An image of the Hessel waterfront from Hessel Bay, believed to be from sometime earlier than 1905, shows how the growing community looked as businesses began to emerge. The white house in the center of the image is the Fenlon family home, still standing today next to the Hessel Post Office on Lake Street. The house to the left is the former Ely's Resort, later known as Wilson's Resort, and now known as Lakeview. The buildings to the right of the Fenlon house are the former Fenlon general store, saloon, and grocery. A former feed store, pool hall, and freight loading docks also can be seen in the image. (Photograph courtesy of the Les Cheneaux Historical Association) 115 Years Ago

The St. Ignace News

Saturday, May 2, 1891

The Honorable Michael Chambers has been appointed by Governor Winans a member of the board of control of the State Mining School of the Upper Peninsula. The appointment is sure to give satisfaction, as Mr. Chambers is engaged in studying up the mineral resources of Mackinac, and will now devote his leisure hours still more assiduously to mines and minerals in this vicinity.

Shortly after 1 o'clock, the Furnace boarding house took fire. The Fire Department had just returned from McGraw's and immediately went to the scene, where they rendered very valuable services and prevented a big conflagration. Although a strong gale was blowing at the time, they succeeded in saving the lower part of the building and prevented the flames spreading to the store building, only a few feet distant. Damage to the building and contents, about $1,200 insured. Origin of fire unknown.

The stone walls for the Carp River farm barn foundation were completed today, making an underground basement 60x40. Carpenters will commence on the frame work on the 15th. Superintendent Reddicliffe has his seeding nearly all done and expects to raise great crops this season.

The gin and spindle made great revolution in the cotton world and now the picking machine will make another revolution with that useful plant. With the new picking machine the field work on each bale of cotton costs $1.50. Before the introduction of the machine, the field work cost was $16 a bale.

It is reported that a dry goods store will soon be opened in E.H. Hall's building, east of the ore dock.

Mulcrone Bros. are fitting up the building next to attorney McNamara's office for an art gallery. It will be occupied by C.G. Agrell, the artist, when finished.

Portage column Eleven St. Ignace News,' two Republicans and about 20 other papers come into West Portage every week, and still they call us a set of ignoramuses.

Thirty years ago today, we started out on our 40 month's of soldier life.

The Carruthers Manufacturing Company of Corinne is so crowded with trade that they are compelled to work almost night and day, and the farmers are compelled to stop overnight on account of bad roads.

90 Years Ago

The St. Ignace Enterprise

Thursday, May 4, 1916

Notice To the Residents of the City of St. Ignace: On and after May 1st, 1916, the Ordinance now in force in relation to cattle, horses, and other animals running at large in the City of St. Ignace will be strictly enforced.

Within the past few days the liquor dealers of the county have paid into the county treasurer the sum of $12,000 license money for the year ending April 30, 1916. Of this amount, St. Ignace dealers contributed $4,500, the balance being contributed among the townships and the city of Mackinac Island. Dealers who are privileged to engage in the business during the year follow:

St. Ignace Joseph Smith, John Valier, Hugh Whitwell, Michael McGrath, D. Lenahan & Son, Chris Sorenson, Allan Mosher, S.A. Snyder, Frank Valier.

Mackinac Island William Sullivan, Chas. Holden, A.E. Metevier, George T. Arnold. Cedarville Gordon Rudd. Hessel Edward Fenlon. Moran Albert Ellsworth.

Kenneth John Taylor.

Rexton William Anguilm, Fred Wood. Engadine Daniel O'Connel.

Naubinway William Boyle.

Gould City William Lyman, Duncan McArthur.

All persons are hereby warned that all dumping of rubbish or any material on the waterfront of the railroad property between the depot and the ore dock is strictly prohibited and that any violations will lead to arrest. Business Men's Association

Miss Evelyn Chambers, who spent the Easter vacation with friends and relatives in St. Ignace and Mackinac Island, returned to her school at Hardwood Saturday.

Saturday and Sunday were busy days for the Chief Wawatam, a total of 303 cars being ferried across the straits in the two days.

Engadine column Heek McDonald and F.H. Quinn have purchased a fine new car for the livery business.

A. Poppen of Escanaba is the new blacksmith in the Freeman Lumber Company's shop. His family is at the Engadine Inn until they can get a house.

Gould City column Dan MacLean made a business trip to St. Ignace for the purpose of helping to let some more road jobs on our county road system.

Our county engineer, Mr. Brotherton, called on some of our contractors of county road jobs to transact business with them and to inspect some of the work done during the winter.

We understand the township is preparing to receive bids on the drain from Lyle Bauman's farm and other parts of the town to the Salter creek. As the water stands in the town and low places and is liable to spread diseases, and as it makes it inconvenient for people when their buildings are about to float away, and as this proposition has been hanging fire a long time, we hope it will soon be done and let the ducks go someplace else for their swim.

