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Dec. 26th, 2003 02:20 pm
Generic Northern Michigan small town history:
"Founded in the (1870s, 1880s, 1890s), (TOWN NAME) at its height had 1500 inhabitants, one school, two newspapers, four hotels, six sawmills and twelve taverns. After the pine forests were logged off, homesteaders settled the land and (grew potatoes/ starved off, depending on soil type). At its low point in 1930 only fifty residents were left, but the expansion of the tourist trade built the population up to the levels you see today."
Waters, the next town south of here, was like that. Following the end of the lumberjack era, though, a local resident built a fence half a mile long out of the whiskey bottles the lumberjacks left behind, plus mortar. I like to think that my great-grandfather might have contributed to that; he was a lumberjack, probably right in this area at one time or another, and by all accounts he emptied his share of whiskey bottles.
(By the way, by the bottles people still find much of the whiskey wasn't "whiskey" as such. It was stomach bitters, tuberculosis medicine, arthritis medicine, and so on-- but it all ran about eighty proof.)
It says something about the lumberjacks that somebody could build a "stone" wall a mile long out of the whiskey bottles they emptied. It says something about the tourist trade that this wall became a major tourist attraction. It says something about the tourists that they eventually chipped the wall to pieces, one souvenir at a time.
Waters had a recent economic renaissance when they opened a half-sized McDonalds out by the freeway, half a mile east of town. But after hanging on for three bitter years, it closed. Now the building, stripped of most of the features which made it identifiable as a McDonalds, is boarded up and for rent.
I didn't think it was possible for a fast food place to go bankrupt, especially one all by itself only a few miles south of Gaylord-- which is a terrible place to get through on a summer weekend, due to the heavy tourist traffic. One would think people would stop at Waters instead and save an hour.
But service there, both times I went, was just horrible. Slow, cold food, WRONG food. My friends all agree with me on this, so it wasn't just bad luck on my part. Generally the staff at the Waters McDonalds were evidence that unemployment was too LOW, and that certain people SHOULDN'T have jobs.
I suppose somebody might build a fence out of mortar and drink cups now, but if they do it's not going to last nearly as long as the late lamented Bottle Fence.
"Founded in the (1870s, 1880s, 1890s), (TOWN NAME) at its height had 1500 inhabitants, one school, two newspapers, four hotels, six sawmills and twelve taverns. After the pine forests were logged off, homesteaders settled the land and (grew potatoes/ starved off, depending on soil type). At its low point in 1930 only fifty residents were left, but the expansion of the tourist trade built the population up to the levels you see today."
Waters, the next town south of here, was like that. Following the end of the lumberjack era, though, a local resident built a fence half a mile long out of the whiskey bottles the lumberjacks left behind, plus mortar. I like to think that my great-grandfather might have contributed to that; he was a lumberjack, probably right in this area at one time or another, and by all accounts he emptied his share of whiskey bottles.
(By the way, by the bottles people still find much of the whiskey wasn't "whiskey" as such. It was stomach bitters, tuberculosis medicine, arthritis medicine, and so on-- but it all ran about eighty proof.)
It says something about the lumberjacks that somebody could build a "stone" wall a mile long out of the whiskey bottles they emptied. It says something about the tourist trade that this wall became a major tourist attraction. It says something about the tourists that they eventually chipped the wall to pieces, one souvenir at a time.
Waters had a recent economic renaissance when they opened a half-sized McDonalds out by the freeway, half a mile east of town. But after hanging on for three bitter years, it closed. Now the building, stripped of most of the features which made it identifiable as a McDonalds, is boarded up and for rent.
I didn't think it was possible for a fast food place to go bankrupt, especially one all by itself only a few miles south of Gaylord-- which is a terrible place to get through on a summer weekend, due to the heavy tourist traffic. One would think people would stop at Waters instead and save an hour.
But service there, both times I went, was just horrible. Slow, cold food, WRONG food. My friends all agree with me on this, so it wasn't just bad luck on my part. Generally the staff at the Waters McDonalds were evidence that unemployment was too LOW, and that certain people SHOULDN'T have jobs.
I suppose somebody might build a fence out of mortar and drink cups now, but if they do it's not going to last nearly as long as the late lamented Bottle Fence.
