SALT

August 25, 2011  Dateline: Frankfort, MI USA

Nothing happened on this day.  For the third day I sat in my slip at Frankfort.  All of my friends were just itching to get going agai,n but we will have to wait  another day for the seas to settle down.

August 26, 2011  Dateline: Manistee, MI USA

The seas were finally calm.

It was a short ride of less than 25 miles, but I had to go to Manistee as the marina there was holding a propeller for me that had been repaired.  I got Rich and Carol there by 10 AM.  My friends were going much longer distances, including two who were going across the lake, they all left before 5AM.  That was too early for me.

Manistee is located up the eastern shore of Lake Michigan on the Manistee River, which flows from Manistee Lake.  In 1841, the John Stronach family constructed a sawmill on Manistee Lake and later another on the Manistee River. By 1849, more settlers were arriving and the Ojibwe Indian reservation on the site was dismantled, with land given to settlers. The city was set back in 1871 when a fire swept through and destroyed over one-half of the city’s buildings. Much of it was rebuilt, this time of brick.  The Main Street still has most of those brick buildings.  Lake steamers from Chicago regularly called upon the city bringing passengers in and taking lumber away.

By 1885, there were forty sawmills operating and by the end of the century the population reached 14,260. Manistee claimed to have more millionaires per capita than any other city in the United States. These millionaires started investing in salt wells. While drilling for salt beds they hit oil and just capped the well. After all they were after salt, which they saw as the next big industry. The citizens of Manistee had city-provided fire protection, a parks department, water, sewer and street lighting.

Rich and Carol went into the Manistee County Historical Society’s museum.  The museum is located inside a building that was constructed before the turn of the 20^th Century.  The collection of items in the museum’s first floor is extensive and the professional rooms and apartment on the second floor represent life and business in the 1890s.  Here is the building as it looked at that time.

The main route into Manistee is lined with petunias for several blocks.  They look really cool. 

The Manistee River passes through the center of the city.  The city has built a one and a half mile Riverwalk along both shores of the river from Manistee Lake to Lake Michigan for all to enjoy.  The river is very busy with pleasure boat traffic and fishing charters now.  The steamer traffic has long since disappeared.

There are no other Loopers here, so tomorrow I cross Lake Michigan to Manitowoc, Wisconsin alone. I hope the seas are good to me.