Historical Points of Interest

McGulpin Point Lighthouse

McGulpin Point Lighthouse

Cross Village

Skillagalee and Waugoshance Light Stations
Waugoshance Point
Leg’s Inn Restaurant
M-119 Tunnel of Trees (from Harbor Springs to Cross Village)

GOOD HART

St. Ignatius Church and Beach
Good Hart General Store

HARBOR SPRINGS

Andrew J. Blackbird House and Museum
Harbor Springs History Museum

MACKINAW CITY

McGulpin Point Historical Site & Lighthouse
Fort Michilimackinac
Mackinac Bridge
Mackinaw Heritage Village

PETOSKEY

Bay View Association
Little Traverse History Museum
St. Francis Solanus Mission Church
Perry Hotel

 

Local Lore

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest HemingwayNorthern Michigan has long inspired poets, painters and writers. Among the most famous is Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway’s footprints traverse the local landscape and have become local lore, from Walloon Lake to Horton Bay and into downtown Petoskey.

Originally from Oak Park, Illinois, the Hemingway family summered in northern Michigan, where Ernest’s father taught him to hunt and fish. The Hemingways’ summer house, Windemere on Walloon Lake, was a refuge for the family to stay cool and enjoy the nature. Hemingway would fish the streams, hunt squirrels, and take a rowboat out for angling. The serenity he found while alone in the forest or wading a stream is evident in his stories.

Hemingway would later say that he often thought of his times up north when he found himself in major cities like Chicago, Toronto and Paris. After his return from World War I, he would travel once again to northern Michigan. The last speaking engagement Hemingway took was at the Petoskey Public Library. Many of Hemingway’s novels and short stories were based on his experiences in the Petoskey/Walloon Lake region, including “The Big Two-Hearted River,” “The Torrents of Spring” and “The Nick Adams Stories.” —Adapted from The Hemingway Resource Center and The Hemingway Society

Of Historical Note

ICE BREAKER (FOR RELEASE)A piece of United States Coast Guard history is at rest in Mackinaw City, berthed as a testament to Emmet County’s geographic significance on the Great Lakes.

The Coast Guard Icebreaker, Mackinaw, a WAGB-83, is known as “The Queen of the Great Lakes.” She was built as part of the WWII effort to meet the heavy demands of transporting war materials and facilitating transportation during the winter months. For decades her home port was at the mouth of the Cheboygan River, where more than 65 years ago the federal government excavated a basin to accommodate large lake vessels entering Cheboygan harbor.

The 290-foot Mackinaw was decommissioned in 2006. Now a museum ship docked in Mackinaw City, the 1944-built Mackinaw is open for public tours and group events. Visitors can tour the mess deck, engine room and offices, plus hear the story of the Mackinaw’s long career breaking ice on the Great Lakes.

The Petoskey Stone

is09-1246395516-64570.pngMichigan’s state stone, the Petoskey Stone, is commonly found along the shoreline of Little Traverse Bay. A Petoskey Stone is a rock and a fossil that is composed of a fossilized coral, Hexagonaria percarinata. The stones were formed as a result of glaciation, in which sheets of ice plucked stones from the bedrock, grinding off their rough edges and depositing them in the northwestern portion of Michigan’s lower peninsula. They are fragments of a coral reef that were originally deposited during the Devonian period, about 350 million years ago. In 1965, it was named the state Stone of Michigan.

Shops throughout the region carry Petoskey Stones as gift and jewelry items, in both rough and polished versions. Find your own while beach walking along Lake Michigan’s shoreline.

Emmet County, Michigan
200 Division Street, Petoskey MI 49770
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