0:07 [SPEAKER_01]: The following morning, my first wheel stop across the canal, a part from gawking at random pieces of rotting machinery, was the ghost town of Gregoryville. 0:19 [SPEAKER_01]: which is a very different sort than the one at Fayette. 0:23 [SPEAKER_01]: As far as I could tell, looking out from the empty gravel parking lot of the Maple Leaf Bar, it isn't just the people of Gregoryville, but also the buildings that are ghosts, which frankly put me in a bit of a predicament. 0:38 [SPEAKER_01]: How am I supposed to sufficiently consider the mortality of our capitalist society, with no ruins to look at? 0:45 [SPEAKER_01]: without rows of sagging vacant rooftops or rusted spires to prick my imagination at its tender veins. 0:55 [SPEAKER_01]: And all this without my morning coffee. 0:58 [SPEAKER_01]: So if you're planning a trip to this area and you need to shorten your trip by one ghost town or two, I would encourage you to start by crossing off Gregoryville. 1:13 [SPEAKER_01]: heading east, and driving by two other well-documented ghost towns, Jacobsville and White City. 1:20 [SPEAKER_01]: It occurred to me that part of the issue of navigating the keywinole is its an island. 1:26 [SPEAKER_01]: There's one bridge in the middle that makes pretty much everything, not in the middle, a dead and detour. 1:32 [SPEAKER_01]: And that's basically what every peninsula is. 1:35 [SPEAKER_01]: A gigantic geological detour that dead ends in a body of water. 1:40 [SPEAKER_01]: So these little corners, like the one ahead, are dead ends within a dead end. 1:45 [SPEAKER_01]: And don't forget that key when our county itself is a peninsula, off of peninsula, all together. 1:52 [SPEAKER_01]: It's like a compounding hall of mirrors where isolation grows. 1:56 [SPEAKER_01]: But so does, of course, the potential for peace and sorority. 2:01 [SPEAKER_01]: If you're a quiet spirit, if all you need is a party store and your family, it's pretty out here. 2:08 [SPEAKER_01]: As far as I could tell, the only thing left of white city was a couple turquoise port of potties, in the middle of Lakeside Park. 2:17 [SPEAKER_01]: and based on my years of experience in dealing with local American histories and a brief consultation with a specialist from the University of Michigan I feel comfortable suggesting that both structures post-date the Edwardian era. 2:33 [SPEAKER_01]: In the decade before the first World War, these beaches were packed with locals and vacationers. 2:40 [SPEAKER_01]: White City was a destination with its own dedicated railway. 2:44 [SPEAKER_01]: There were hotels, a roller coaster, rental cottages, a merry-go-round, high-end restaurants, and sprawling picnic grounds. 2:53 [SPEAKER_01]: And even today, on these completely empty beaches, it's quite easy to imagine. 3:00 [SPEAKER_01]: Really? 3:00 [SPEAKER_01]: If this was within 20 minutes of where you live, you'd be here all the time. 3:05 [SPEAKER_01]: There's even great cell service. 3:07 [SPEAKER_01]: Somehow. 3:11 [SPEAKER_01]: The weather was beautiful, low 80s, no bugs, and the water was decently warm, at least at the shore. 3:19 [SPEAKER_01]: Apart from the long winters and short summers, the real problem for places like this is how difficult they are to get to. 3:28 [SPEAKER_01]: So you heard it here first, if teleportation ever becomes a thing, and global warming does its worst, a permission again will be the next Miami. 3:40 [SPEAKER_01]: Before I go ahead to Jacobsville, I'll just share one brief story from the now vacant bird of white city. 3:48 [SPEAKER_01]: It took place at the Long White House Pier, all of which still stands. 3:54 [SPEAKER_01]: I read it in Manette's fourth volume, named for this town. 3:58 [SPEAKER_01]: He says on Sunday, June 30th, 1916, the Lighthouse Keeper at White City. 4:05 [SPEAKER_01]: noticed a man dressed in dark suit, walking on the pier at about five minutes to eight. 4:11 [SPEAKER_01]: In about three minutes later, when his wife took the glasses through which he had been glancing out over the pier, was not able to see the man, Mr. Demet, the keeper, then hurried out and called to the occupants of a canoe. 