County note shelf
Lake County Porch Notes
Stories, practical details, outdoor places, tax quirks, and local history connected to Lake County. This shelf has 3 practical notes and 13 local stories.
16 notes
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- OutdoorsThe Pere Marquette: Michigan's first National Scenic RiverOn November 10, 1978, 66 miles of the Pere Marquette became the first river in Michigan added to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System — and it has never been dammed.
- OutdoorsTroutarama: Baldwin's 70-year party for a transplanted fishEvery July since 1956, Baldwin throws a four-day festival for the brown trout — a European transplant first dumped into a river here in 1884, and the reason the whole town exists today.
- OutdoorsBowman Lake: a three-acre lake you have to walk toA quiet 1,145-acre tract of national forest in Lake County built around a three-acre kettle lake, laced with 7.5 miles of foot trail and four walk-in campsites.
- History and cultureChase: the town with no river and seventeen mill whistlesMost lumber towns rode a river to move their logs. Chase had no big stream — so the railroad came instead, and by the mid-1880s seventeen sawmill whistles blew over a town of thousands.
- History and cultureLuther: the town that was almost named WilsonA sawmill firm called Wilson, Luther & Wilson founded this Little Manistee River village in 1881 and wanted to call it Wilsonville — until Lansing said the name was taken.
- History and cultureNirvana: the lumber town that sawed itself out of existenceA land-looker named Darwin Knight found a stand of premium white pine here in 1874, named the town for the Buddhist word for highest heaven, and watched eleven sawmills cut it all down.
- History and cultureWilliams Island: the Idlewild park named for a heart surgeonThe island at the heart of Idlewild carries the name of Dr. Daniel Hale Williams — the surgeon who repaired a stab wound to a man's heart in 1893 and later summered on this lake.
- History and cultureBaldwin won the county seat, then stole the recordsBaldwin won a county-seat election in 1874, but Chase held onto the records until a group from Baldwin took the county safe.
- OutdoorsThe Pere Marquette: where America's brown trout beganThe Pere Marquette River near Baldwin is where brown trout were first planted in American waters, and it remains one of Michigan's great trout streams.
- History and cultureThe Shrine of the PinesThe Shrine of the Pines near Baldwin preserves Raymond Overholzer's hand-built furniture made from white pine stumps and roots.
- History and cultureIdlewild: the Black Eden of MichiganIdlewild in Yates Township was one of the nation's most important Black resort communities before the Civil Rights Act opened other vacation places.
- History and cultureMichigan's "Black Eden": The Resort Town Where Black America VacationedIdlewild, in Lake County, was one of Black America's premier vacation resorts during segregation — the "Summer Apollo of Michigan," drawing tens of thousands.
- History and cultureIdlewild: the Black Eden of the MidwestLake County's Idlewild was the most famous African American resort in the country — where Louis Armstrong and Della Reese played and thousands summered in freedom.
- Home and propertyWells and septic in Lake County: what buyers should knowLake County does not require point-of-sale well and septic inspections, so rural buyers should make their own checks part of the offer.
- Money and taxesBuying in a township? Watch for special assessments on top of your taxesMichigan township buyers should check for special assessments that can add separate road, sewer, water, lighting, sidewalk, or drain charges.
- Money and taxesIn Michigan, you get two property-tax bills a year — not oneMost Michigan property owners get separate summer and winter tax bills, with local rules deciding what lands on each bill.