County note shelf
Missaukee County Porch Notes
Stories, practical details, outdoor places, tax quirks, and local history connected to Missaukee County. This shelf has 4 practical notes and 13 local stories.
17 notes
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- History and cultureThe Aetna Earthworks: two old rings on a gravel ridgeA pair of circular earthen enclosures on a glacial ridge in Aetna Township, built around 1200 AD and now one of Missaukee County's two National Register sites.
- History and cultureEbels: the general store that ate a town's main streetEbels General Store in tiny Falmouth has run since 1920, growing from a horse-drawn delivery wagon into a destination meat market and USDA processing plant.
- History and cultureLake City and the Greatest Fourth in the NorthLake City packs four days of parades, contests, and lakeside fireworks into its Independence Day celebration, the Greatest Fourth in the North.
- OutdoorsLong Lake: eleven rustic sites down a string of back roadsLong Lake State Forest Campground near Lake City is a small, rustic, first-come state campground with eleven sites, a hand pump, and good fishing on a quiet lake.
- History and cultureThe Missaukee courthouse that burned in February 1944On February 18, 1944, fire destroyed Lake City's three-story 1883 courthouse, one chapter in the community's long history of fires and rebuilding.
- History and cultureMoorestown: a church at one end, a schoolhouse at the otherMoorestown in Norwich Township was a Clam River lumber village founded in 1881; today an old church and the Hunt Schoolhouse bookend a main street that mostly went away.
- History and cultureVogel Center: an early Dutch farm settlementDutch families established Vogel Center in the late 1860s, while farming and logging were both beginning to reshape Missaukee County.
- History and cultureFalmouth held the county seat before Lake CityFalmouth briefly held Missaukee County's courthouse before the seat moved to the settlement that became Lake City.
- History and cultureJennings: the lumber town that all but disappearedJennings was once a busy Missaukee lumber town on Crooked Lake, then many of its houses moved away with the mills.
- History and cultureReeder Township and the family that named itThe settlement beside Muskrat Lake took Daniel Reeder's name before becoming Lake City; Reeder Township kept the family name.
- Money and taxesDo Lake City or McBain have a city income tax?Lake City and McBain levy no city income tax, and neither does Cadillac; the closest cities that do are Grayling and Big Rapids, about an hour away.
- History and cultureLake City: Michigan's Christmas Tree CapitalLake City grew from lumber to Lake Missaukee resort life and then into Michigan's Christmas Tree Capital.
- History and cultureMcBain: a Dutch farm town with a Rambler streakMcBain grew from a sawmill settlement into Missaukee County's Dutch-rooted farm town.
- OutdoorsThe Muskegon headwaters and the Dead Stream countryEastern Missaukee is Muskegon River headwaters country, with Reedsburg Dam, Dead Stream Flooding, and state forest land.
- Home and propertyWells and septic in Missaukee County: what buyers should knowMissaukee County does not require point-of-sale septic inspections, so township buyers should order their own well and septic checks.
- 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.