4:27 [SPEAKER_01]: who happened to be near and together they hurried out to the pier, but found no one. 4:33 [SPEAKER_01]: The possibility of suicide was suggested, as the keeper said the man was walking as if preoccupied. 4:41 [SPEAKER_01]: And the pier is of such width as to make an accident or fall into the water, highly improbable. 4:49 [SPEAKER_01]: Several days later, under Sheriff McDonald went to white city with an outfit of dry cooks to search for the person. 4:58 [SPEAKER_01]: On August 13, the body of a missing fisherman was found just outside the entry. 5:04 [SPEAKER_01]: That's a month and a half in the water, with people actively looking for this man. 5:09 [SPEAKER_01]: I know this sort of thing happens all the time, but as I walked this pure alone in sunlight, miles from the nearest person toward a now empty lighthouse, I couldn't shake the question of what he was thinking in those final moments. 5:31 [SPEAKER_01]: Jacobsville, just north of White City, but almost be a twin city, or a twin town. 5:38 [SPEAKER_01]: If there are any town to twin with, right between them is a little finished church, that is literally unchanged since 1892. 5:47 [SPEAKER_01]: There's no electricity and no plumbing. 5:51 [SPEAKER_01]: The church is lit by carousine lamps, and the only heat source is a small wood stove. 5:58 [SPEAKER_01]: The only toilets are a pair of sloped wooden toilets, a man in a women's and a white 6:08 [SPEAKER_01]: In spite of all this, the church still hosts services during the summer. 6:17 [SPEAKER_01]: The battle mile of the road is small signs suggest that I am now in the ghost town of Jacob's film, but the houses are all inhabited. 6:25 [SPEAKER_01]: There are cars and driveways, close on close lines, finish and Norwegian flags out in the yards. 6:34 [SPEAKER_01]: As I'm looking at all of this, it occurs to me, 6:38 [SPEAKER_01]: But it's probably time to revisit the definition of what a ghost town actually is. 6:43 [SPEAKER_01]: First, for something to be a ghost town, there should be an actual town. 6:49 [SPEAKER_01]: The whole point of visiting ghost towns is to be haunted a little bit by the past. 6:54 [SPEAKER_01]: to walk ruins and realize the ultimate futility of our lives, the impending doom of our human civilization, and also the accidental beauty of the present, and also the things that remain. 7:09 [SPEAKER_01]: This is more difficult when standing in an empty field. 7:13 [SPEAKER_01]: Second, ghost towns need to be inhabited by ghost people, which is to say in the very least, 7:20 [SPEAKER_01]: People who are not living, third, you need more than a couple of sad buildings, orphaned by a town that has disappeared around them. 7:29 [SPEAKER_01]: You need ghost houses, but also things like ghost churches, schools and businesses, where all the proverbial ghosts are meant to live and work and play. 7:40 [SPEAKER_01]: All together, we're looking for places. 7:43 [SPEAKER_01]: The tangible memories of civil vitality, where we can feel the pulse of a community, and a culture now extinct. 7:50 [SPEAKER_01]: A dead town is not necessarily a ghost town, just as a dead person is not necessarily a ghost. 8:04 [SPEAKER_01]: I think part of the magnetism of these towns is down to the fact that they provide vivid encounters with the unusual encounters with the universal outcome of all human effort and ingenuity. 8:19 [SPEAKER_01]: This look into the past is also a glimpse of the future. 8:31 [SPEAKER_01]: We all kind of want to know what it looks like when the party dies. 8:36 [SPEAKER_01]: In light of all that, I'd like to propose a brief checklist. 8:41 [SPEAKER_01]: One, a ghost town should be at least partially standing with a handful of buildings in two. 8:48 [SPEAKER_01]: it should be abandoned. 8:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Let's say at least two houses, something like a church or school, or post office, and then a factory or business of some kind. 9:00 [SPEAKER_01]: So, one public or one commercial building. 9:04 [SPEAKER_01]: We'll call it the key when we'll test, or the copper county, material, and encourage its adoption in all languages and countries throughout the world. 