comedy 'Escanaba in da Moonlight' here, then filmed it in town in 2001 after raising the money from Michigan investors when Hollywood passed.
- Money and taxes In Escanaba, your power bill comes from the city Escanaba runs its own electric utility instead of buying from Consumers or DTE — the city owns the wires and serves about 6,000 customers, and its residential rate has run well below the state average.
- History and culture Nahma: the whole town that went up for sale Nahma was a lumber company town built around the Bay de Noquet mill in 1881; when the saws stopped in 1951 the company put the entire town up for sale.
- Outdoors The 40-mile trail that follows an old canoe portage Starting east of Rapid River, the Bay de Noc–Grand Island Trail traces an ancient Chippewa portage route used to carry canoes between Lake Michigan and Lake Superior.
- History and culture The French fishing villages at the end of the Garden Peninsula Sac Bay and Fairport, at the tip of the Garden Peninsula, were settled in the 1850s by French fishermen who left the offshore islands for the mainland to work the Bays de Noc.
- Outdoors The town ski hill Gladstone built itself Gladstone's Sports Park grew out of a 1937 ski club and a bought-up 78-acre farm on the Days River; the town still runs it, with rope tows, tubing runs, and night skiing.
- History and culture The town that invented the pet casket Hoegh of Gladstone made the first pet casket sold in America, started in a basement in 1966, and still ships little styrene coffins for everything from a parakeet to a St. Bernard.
- History and culture Escanaba: ore docks, a lighthouse, and the U.P.'s own fair Escanaba grew up as one of the great iron-ore ports on the lakes, kept by a pioneering woman lighthouse keeper -- and since 1928 it has thrown the U.P.'s own state fair every August.
- History and culture Fayette, the town the iron company left behind At the tip of the Garden Peninsula sits Fayette -- a complete 1860s iron-smelting company town, emptied in 1891 and preserved ever since, now one of the best-kept historic townsites in the country.
- Outdoors Fishing the Bays de Noc Gladstone and Escanaba sit on some of the best fishing water in the Midwest -- the Bays de Noc, famous for trophy walleye and a smallmouth bass fishery state biologists have called world-class.
- History and culture How Delta County got its name Delta County is named for the Greek letter -- because the county's original 1843 borders formed a neat triangle. Then it gave away so much territory that the triangle disappeared.
- History and culture How Gladstone got its name (and Kipling too) Gladstone began in 1887 as a railroad town called Minnewasca -- then took the name of a British prime minister to thank the British investors who finished the railroad. A neighboring stop became Kipling.
- Money and taxes Is there a city income tax in Escanaba? Escanaba charges no city income tax -- neither does Gladstone, and neither does anywhere else in the Upper Peninsula. The nearest one is Grayling, well over a hundred miles away.
- Outdoors Peninsula Point: a lighthouse and ten thousand butterflies At the wild tip of the Stonington Peninsula stands an 1865 lighthouse you can climb for free -- and every fall, clouds of monarch butterflies gather here before crossing Lake Michigan.
- History and culture A Whole 1800s Town, Frozen in Time on a Lake Michigan Cliff An entire 1800s iron-smelting company town on the remote Garden Peninsula, abandoned in 1891 and so well-preserved it's one of America's best ghost towns.
- History and culture How 'Yooper' Made It Into the Dictionary It took one Yooper more than a decade of letters (and a few pasties) to get the word 'Yooper' into the dictionary.
- Home and property What to know about well and septic in Delta County Outside Escanaba and Gladstone, most of Delta County is on private well and septic. Michigan has no statewide septic code, and the local health department doesn't require an inspection when a property is sold -- though it can evaluate a system if you ask.
- History and culture Fayette: the ghost town Delta County kept perfect Delta County's Garden Peninsula holds Fayette Historic State Park — a complete 1880s iron-smelting town preserved on a white-cliffed harbor.
- 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.