How many of you will google some of the people and details in this blog? I know I will be digging a little deeper into a couple of them. What are your favorite memories or histories of the town or towns you grew up in?
With a population of 6,259 (2020 census), Manistee is the fifth-largest city in Northern Lower Michigan. It has been home to plenty of famous or innovative people, including our founding fathers who established the original settlements and city. We also have inventors like Silas C. Overpack who invented the nine-to-eleven-foot logging wheels that cut labor costs dramatically as the lumbermen were able to transport lumber and timber over rough terrain and through snow. There was also Nels Johnson (born in Denmark) the manufacturer of Century tower clocks.
Manistee County and the Ramsdell Theatre are home to two celebrities who were raised in the area: James Earl Jones and Tony Trucks, as well as Harriet Quimby, the first certified female pilot in the United States and the first woman to fly across the English Channel. She was also an accomplished journalist and a movie screenwriter. Artist Frederick Winthrop Ramsdell is best known for his iconic poster advertising American Crescent Cycles. Amongst the many professionals, entrepreneurs, singers, musicians, and artists Manistee has produced are artist Kirby Briske and musician and songwriter Kasey Briske. (How can I not mention my awesome brothers? Although, there are so many more I could mention in our family [and out of it] in so many different fields I probably shouldn't mention anyone!)
We have people who excelled in the sports field, including Dave Campbell and George W. Andree, as well as political figures, (Fred Warren Green, Dorothy E. Downton, Byron M. Cutcheon…), and there was Helga Estby a Norwegian-American immigrant most known for her walk across the United States in 1896. George W. Tennant was a cook and an Antarctic explorer, Robert Pershing Wadlow, was the world's tallest man in medical history, and lastly, I will mention Olaf Swenson – I will let you read up on him as his biography is a bit more in-depth and just say he was a fur trader, adventurer, author, and an impressive man.
While at its peak, Manistee was said to have more millionaires per capita than any other city in the United States. Many of their houses still stand. One of them was so large, when demolished, enough bricks were salvaged to make four average size houses which still stand. Manistee was bursting at the seams with trains, ships, sawmills (40!), salt and chemical factories, a paper mill, and it was one of the leading shingle manufacturing cities in the world (30 mills). Some of these factories still stand and have continued to employ many people over the decades.
We were wiped out by a massive fire (1871) and rebuilt with bricks. We have seen many changes, yet still have many original families, businesses, industries, and farms dating back to our original homesteaders, as well as the oldest existing Danish/Scandinavian Lutheran church in the United States. Our beaches are as beautiful as ever and Manistee’s downtown has strengthened and is thriving (a difficult task for small town America). A small town American gem. We are seeing the rise of life and people and it feels like Manistee is once again growing our numbers and hopefully our success as a city.
Are we making a comeback? Or just surviving? Are there enough locals to keep the tourist businesses going? Are there too many restaurants, hotels, marijuana stores? Not enough rentals? Should we build that music venue on the beach? What can we do about the infestation of the mussel shells, lustrife, and garlic mustard? There are plenty of questions and issues facing us as I am sure there were “back in the day.” Like everything else, there is an ebb and flow. It feels like we are flowing now. Let’s hang on for the ride; there’s bound to be some good things in the future.
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