9:14 [SPEAKER_01]: To put an end to the 9:20 [SPEAKER_01]: We might apply it to Fayette, for example, and check every box. 9:26 [SPEAKER_01]: It also follows that ghost town is a label you can lose. 9:30 [SPEAKER_01]: If new people move in, you are a normal town again, with really old buildings. 9:37 [SPEAKER_01]: Calling a place a ghost town, when it's inhabited by new people, even under a different name, 9:46 [SPEAKER_01]: when she marries another guy, or it's like calling the Washington Bullets a ghost team because they changed their name to the wizards. 9:55 [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to assume this test as a standard, and apply it from here out. 10:01 [SPEAKER_01]: So far, wanted three, in favor of dashed hopes, and mal-branding. 10:07 [SPEAKER_01]: Figget is a ghost town. 10:16 [SPEAKER_01]: Gregoryville, White City, Ink Jacobsville, are not. 10:25 [SPEAKER_01]: The Jacobsville Cemetery was interesting, and that it's basically an old-world finished cemetery. 10:31 [SPEAKER_01]: Air lifted to this remote corner of the North Midwest. 10:35 [SPEAKER_01]: These early immigrants often made a slow transition to English as they moved over in groups, worked in groups, and continued to speak finish as their primary language for more than a generation. 10:48 [SPEAKER_01]: Their tombstones are all, of course, and finish as well. 10:52 [SPEAKER_01]: Even the names on stones, from the recent 2000s, are unmistakably finished. 11:03 [SPEAKER_01]: Throughout the Midwest, you can find these tall, unusual bronze headstones, but they're quite rare. 11:10 [SPEAKER_01]: You always know them when you see them, and there's a handful here in Jacobsville. 11:16 [SPEAKER_01]: They were far more expensive, but the difference in quality, a hundred years later, between these monuments, and contemporary stones is rather amazing. 11:25 [SPEAKER_01]: Part of what makes these markers so rare is that the fact that they were only manufactured from 1874 to 1912 by a single company, the monumental bronze company and its subsidiary, the Detroit Bronze Company. 11:42 [SPEAKER_01]: So, the takeaway from all of this is simply, 11:57 [SPEAKER_01]: My next stop was Calumig, about 30 miles north, home to the former CNH mining company, and because of this, formerly the wealthiest and unofficial capital city of Copper County. 12:12 [SPEAKER_01]: So much money was surfacing during the high tide of the copper era that a rumor still persists that this town was nearly chosen to replace lansing as the new capital of Michigan. 12:25 [SPEAKER_01]: There doesn't appear to be any truth to this rumor, but the fact that it still exists at all and that many locals believe it tells you something about how you may. 12:35 [SPEAKER_01]: There was that cafe on Main Street, where I had my breakfast, was unsurprisingly staffed by 100% friends. 12:44 [SPEAKER_01]: I know this because I asked, and I asked because of the Jacobsfield Cemetery, and also because I've seen enough of the NHL to know what I'm looking for. 12:54 [SPEAKER_01]: People that look like, velterry, Philpala, and Patrick Larnay, and also, because I'd seen an article that I'd before in the Washington Post, with a map of the biggest ancestral populations for every county in America. 13:12 [SPEAKER_01]: According to that map, there are only six counties in the United States, in which the largest ancestral population is finished, all of them are here in the western upper peninsula. 13:24 [SPEAKER_01]: Other Scandinavian ethnicities, like Norwegian and Swedish, are also common. 13:30 [SPEAKER_01]: Apparently, the landscape and climate are similar enough to that part of the world. 13:35 [SPEAKER_01]: The first thing you noticed about Calumé is that pretty much everything is red, pretty much every building is built with what is called Jacob's Phil Redstone, a form of heavy, durable sandstone, named for our last failed ghost town. 13:53 [SPEAKER_01]: According to Lake Superior Magazine, Redstone was highly prized for its beauty and toughness. 14:00 [SPEAKER_01]: The Burley Stone could endure temperatures to 800 degrees before cracking or crumbling, much hotter than granite or limestone. 