Growing Up in Northern Michigan

My wife often refers to my description of growing up north as a storybook setting. It was, I have no way of describing it in any other terms. Munising sits on the shores of Lake Superior surrounded by hills. In front of the town is a large island, Grand Island that makes Munising Bay one of the few deep water bays on Lake Superior protected from the fury of storms.

Around the turn of the Twentieth Century there were blast furnaces on the shore where iron ore was processed into pig iron for further shipment to the steel mills in Chicago. Henry Ford began building Ford cars around 1906. As part of his strategy he knew it made sense not to ship iron ore to his factories around Detroit. The more refined the raw material the lower the shipping costs and the more economical the vehicle. Early Ford advertisements told of true Just-In-Time production, 30 days from iron mine to finished car.

With that in mind Ford started to invest in ore processing. Ford began construction of a power plant along the shores of Lake Superior at Munising, MI. Formerly blast furnaces used charcoal made from the trees of the surrounding area. As trees began to recede from the shoreline transportation of wood became a problem. With the advent of electricity blast furnaces became more efficient using that power form. So Ford's forward looking made the investment of a power plant in Munising viable. A deep water port, ore boats come from the Western end of the peninsula loaded with ore, boats coming from the east with coal to meet and refine ore into pig iron for more efficient transportation to Detroit.

Something happened and Ford stopped his project leaving the foundation of his power plant. This foundation became the play ground for we children growing up. It had a tunnel that went underground out into a nearby swamp and provided another route of escape when we played prisoner and guard. It was the task of the prisoners to escape and go up into the surrounding hills then reform and take over the prison. The guards became the prisoners and then their task was to escape. We played this game endlessly. It was played over a great area and went on sometimes for days. Henry Ford didn't make pig iron in Munising, but he provided a great play ground.

Today that foundation still exists. It is part of a storage area for a boat marina. It no longer fires the imagination of youth, it no longer offers youth the opportunity to exercise their creativity. It did exist, it did offer we kids some powerful opportunities to freely exercise our imagination and play at what ever we wanted. It was a fine experience.