County note shelf
Huron County Porch Notes
Stories, practical details, outdoor places, tax quirks, and local history connected to Huron County. This shelf has 8 practical notes and 24 local stories.
32 notes
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- Outdoors The lighthouse two and a half miles out from Port Austin Port Austin Reef Light stands on a drowned reef well offshore from the tip of the Thumb, first lit in 1878 and now kept up by a local volunteer association.
- History and culture The widow who kept the light at Pointe aux Barques When keeper Peter Shook drowned in 1849, his widow Catherine took over the light at the tip of the Thumb — becoming Michigan's first woman lighthouse keeper.
- Outdoors A patch of sky dark enough to be protected Port Crescent State Park near Port Austin is a state-designated dark sky preserve, with a viewing platform set far from the parking lot for stargazing over Lake Huron.
- History and culture The 80-foot chimney that outlived a whole town's mills An 1858 stone chimney on the beach at Port Hope is the last standing sawmill chimney in Michigan from the lumbering era, all that's left of W. R. Stafford's mill.
- Outdoors A lumber boomtown buried under the dunes Port Crescent State Park's beach and forested dunes sit on top of a vanished lumber town — and a 120-foot brick sawmill chimney still stands among the campsites.
- History and culture Caseville started as Port Elizabeth The beach town at the mouth of the Pigeon River was first called Port Elizabeth, then renamed Caseville for a Cleveland landowner whose agent built the first sawmill.
- History and culture Elkton, named for an elk caught in a clothesline Elkton got its name when its blacksmith founder shot a huge elk that had tangled itself in his wife's clothesline — and the railroad town grew from there.
- History and culture Owendale: two cousins, a drowned swamp, and a stand of oak Owendale began when two Saginaw cousins named Owen bought land in a place called the Columbia Swamp and built a sawmill to cut the oak growing in it.
- Outdoors The governor who signed state parks into being — and got one named back Albert E. Sleeper State Park near Caseville honors the Huron County governor who signed the law that created Michigan's whole state park system.
- History and culture The lumber town a Yale professor turned into a museum Huron City near Port Austin froze in time when its lumber ran out — and a famous Yale professor preserved the whole village, including a house named for a Hawthorne novel.
- History and culture The town named for a bird that no longer exists Pigeon takes its name from the Pigeon River, named by surveyors for the passenger pigeons that once darkened the sky over the Thumb — a bird now extinct.
- History and culture Three missionaries, a crooked creek, and the start of Sebewaing In 1845, three Lutheran missionaries arrived on Saginaw Bay to live among the Chippewa — and the old mission house they left behind is now a museum in Sebewaing.
- History and culture Ubly: a name a clerk in Washington spelled wrong Ubly was meant to be 'Ubley,' after an English village its founder remembered — but a clerk filling out the post office paperwork dropped the e, and it stuck.
- Outdoors Wild Fowl Bay: a flyway rest stop the size of a small county The marshes and uninhabited islands of Wild Fowl Bay near Bay Port form one of Michigan's largest state wildlife areas, a critical stopover for migrating birds.
- History and culture A giant harbor and a Supreme Court justice Harbor Beach is known for its massive man-made harbor on Lake Huron and as the hometown of Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy.
- History and culture Cheeseburger in Caseville Caseville's ten-day August festival turns the small Saginaw Bay beach town into a Jimmy Buffett-inspired party.
- History and culture How Bad Axe got its name — and survived the fire Bad Axe's name comes from a damaged axe found by road surveyors, and the town rebuilt after the devastating Great Thumb Fire of 1881.
- History and culture Once the biggest fishing port in the world Bay Port's Saginaw Bay fishing boom made it a major freshwater fishing port, a history still marked by its fish company and festival.
- History and culture Sugar on the bay Sebewaing's sugar-beet factory and annual Michigan Sugar Festival keep the Saginaw Bay village tied to the Thumb's farm economy.
- Outdoors The tip of the Thumb Port Austin sits at the tip of the Thumb, with beaches, a farmers market, kayaking, Turnip Rock, and the Port Austin Reef Lighthouse offshore.
- History and culture Where the world bought its grindstones Grindstone City's sandstone quarries once shipped huge sharpening stones around the world, leaving a historic district east of Port Austin.
- Money and taxes No city income tax here Bad Axe, Harbor Beach, and Caseville levy no city income tax, and the nearest cities that do charge one are more than an hour from the Thumb's tip.
- History and culture Why Is the Lower Peninsula Shaped Like a Mitten — and Is the Whole State Really Two Pieces? Michigan really is two separate landmasses, joined since 1957 by the five-mile Mackinac Bridge — and the Lower Peninsula's famous mitten shape is pure luck of the glaciers.
- History and culture Is the Whole Lower Peninsula Really Shaped Like a Mitten — and What's "The Thumb"? Michigan's Lower Peninsula really is mitten-shaped, and 'the Thumb' — the part jutting into Lake Huron, around Huron, Tuscola, and Sanilac counties — is a genuine, official nickname.
- Home and property Buying near the water Great Lakes shoreline property in Huron County can mean erosion history, public-trust beach access, and state permits for work near the water.
- Home and property Wind country — turbines, leases, and who decides In Michigan's Thumb, wind turbines can affect rural land value, leases, views, local zoning, and state siting decisions.
- Home and property Out here, it's wells and septic Outside Huron County's cities and villages, most homes rely on private wells and septic systems, so inspections, water tests, and perc tests matter before buying.
- Outdoors Saginaw Bay's walleye: a comeback for the record books Saginaw Bay's once-collapsed walleye fishery recovered so completely that it's now ranked among the best in the country, with millions of fish and a busy charter fleet.
- Money and taxes Live in a Michigan village? You pay an extra layer of property tax Michigan village residents usually pay village property taxes on top of township taxes, so the village boundary can change a buyer's total rate.
- History and culture The Thumb feeds America its beans Michigan's Thumb is the nation's powerhouse for navy and black beans, and Tuscola County farmland is at the heart of it.
- 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.