14:09 [SPEAKER_01]: It also retained solar heat and winter, which was a welcome perk. 14:14 [SPEAKER_01]: On a side note, you haven't been to a junk shop until you've been to a UP junk shop. 14:20 [SPEAKER_01]: have the time they don't know what's junk and what's not. 14:24 [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it really is a heaping, smoking pile of apocalyptic rubble. 14:30 [SPEAKER_01]: Other times it's stuff from estate sales that's been lingering in local homes since the copper age. 14:37 [SPEAKER_01]: I've heard of buyers from California coming from Michigan and purchasing an entire store before packing it into a cemetery and taking a home to 14:48 [SPEAKER_01]: Detroit may be a hockey town. 14:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Calume is hockeyville. 14:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Officially now, at least according to craft, as an craft macaroni and cheese, who's branding appears on the front of the local arena. 15:04 [SPEAKER_01]: The Calume Colosseum, which is, by the way, the oldest continuously operating hockey ring in North America. 15:14 [SPEAKER_01]: If you have any remaining doubts as to the popularity of hockey in Calume, you might consider two related numbers. 15:22 [SPEAKER_01]: The first, the general population of Calume roughly 700, the second, the seeding capacity of this ring, also 700, incidentally, the birthplace of professional hockey. 15:38 [SPEAKER_01]: is Halton, Michigan, the city right across the canal from Hancock, a few miles south of here. 15:45 [SPEAKER_01]: In 2019, the Detroit Red Wings played the St. Louis Blues in the Coliseum in a pre-season exhibition, the NHL released promotional materials, articles and videos about the game and arena, if you'd like to know more. 16:02 [SPEAKER_01]: Evidence of how you may form a wealth is still on display, and places like Shirt's Bar, which boasts the largest tiffening glass canopy east of the Rockies. 16:12 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know much about tiffening glass, or even if the claim is true, but someone told me this, and it feels like a good way to impress you, with just how cool and unusual this canopy is. 16:25 [SPEAKER_01]: It's stunning. 16:27 [SPEAKER_01]: The bar itself is tiny, but the rest of the establishment is also original. 16:33 [SPEAKER_01]: And it feels like a walking capsule from another era. 16:37 [SPEAKER_01]: Like if someone from 1916 accidentally time-traveled into shoots today, he would probably be halfway through his first beer before realizing something was wrong. 16:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Calume is also home to a few well-known tragedies, as most mining towns are. 16:55 [SPEAKER_01]: One of them we've covered in a past episode on the Italian Hall disaster, where 73 people, including 59 children, were killed in one small building during a fire. 17:09 [SPEAKER_01]: Except there was no fire. 17:12 [SPEAKER_01]: someone yelled fire in the middle of a Christmas party and people trampled one another in a panic attempt to get out. 17:20 [SPEAKER_01]: It's just too sad to even wrap your head around. 17:24 [SPEAKER_01]: I told this story in detail in an earlier episode of hometown history. 17:29 [SPEAKER_01]: So I'll let Woody Guthrie tell it here. 17:38 [SPEAKER_02]: Take a trip with me in 1913. 17:44 [SPEAKER_02]: Duke Carly met Michigan in the Copper Country. 17:48 [SPEAKER_02]: I'll take you to a place called Italian Hall and the miners are having their big Christmas ball. 18:02 [SPEAKER_02]: I'll take you in a door and up a high stairs. 18:06 [SPEAKER_02]: Singin' and dancing is heard everywhere I'll let you shake hands with the people you see And watch the kids dance round the big Christmas pre You ask about a work and you ask about pay They'll tell you they make less than a dollar a day 18:35 [SPEAKER_02]: Workin' their copper claim riskin' their lives, so it's fun to spin Christmas with children and wives. 18:47 [SPEAKER_02]: There's talkin' in life in the songs in the air, and the spirit of Christmas is there everywhere. 