Nestled on Michigan’s picturesque Garden Peninsula, the Fayette Historic Townsite stands as a remarkably preserved testament to 19th-century industrial ambition and community life. This unique company town, operating from 1867 to 1891, was a bustling center for the production of charcoal, pig iron, and lime, playing a crucial role in the region’s burgeoning industrial landscape.
The story of the Fayette Historic Townsite begins in the mid-1800s, a period when shipping raw iron ore from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to distant foundries in the lower Great Lakes proved exorbitantly costly and inefficient. To circumvent this logistical and economic challenge, the forward-thinking Jackson Iron Company, under the astute leadership of company agent Fayette Brown, identified an ideal location: Snail Shell Harbor on Lake Michigan’s Garden Peninsula. This strategic site offered unparalleled advantages, allowing for the smelting of iron ore directly into pig iron before its more cost-effective shipment to steel manufacturers. Named in honor of Fayette Brown, the town rapidly grew into a thriving industrial hub.
The Birth and Boom of an Iron Kingdom
Located on the southern side of the Upper Peninsula, specifically on Big Bay de Noc, Fayette quickly ascended to become the most productive iron-smelting operation in the entire region during its prime. Shortly after the conclusion of the Civil War, the company town sprang up organically around its colossal industrial infrastructure. This included two massive blast furnaces, numerous charcoal kilns, a dedicated lime kiln, and a substantial dock facilitating both inbound raw materials and outbound finished products.
The furnace complex was a marvel of its time, with machinery housed on the upper levels powering the foundry’s hot blast system. Boilers generated the essential steam that drove powerful blowing engines, which, in turn, forced heated air through hot blast ovens and into the furnaces. These furnace stacks, undergoing various enlargements and modifications over time, were central to the iron-making process. The primary fuel source was hardwood, abundantly available from the surrounding forests, which was converted into charcoal. Limestone, quarried directly from the bluffs within the harbor, served as a crucial purifying agent for the iron ore. Charcoal makers, known as colliers, were integral to this operation, and by the mid-1880s, the company boasted over eighty charcoal kilns scattered across the area. In 1882, the company expanded its operations further by announcing the construction of a lime kiln, producing lime not only for local construction needs such as mortar for masonry, chinking for log houses, and plaster for interior walls but also for sale, with excess supplied to Escanaba.
During its 24 years of operation, Fayette’s dedicated laborers and skilled tradesmen collectively produced an astonishing 225,000 tons of pig iron. The Jackson Iron Company sustained this workforce with a monthly payroll exceeding $5,000, illustrating the scale of its economic impact.
Life and Society in a Company Town
At its peak, approximately 500 residents called Fayette home, a diverse community primarily composed of immigrants hailing from Canada and northern Europe. Notably, roughly half of the town’s population consisted of children, painting a vivid picture of a bustling, family-oriented settlement. The day-to-day life in Fayette was intricately linked to the company’s operations and amenities.
Transportation was vital, connecting Fayette with its neighboring communities. Stagecoaches provided essential links, and two livery businesses offered horses and buggies for hire. Stage lines facilitated passenger travel to towns like Garden, Manistique, and Escanaba. While the overland journey to Escanaba typically spanned two days by stagecoach, a boat trip across Big Bay de Noc drastically cut travel time to a mere three hours. In the harsh Michigan winters, when the lake froze solid, residents would often utilize stagecoaches to traverse the ice to Escanaba, highlighting the community’s resourcefulness.
The economic heart of the town also included a company store. In 1870, a three-story warehouse was erected alongside a wood-frame store to serve the community’s needs. While Fayette shoppers occasionally enjoyed
