Fayette looks like a little Chicago this week; the harbor is full of boats and business is brisk. Schoolcraft County Pioneer 1881
In the years following the Civil War, the town of Fayette was an important part of the Upper Peninsula’s burgeoning iron industry.
Here, on the Garden Peninsula, 20 miles due east of Escanaba, Michigan, hardwoods, iron ore and dolomite rock were combined in furnaces that produced pig iron.
The Fayette waterfront during its industrial heyday. In the left foreground: stacks of hardwood awaiting conversion to charcoal for use in the iron smelter.
Charcoal from maple and beech trees burned hot enough to melt the iron ore. Steam pumps blew air through the furnace, supplying oxygen that coaxed the fire up to a temperature of 2,800 degrees Farenheit. Impurities, called slag, were skimmed off the top of the molten iron and removed. The iron itself was poured into molds and cooled. Then the 100-pound iron ingots were loaded into boats and shipped down the lakes to steelmakers.
The whole operation was abandoned when the hardwoods from nearby forests ran out. By then, in 1891, the Fayette smelter had produced 229,000 tons of high-quality iron for the Jackson Iron Co.
The town dried up when the smelter closed down.
Pretty much all of the 500 people who had lived and worked in the town simply packed up and moved on, leaving just a few stubborn folks behind.
Fayette after the smelter closed down was a tourist spot and a fishing village.
These days, the town site is an historic landmark and an outdoor playground, reborn and restored as the Fayette Historic State Park.
The blast furnaces where iron ore was purified are the centerpiece of the preserved town site. Photo: William Overbeeke.
There’s a museum with a big scale model that shows how the town was laid out in its industrial heyday. You can walk through the hotel, company office, town hall, machine shop, schoolhouse and homes, and stand among the massive ruins of the blast furnace complex and the charcoal kilns.
Come for the history. Stay for the fun!
The park has about 5 miles of hiking trails.
The harbor is a scenic spot for kayaking, canoeing, and stand-up paddleboarding (rentals are available at the park). The harbor also accommodates larger boats with slips for daytime or overnight docking.
Visitors can scuba dive or snorkel in the harbor to look for 19th-century artifacts on the lake bottom, on a strict "look but don't touch" basis.
Anglers can fish from boats, the shore, or the park's fishing pier for walleye, northern pike, smallmouth bass, perch, and salmon.
There’s a swimming area with a sandy beach. You can also explore the "slag beach," where pieces of smooth, colorful glass-like slag wash up on shore.
The park has a modern campground, hammock camping areas, boat camping in the harbor, and the Furnace Hill Lodge available for rent.
There’s a day-use picnic area complete with a playground, charcoal grills, and a reservable picnic shelter adjacent to the swim beach.
The park is open year-round for outdoor activities, but the historic buildings, museum and campground are seasonal, from mid-May to mid-October.
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Research for this post supported by Google Gemini Pro.
