Lake Linden, MI (Birds-Eye View) (1930s) - Contributed by Paul Petosky The village of Lake Linden, in Schoolcraft township, was organized in 1868, the year following the erection of the first Calumet & Hecla stamp mill, and incorporated in 1885. It is now a prospeious community of 2,325 people. Lake Linden stands on the western shore of Torch lake, an arm of Portage lake, and is five miles southeast of Calumet, and ten miles northwest of Houghton. It has five churches, a good opera house, a newspaper (Native Copper Times), and is closely connected with the Copper and Mineral Kange railroads, as well as with the county electric system, by means of the Hecla & Torth Lake railroad. Lake Linden is in fact, an up-to-date community. Hubbell, formerly known as South Lake Linden, is now a separate incorporated village of over a thousand people, and is the special site of the Hecla smelling works and the stamp mills of the Quincy, Osceola, Tamarack and Ameek mines. A planing mill and also other minor industries are also located there. Among the early pioneers of the Lake Linden region were Peter Robesco and Joseph Robesco, (Frenchmen). Joseph Gregory, E. Brule. J. B. Tonpont and the Beasley brothers. The earliest settlement was in 1851, and two years later Alfred and James Beasley came to the locality, and built houses for themselves as well as the first hostelry, called the Half-Way House, at the north end of the lake. The place, however, did not obtain its start until the Calumet & Hecla interests commenced to plant themselves on the western shoies of Torch lake in 1868. The first school building was erected in 1867; the St. Joseph's Catholic church was the pioneer religious society mid organized in 1871. On July 23, 1868, the Lake Linden postoffice was established, that government department having reached the third class. Other than the points in Houghton county, already noted, may be mentioned Dollar Hay. a hamlet of a few hundred people on the Mineral and Copper Range railroads, four miles northeast of Houghton. A History of the Northern Peninsula of Michigan and its people -- By Alvah Littlefield Sawyer 1911
|