Curtis column Did you go to the logging bee at Fred Barber's? There was also a plowing bee at which good work was done, 10 acres being plowed.

Some of the bon-tons enjoyed a 5 o'clock dinner served at Cooper's camp. All of the delicacies of the season were on the bill of fare, including greenhouse tomatoes, fresh strawberries, lettuce, radishes, and many other good things.

Mackinac Island column Mrs. Patrick Doud, Mrs. A.E. Metevier, and Miss Stella Chambers attended the card party given by the ladies of St. Ignace for the benefit of the Ursuline academy Tuesday evening. While in St. Ignace, they were guests of Mrs. Joseph Wenzel.

Miss Mary Bogan is going to have a display of hats from an exclusive Chicago millinery house in the Bogan store in the Marquette building in the near future. It will be a rare opportunity for the ladies of the Island to procure modest hats at very moderate prices $3.00 to $6.86, no higher.

Les Cheneaux column Young Brothers have been building a boat house in the rear of the rink for their boat.

Ross Patrick has sold his 27foot cabin boat to Charles J. Gotshall, who has a cottage on LaSalle Island. A boat house will be probable to add to the Gotshall place this summer.

The last of the ice blew out of the big bays between Hessel and Cedarville during Saturday night's blow, leaving the waterway clear. Government Bay opened up along the edges enough to permit the tugs to get through Monday and in a few days the rafts will have clear sailing from Prentiss Bay to the mill. And the Snows was indulged in a snowstorm Monday, May 1.

50 Years Ago The Republican-News & St.

Ignace Enterprise

Thursday, May 3, 1956

Good progress is being made on the Mackinac Straits bridge by crews of workmen numbering 486, according to the Mackinac Straits Bridge Authority yesterday.

A 35-year-old Marquette prison parolee confessed to the killing of a Grand Marais school teacher, and led police to her body, covered with brush, along a side road three miles north of Seney in Schoolcraft county. The man was paroled last year from Marquette prison, where he had been serving 16 to 20 years for armed robbery in Antrim county. He said he had given a ride to the woman, who was seeking transportation to Grand Marais.

School electors in the Les Cheneaux Community School district will go to the polls Monday, May 14, to learn if the district will finance the construction of an addition to the high school at Cedarville. The addition will provide 22,000 square feet of floor space, said School Superintendent L. Harry Strauss, providing eight elementary classrooms, an industrial arts unit, and a home economics unit.

More than a million and a half dollars worth of construction work has been awarded to expand facilities at the Kinross air force base and the Soo air force station.

Wayne University has become a state institution.

AdvertisementSt. Ignace Theatre"Trial," starring Glenn Ford and Dorothy McGuire; "It's a Dog's Life," starring Jeff Richards

and Jarma Lewis; "The Crooked Web," starring Frank Lovejoy and Mari Blanchard; "The Desperate Hours," starring Humphary Bogart and Fredric March.

35 Years Ago The Republican-News & St.

Ignace Enterprise

Thursday, May 6, 1971

Mr. and Mrs. Robert Nelson and Mr. and Mrs. Knut Knutsen will fly from New York on May 7, bound for Frankfort, Germany. They will visit the Ralph Waaras in Heidelberg and then travel to Naples, Italy, to spend some time with Mr. and Mrs. Jim Nelson. Jim recently earned his Eng. 1st Class rating, and he and Cynthia (Knutsen), will be in Naples until this fall, then Jim ends his tour there with the U.S. Navy. The Knutsens and Nelsons expect to return from their European vacation the end of May.

The annual pageant at historic Fort Michilimackinac in Mackinaw City near the south end of Michigan's Mackinac Bridge, which has been called "The Reenactment of the Massacre at Fort Michilimackinac" since its first performance in 1963, will no longer be known by that name. The 1971 Memorial Weekend drama scheduled for May 29, 30, and 31, at the restored fort will be known simply as "The Fort Michilimackinac Pageant."

15 Years Ago

The St. Ignace News

Thursday, May 2, 1991

A 43-year-old Mancelona man was killed and eight passengers were injured when a 1979 Dodge van overturned shortly after 5 p.m. April 27 on Hiawatha Trail near Garnet in Hudson Township.

Twenty-two-year-old Marine Lance Corporal Lee Cole of Pickford came home after serving in the Persian Gulf since the second week of August. His squad was one of the first to go to the Middle East when Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, engineered the invasion of neighboring Kuwait.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The St. Ignace News is seeking original prints or reprints of old photographs depicting areas in the Eastern Upper Peninsula to be scanned into its archives and for the Looking Back column. Photographs to be loaned or donated to the Michilimackinac Historical Society can also be dropped off at The St. Ignace News.