How Mikado got a Gilbert and Sullivan name

A small community in the Alcona woods carries the name of a comic opera set in Japan. Daniel D. Bruce bought land beside the railroad west of Greenbush and registered the Bruce Plat in 1884. He built the Bruce Hotel and a livery stable the following year as lumber workers and families arrived.

Bruce then worked to turn the crossing into an official train stop. In 1886 he proposed “Bruce’s Crossing” as the village name, but an Upper Peninsula community already used it. Mikado Township’s current master plan says an assistant postmaster general instead chose Mikado after the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.

The plan traces that account to local histories, including an interview with Bruce’s son. It supports the railroad, plat, hotel, rejected name, and operetta connection. The more colorful claim that the postal official had just attended the show comes from a later telling, so the sturdier version is simpler: Bruce proposed his own name, postal officials declined it, and a Victorian stage hit supplied the replacement.