The Rogers City Shoreline During the Lumber Era

The Rogers City Shoreline During the Lumber Era. . , One of the hallmarks of Rogers City today is it's magnificent shoreline with one of the finest marinas on the Great Lakes and includes playgrounds, the pavilion, basketball courts, boat launching and fish cleaning facilities, performance shell, Mariners' Memorial, the bathing beach, and the Huron Sunrise Trail. All are accented by acres of luscious green grass on the west side and the blue waters of Lake Huron on the east side. For many area residents and visitors, it's a small piece of paradise. It wasn't always that way, however. In fact, Rogers City's popular user-oriented beach area is a product of the last seventy-five years., Rogers City was founded as a lumbering community during Michigan's "lumber boom" in the second half of the nineteenth century. From it's founding in 1871, until around 1950, the area that is today Lakeside Park, was dominated by commercial enterprises. The "fish docks" were located adjacent to a small harbor just to the north of today's marina. Numerous companies operated fish tugs out of the harbor. In the years before World War II, thousands of tons of whitefish, lake trout, and chubs were shipped to markets as far away as New York City., The shoreline from the fish docks south to Woodward Avenue was dominated by the major actors in the city's timber industry. At the peak of the lumber boom, the shoreline was dominated by three massive docks, shown in the illustration in the top left. The docks were designed primarily to ship logs and lumber, but they also handled visits by passenger and cargo vessels., From north to south were the Bertram Docks at the end of Huron Avenue , on the sight of the old Molitor dock, the Larke dock at the end of Michigan Avenue, and the Hoeft dock at the end of Erie Street. The Bertram Sawmill was located at the base of their dock, as shown on the plat. The sprawling mill operations of the Hoeft family and their various commercial partners were located from Erie Street all the way to Woodward Avenue. Their huge sawmill, shown in the right-hand photo, was located off the end of Ontario Street. Towering piles of logs awaiting sawing blanketed the landscape both north and south of the mill., Young people from the community frequently swam around the docks, a practice that was not encouraged by the sawmill owners. After World War I, the community decided to develop a public bathing area to the south of the commercial frontage, an area basically between Orchard Street and Ira Street. The shoreline was cleaned up, a small dock was constructed, lifeguards were employed during the summer months, and eventually, a tall slide was erected out of the water., In 1945, Rogers City became a home rule city so that it could provide a wider range of services to local residents. Around 1950, with sawmills and docks gone from the waterfront, a plan was developed to create Lakeside Park and construct a marina for use by boaters. The public bathing beach was moved to the area between Erie Street and Michigan Avenue at that time. Since then, both the park and marina have gradually and continuously been expanded and improved., A grant from the Community Foundation for Northeast Michigan made this historical marker possible. The photos and text were provided by the Presque Isle County Historical Museum. The Marker was erected by employees of the Public Works Department.