18:56 [SPEAKER_02]: Before you know it, your friends with us all! 19:00 [SPEAKER_02]: And you're dancing around and around in the home. 19:08 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, a little girl sets down, but the Christmas tree lights. 19:12 [SPEAKER_02]: To play the pianist, so you gotta keep quiet. 19:15 [SPEAKER_02]: Here all is fun, you would not realize. 19:19 [SPEAKER_02]: Let the copper ball stug me on a million outside. 19:26 [SPEAKER_02]: The copper ball stug stuck their heads in the door. 19:30 [SPEAKER_02]: One of them yelled in his creme, there's a fire. 19:34 [SPEAKER_02]: A lady she hurled his nose at your feet, keep on with your party, there's no such a thing. 19:45 [SPEAKER_02]: A few people rushed in his own way of you. 19:48 [SPEAKER_02]: It's just a dog in the scarves feeling you. 19:52 [SPEAKER_02]: A man grabbed his daughter and he carried her down, but the thugs held the door and he could not get out. 20:03 [SPEAKER_02]: And then others followed a hundred or more, but most everybody remained on the floor. 20:10 [SPEAKER_02]: The gun thugs a lay after their murderous joe, qualified children, were smothered on the stairs by the door. 20:20 [SPEAKER_02]: Such a terrible sigh that I never did see. 20:24 [SPEAKER_02]: We carried our children back up to their tree. 20:29 [SPEAKER_02]: The scabs outside still after their spree. 20:35 [SPEAKER_02]: In the children, at that there was 73. 20:39 [SPEAKER_02]: The piano played a slow funeral tune. 20:51 [SPEAKER_02]: The parents they cried in the miners they mourn See what your greed for money has done. 21:38 [SPEAKER_01]: Another lesser known tragedy involved a loose mine cap, at shaft number 4, of the Tamarack Mine. 21:46 [SPEAKER_01]: According to the key we're not free guide, in 1966, 7-year-old Ruth Ann Miller was playing around the number 4 shaft when she slipped under a cap, and fell down a 4,000 foot deep hole. 22:01 [SPEAKER_01]: When rescuers attempted to remove the shaft's concrete cap to mount a rescue, the cap broke free and fell down the shaft. 22:11 [SPEAKER_01]: Making any rescue attempt impossible. 22:14 [SPEAKER_01]: The girl's body was never recovered. 22:21 [SPEAKER_01]: a new concrete cap was then placed over the mine. 22:25 [SPEAKER_01]: It is still visible today through a chingling fence that surrounds it. 22:30 [SPEAKER_01]: A memorial plaque detailing that event has been placed on the front of the fence for visitors. 22:43 [SPEAKER_01]: The cow you made theater was one of the first municipal theaters in America, and it's still open for the occasional performance, for a while. 22:52 [SPEAKER_01]: It was something of a cultural center for the entire Upper Peninsula. 22:56 [SPEAKER_01]: I happened to be walking by while the crew of plumbers were working, so I was able to slip in and explore. 23:03 [SPEAKER_01]: Much like shoots, it feels frozen in time. 23:06 [SPEAKER_01]: Picture from the glory days are still up all over the building, as if the actors were on stage. 23:13 [SPEAKER_01]: a month ago, or as if they're advertising, the next reprisal of a favorite performance, a portrait of Richard Mansfield hangs in the back of the theater among the host of others. 23:29 [SPEAKER_01]: It's okay. 23:31 [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know who that was either. 23:33 [SPEAKER_01]: Apparently he was a big deal in the 19th century theater, the New York Times, said in his obituary, he was the greatest actor of his hour, and one of the greatest of all times. 23:46 [SPEAKER_01]: He performed here, but how many times, and in which productions, I do not know. 23:52 [SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't just Mansfield. 23:55 [SPEAKER_01]: All the big names came to Calume, John Philip Sousa, 24:00 [SPEAKER_01]: Lillian Russell, Sarah Bernhardt, Eugene Debs, Harry Houdini, and so on. 24:08 [SPEAKER_01]: If you're interested in learning more, I should also mention the Calumet or Red Jacket as the town was known at the time after a native American chief was the site of one of the worst mining disasters in the history of Kewenark County. 24:23 [SPEAKER_01]: When you hear the details, it kind of shakes you up. 24:27 [SPEAKER_01]: The facts need no embellishment, or flourish, to put a chill down your spine. 