County note shelf
Manistee County Porch Notes
Stories, practical details, outdoor places, tax quirks, and local history connected to Manistee County. This shelf has 3 practical notes and 18 local stories.
21 notes
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- History and culture The Ramsdell Theatre, where James Earl Jones first walked on stage Manistee's lumber-baron opera house opened in 1903 with a green-and-gold horseshoe balcony and a painted dome, and a young James Earl Jones learned his craft on its stage.
- History and culture The Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, recognized again in 1994 An Odawa nation tied to the Manistee River for centuries had its federal status quietly erased, then won it back in 1994 — and today runs its own government and a resort north of town.
- History and culture The S.S. City of Milwaukee, a railroad ferry that swallowed whole trains Tied up on Manistee Lake is the last surviving pre-1940 Great Lakes railroad car ferry — a 1931 ship that once rolled loaded freight cars straight onto its deck and across the lake.
- History and culture Guardian Angels Church and the 180-foot tower over Manistee Built 1888–1890 for Manistee's Catholic immigrants, Guardian Angels Church carries a 180-foot bell tower that is still the tallest structure in town, topped by a fourteen-foot cross.
- History and culture Manistee's North Pierhead Light and its rare wind-proof catwalk A little red 1927 lighthouse guards the mouth of the Manistee River, reached by an elevated steel catwalk — one of only a handful left in Michigan after most were torn down.
- History and culture Manistee's Sleighbell Parade, where a horse team pulls a 30-foot tree upright Every December, downtown Manistee bans electric lights and recorded music for a candlelit Victorian Christmas parade whose finale is a Belgian draft team standing a 30-foot tree upright on River Street.
- Outdoors Orchard Beach State Park, where they moved a stone pavilion to outrun the lake On a 100-foot bluff north of Manistee sits one of Michigan's best-preserved 1930s state parks — and in 2020 crews picked up its CCC-built stone pavilion and rolled it 1,200 feet inland.
- Rules and licenses Renting your Onekama cottage by the week? The township has rules now Onekama Township adopted a short-term rental ordinance in 2023 that requires owners to register vacation rentals with the township and renew that registration every year.
- History and culture The Forest Festival, a Fourth of July that grew out of a homecoming Manistee's National Forest Festival, run every Fourth of July since 1936, started as a town homecoming and took its forest theme from the national forest land assembled around it in the 1930s.
- History and culture The Old Kirke, the oldest Danish Lutheran church building in the country Manistee's white frame Old Kirke, built by Danish immigrants in the late 1860s, is the oldest surviving Danish Lutheran church building in the United States — and it holds a carved Viking ship.
- History and culture The Portage Point Inn, the 1903 resort that outlived the steamships Onekama's Portage Point Inn opened in 1903 on the strip of land between Portage Lake and Lake Michigan, back when steamships brought guests straight from Chicago and Milwaukee.
- History and culture The Salt City of the Inland Seas: how Manistee dug a fortune from brine After the pines ran low, Manistee drilled almost 2,000 feet down, struck salt, and by the 1890s boiled out over a million barrels a year — Morton still works the same ground.
- History and culture The Vogue Theatre, a 1938 movie house the town rebuilt by hand Manistee's Art Deco Vogue opened in 1938, went dark in 2005, and reopened in 2013 after the town raised the money and hundreds of neighbors put in volunteer hours.
- Outdoors Tippy Dam, where anglers stand shoulder to shoulder for fall salmon A 1918 hydro dam near Brethren put a wall across the Manistee River — and the deep, cold water just below it became one of Michigan's most crowded, famous salmon and steelhead runs.
- Outdoors Arcadia: the bluffs, the dunes, and a famous flyer Arcadia's Lake Michigan bluffs, golf course, dunes, marsh, and Harriet Quimby history shape the far northwest corner of Manistee County.
- History and culture Kaleva, the Finnish village Kaleva's Finnish roots and the Makinen Bottle House give central Manistee County one of its signature village stories.
- Outdoors Onekama and Portage Lake Onekama's Portage Lake harbor, Lake Michigan beaches, and famous 1871 Cut make it a classic Manistee County resort community.
- Outdoors Bear Lake, Copemish, and the countryside Northern and inland Manistee County mixes Bear Lake, old railroad villages, Manistee Lake, farms, and wooded acreage.
- Outdoors The Manistee River and the National Forest Eastern Manistee County is big-woods country shaped by the Manistee River, national forest land, fishing, paddling, and cabins.
- 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.