County note shelf
Menominee County Porch Notes
Stories, practical details, outdoor places, tax quirks, and local history connected to Menominee County. This shelf has 4 practical notes and 14 local stories.
18 notes
Read the county shelf
- Outdoors Menominee's red lighthouse, lit on New Year's Day 1877 A small octagonal cast-iron tower has marked the mouth of the Menominee River since 1877; the city took it over from the Coast Guard in 2008 and keeps the red beacon shining.
- Outdoors Pemene Falls, the hard-to-find rapids on the Menominee River Down a gravel road in Faithorn Township, the Menominee River drops through Pemene Falls — one of three units in a 7,652-acre state recreation area Michigan and Wisconsin manage together.
- History and culture Powers started as 'Menominee River Junction,' where the iron-range line split off The village of Powers began in 1872 as the spot where the Chicago & North Western's main line met the branch toward the Menominee iron range — a railroad junction that became a town.
- Outdoors Shakey Lakes: a county park wrapped around four lakes Menominee County runs a 240-acre park among four lakes near Stephenson, with a sand beach on Resort Lake, well over a hundred campsites, and miles of trails through the woods.
- Outdoors The brewer who gave Menominee a 50-acre park on Green Bay John Henes ran a brewery and patented a bottling machine used across the beer industry, then in 1907 handed the city 50 wooded acres on the Green Bay shore for a public park.
- History and culture The Menominee library a lumberman built to look like a French chateau Augustus Spies made his fortune in white pine, then gave Menominee a Beaux-Arts library by the firm that designed Carnegie libraries across the Midwest.
- History and culture Two railroad towns, two names: how Nadeau and Carney got theirs Bruno Nadeau farmed the first land here and his sons cut railroad ties; the township took his name, while nearby Carney was named for a man who built a warehouse at the tracks.
- History and culture Hermansville and the floor that conquered America When the pine ran out, the company town of Hermansville reinvented itself -- and its IXL maple flooring ended up in buildings across the country, including Yellowstone's Old Faithful Inn.
- History and culture How Menominee County got its name The river, the city, and the county all carry the name of the Menominee -- the Wild Rice People, whose own story begins at the mouth of this very river, and whose nation endures today.
- History and culture How Stephenson got its name Stephenson started as a railroad water stop called Wacedah, then took the name of the Stephenson lumber family in 1876 -- and Wisconsin's town of Stephenson, across the river, honors a different brother.
- Money and taxes Is there a city income tax in Menominee? Menominee charges no city income tax -- neither does Stephenson, and neither does anywhere else in the Upper Peninsula. The nearest one is Grayling, well over a hundred miles away.
- Outdoors J.W. Wells State Park, where the old forest survived On three miles of Green Bay shore stands J.W. Wells State Park -- built around a stand of virgin timber that survived the lumber boom, donated by a lumberman's own children in 1925.
- History and culture When Menominee floated a forest down the river In the white-pine years, the Menominee River carried billions of feet of logs to the mills at Menominee and Marinette -- twin cities that styled themselves the White Pine Capital of the World.
- 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 Menominee County Outside the cities and villages, most of Menominee 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 can evaluate a system if you ask.
- Outdoors Menominee: river rapids, a Green Bay shore, and the U.P.'s mildest corner Menominee County runs from the wild Menominee River to Green Bay's M-35 beach drive — the warmest, most farmable corner of the Upper Peninsula.
- 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.