County note shelf
Dickinson County Porch Notes
Stories, practical details, outdoor places, tax quirks, and local history connected to Dickinson County. This shelf has 4 practical notes and 8 local stories.
12 notes
Read the county shelf
- History and culture How Dickinson County got its name On May 21, 1891, Michigan drew its very last county line -- and named its newest county for Donald M. Dickinson, a Detroit lawyer who had just served as the nation's Postmaster General.
- History and culture How Norway, Michigan got its name Norway grew up on the Menominee Iron Range in the 1870s -- and its name has two tellings, one about Norwegian settlers and one about a great stand of Norway pine.
- Money and taxes Is there a city income tax in Iron Mountain? Iron Mountain charges no city income tax -- neither do Kingsford or Norway, and neither does anywhere else in the Upper Peninsula. The nearest one is Grayling, well over a hundred miles away.
- History and culture Kingsford: the town Ford built, the charcoal on your grill Kingsford had about forty residents in 1920. Then Henry Ford built a wood empire here -- and the briquettes his plant pressed from sawmill waste became the Kingsford charcoal on grills across America.
- Outdoors Piers Gorge, the U.P.'s wildest water South of Norway, the Menominee River squeezes through Piers Gorge in a run of roaring rapids -- some of the fastest water in Michigan or Wisconsin, and a genuine whitewater-rafting destination.
- History and culture The Cornish Pump, Iron Mountain's gentle giant Iron Mountain's Chapin Mine was one of the wettest mines ever worked -- so they built the largest steam pumping engine in American history to keep it dry. It's still here, all 725 tons of it.
- Outdoors The Pine Mountain ski jump, where Americans learned to fly Since 1937, ski jumpers have launched off Pine Mountain in Iron Mountain -- one of the highest artificial ski jumps in the world, home of the longest jump ever made on a regular hill in America.
- History and culture Your Backyard Grill Was Invented by Henry Ford (Out of Sawdust) The charcoal briquette became a household product thanks to Henry Ford, who turned U.P. sawmill scrap into Kingsford Charcoal.
- History and culture Why Do Some Parts of the U.P. Have a Different Time Than the Rest of Michigan? Most of Michigan runs on Eastern Time, but four counties in the western U.P. that border Wisconsin — Gogebic, Iron, Dickinson, and Menominee — sit on Central Time.
- Home and property What to know about well and septic in Dickinson County Outside Iron Mountain, Kingsford, and Norway, most of Dickinson 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 offers evaluations some home loans require.
- 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.