County note shelf
Iosco County Porch Notes
Stories, practical details, outdoor places, tax quirks, and local history connected to Iosco County. This shelf has 4 practical notes and 12 local stories.
16 notes
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- History and culture Alabaster: the gypsum mine that sent buckets out over Lake Huron Alabaster grew up around an open-pit gypsum mine opened in 1862, and for decades a mile-and-a-half cable tramway carried buckets of gypsum out over Saginaw Bay to waiting freighters.
- History and culture Cooke Dam: the first of six powerhouses on the lower Au Sable Cooke Dam began making electricity on the Au Sable in December 1911 — the first of six hydro plants the Foote brothers built between Mio and Lake Huron, once feeding a record-setting power line to Flint.
- History and culture How Tawas got its name: a chief, a bay, and a slip of the pen Tawas City takes its name from Chief O-ta-was, a Chippewa leader who camped on the bay — a name that early mapmakers reshaped by adding a letter, then dropping another.
- Outdoors Lumberman's Monument: three bronze loggers on the Au Sable bluff A 14-foot bronze of three loggers stands on a high bluff over the Au Sable River near Oscoda, dedicated in 1932 to the men who cut Michigan's white pine.
- Outdoors Tawas Point: the sandy hook that traps migrating birds The curving sand spit at Tawas Point funnels hundreds of migrating bird species into one small park each spring and fall, and shelters nesting piping plovers, an endangered Great Lakes shorebird.
- Outdoors The River Road byway: 22 miles of bluffs above the Au Sable From the M-65 junction near Hale to Oscoda, the River Road Scenic Byway runs 22 miles along high bluffs over the Au Sable, past dam ponds, eagle perches, and Lumberman's Monument.
- Outdoors Whittemore Speedway: a dirt track born because the carnival skipped town Stock cars have raced the quarter-mile oval in tiny Whittemore since 1948, when the town built a track after a traveling carnival failed to show up that summer.
- History and culture Tawas Point: the lighthouse and the "Cape Cod of the Midwest" Tawas Point State Park and its historic lighthouse define the Lake Huron shore in Baldwin Township.
- Outdoors Oscoda and the Au Sable River Oscoda and Au Sable townships sit where the Au Sable River meets Lake Huron and the national forest.
- History and culture The Tawas twin cities: a Lake Huron resort town Tawas City and East Tawas share Tawas Bay as Iosco County's resort and shopping hub.
- Money and taxes No city income tax in Tawas City, East Tawas, or Whittemore Tawas City, East Tawas, and 414-person Whittemore charge no city income tax; the nearest city that does is Saginaw, over an hour south.
- Outdoors Living on the Lake Huron shore in Iosco County Iosco County's Lake Huron shore centers on Tawas Bay, sandy beaches, harbors, and shoreline-buyer basics.
- Outdoors Inland Iosco: the Huron National Forest and the quiet west Inland Iosco is forest, trails, hunting country, and the quieter west-side communities around M-65.
- Home and property Well and septic in rural Iosco County Rural Iosco County homes often use private wells and septic systems, and buyers should inspect them before closing.
- 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.