24:33 [SPEAKER_01]: A local tour guide Dylan, from the Quincy Mine and Hancock, recalled the story when I asked him about it later that week. 24:42 [SPEAKER_00]: I know exactly which accent you're talking about up your red jacket. 24:45 [SPEAKER_00]: It was either 10 or 11 workers, they were riding in a rock skip, which is used for hauling ore, basically a big metal box that they filled for the rocks. 24:55 [SPEAKER_00]: And that rock skip was being hoisted up a vertical shaft, so straight up and down, and the miniature dial, the mechanism that lets the hoist operator actually gauge where things are underground. 25:11 [SPEAKER_00]: Many of your dials suffer failure. 25:14 [SPEAKER_00]: A chain slipped off a sprocket and it didn't look more correctly. 25:18 [SPEAKER_00]: And the hoist operator didn't notice. 25:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Didn't notice that the miniature was moving in properly. 25:25 [SPEAKER_00]: If that bucket got over-hoisted into the top of the fat top, so over the shaft. 25:31 [SPEAKER_00]: And the cable actually, the car hit the ship, which is the main pulley, the over-hoist bucket, and the cable broke. 25:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Then that car, the rock skip, and all 10 or 11 men inside fell straight down 3,000 feet to the bottom of the shaft. 25:51 [SPEAKER_00]: Someone did the math on it before, think they would have been falling for over 20 seconds. 25:56 [SPEAKER_00]: Just pitch black, falling down the shaft, and you know exactly what's waiting for you at the bottom. 26:03 [SPEAKER_01]: It was 10 men and 10 families left to grapple with the loss of their loved ones, and the horror of their final moments. 26:12 [SPEAKER_01]: A cow you may and red jacket news article from May 19, 1893, had lined simply, workers killed and catastrophe, described one of the men's wives, waiting with his lunch outside the shaft house when he fell. 26:28 [SPEAKER_01]: The young wife of Mr. Pope had just brought her husband's dinner to him. 26:33 [SPEAKER_01]: It was waiting for him outside the Shaft house when the horrible crash came. 26:37 [SPEAKER_01]: It is evident that her husband anticipated his presence. 26:41 [SPEAKER_01]: It was probably on the top of the bucket ready to greet her. 26:44 [SPEAKER_01]: Apparently realizing in an instant after the bucket had passed its regular stopping place, the true state of affairs. 26:52 [SPEAKER_01]: He attempted to jump but missed his footing and fell to the depths. 26:57 [SPEAKER_01]: never to be seen alive. 26:59 [SPEAKER_01]: Again. 27:01 [SPEAKER_01]: Just north of Hancock, I stumbled across a little overgrown cemetery, as memorable as any I visited. 27:08 [SPEAKER_01]: It was jarring, a bit hypnotic even, to even see so many large stones so neglected. 27:15 [SPEAKER_01]: In some ways, it seemed to speak to the plight of this peninsula as a whole. 27:20 [SPEAKER_01]: If you ever wonder if you'll be forgotten walk through a cemetery like this one, these people weren't pardoned 27:31 [SPEAKER_01]: books, laws, married, loved, cheated, sacrificed, all of the important stuff that possesses and defines us. 27:42 [SPEAKER_01]: One of them was the very first person and Hancock to own a car. 27:47 [SPEAKER_01]: Today, their top soil, underbrush, and this is in spite of their best efforts. 27:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Represented by the little monuments, they erected to themselves to ensure this very thing would never happen. 28:01 [SPEAKER_01]: They've been overwhelmed by nature, like futile little trees that will never grow. 28:06 [SPEAKER_01]: Increasingly framed, 28:08 [SPEAKER_01]: Incovered by green leaves reaching over them, indifferent and greedy for sunlight. 28:17 [SPEAKER_01]: A short while later, in the parking lot of a small grocery, a woman saw me taking a picture of the rusty front door, and laughing asked, you perpictures? 28:29 [SPEAKER_01]: I said, yep, and laughed. 28:37 [SPEAKER_01]: Is it a website of some kind? 28:40 [SPEAKER_01]: I haven't been able to find anything by this name. 28:43 [SPEAKER_01]: But I really hope it exists.
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