Miller's Camp at Cut River included a small gas station, a lodge, three rental cabins, and a restaurant on Cut River Road, which used to be the main highway between Epoufette and Brevort. (Photographs courtesy of Darlene Fenner) Memories of the former Miller's Camp in Cut River may be stirred next summer when traffic from US-2 is rerouted to Cut River Road to bypass a $1 million rehabilitation project at Cut River Bridge. As it did years ago, traffic will once again pass by the site of the former restaurant, gas station, and rental cabin business, originally owned by Frank and Opha Miller.

The business flourished at the Cut River in the early 1900s, when vehicles passed along the only route to Trout Lake, by connecting with Hiawatha Trail.

When Mr. and Mrs. Miller died, the business was passed on to the Millers' daughter, Ida, and her daughter, Bertine, who married Milford Fenner. Together, the three continued the business.

There were three small cabins for rent at the Cut River site. In 1942, fire destroyed all but the main lodge and a small building that was the gas station, said Darlene Fenner, wife of the late Richard Fenner, who was the grandson of Ida Miller.

Frank and Opha Miller sitting in their restaurant, circa 1947. Mr. Miller was originally from Battle Creek. She remembers family trips to Miller's Camp when she was a child.

"My mother had three sisters who married three brothers, and they all lived in Trout Lake," she said. "It was a monthly excursion on Sunday to visit them, with a stop at Miller's Camp at Cut River to feed the caged bears with bottles of orange pop."

The unpaved roads were quite dusty, she recalled.

"When you met a car [passing on the road], all the windows got rolled up so we wouldn't choke on the dust," she said.

Cut River Road was part of the main highway until the state highway department rerouted US-2 in 1947, creating a strip of road that redirected traffic just past the Ushaped road. The project included the construction of the Cut River Bridge over the Cut River gorge.

"Several people were killed on the windy road with a small bridge over the river," she said. "My husband remembered going to the scene of an accident on the bridge where a railing went through the windshield and decapitated the passenger. So the new bridge was built to the south and a new highway bypassed the Cut River site of Miller's Camp."

In 1947, after US-2 was rerouted away from Cut River Road, Miller's Camp was rebuilt two miles outside of St. Ignace on US-2, across from the St. Ignace golf course. It included a restaurant and bar when it was first built. Later, a dining room was added. The lodge at Cut River was sold sometime in the 1970s, and was then used to house and feed men working on the construction of the nearby pipeline. It was also used as lodging for deer hunters in the fall and for recreational snowmobilers in the winter, a practice that continues today.

The new road allowed drivers to drive straight between the village of Brevort and Epoufette. Unfortunately, Mrs. Fenner said, it also steered potential customers away from Miller's Camp.

Instead of folding, Ida Miller and Bertine and Richard Fenner relocated their business on West US-2 two miles outside of St. Ignace.

Mrs. Fenner has heard the myth of Miller's Camp being moved to its new location by horse and dray, but none of the original building materials were moved from Cut River, she said, "as romantic as that sounds."

The new Miller's Camp, which featured a bar and restaurant, and later, a dining room, was built by Milford and Richard Fenner and "whoever else they could recruit," said Mrs. Fenner.

"Milford had many friends in the Battle Creek area, where he was originally from, who came to help," she added.

The relocated business was easy to spot from the road, as the Millers displayed a large "M" sign as advertisement. It was designed by Blaine Wing and Mrs. Fenner's brother, Harold Glashaw, both former business owners in St. Ignace.

"When I was dating Richard in high school, I remember the parking lot wasn't paved yet," said Mrs. Fenner. "With the spring rains, it was very muddy and, one time, he tried to carry me from the car, but stepped in a hole. We both fell in the mud, ruining my beautiful new gold-colored coat, and embarrassing him to no end!"

Paul and Peggy Binger purchased the establishment from the Fenner family shortly after they moved to St. Ignace in 1971. The Bingers kept the business name.

Miller's Camp changed owners again when Tom and Gelina Weldy bought it. The Weldys sold the building, along with a family home, last year to Tim and Diane Lee, who reopened the business as Timmy Lee's Pub in January.