Fayette Company Office

Tom Friggens, long the State of Michigan's chief U.P. historian, likes to point out that Fayette was never fully abandoned and therefore not an actual ghost town. That fact, more than anything else, explains the town's survival.

One of the striking things about Fayette is the century-old wooden buildings. That the large stone blast furnace survived isn't really surprising, nor is the persistence of the ruined company store. Those are sturdy structures.

But Fayette's surrounded by Lake Michigan, and Lake Michigan's weather is pretty hostile to wooden construction. The hotel really couldn't be more exposed, and the nearby town hall and this office structure are nearly as defenseless. Moreover, several of the wooden houses, which are in the woods and enjoy better protection, have been reduced to their stone foundations.

The answer is tourists. Soon after Jackson Iron abandoned the town, entrepreneurs turned the place into a vacation destination. Snail Shell Harbor is simply beautiful, and the not-yet-ruined blast furnace gave the "ghost town" an ambiance unlike anywhere else on Lake Michigan's shore. The salt box houses survived as vacation homes, the hotel as a hotel, this office as an office, and the town hall as an auditorium. Other, less useful, buildings were not maintained and fell to the weather's pounding.

This photo also dates from our 1981 visit. At that time the buildings really were around a century old; now they're older.