Near-Shore Sawdust and Wood Chip Deposits

Near-Shore Sawdust and Wood Chip Deposits. A Legacy of the Past. , Sawdust and other wood waste deposits blanket Lake Michigan beaches near Manistique. The history of these deposits can be traced back to the beginning of the 1890s when Manistique and Thompson began to capitalize on the abundant white pine in the region. Their strategic location near the mouth of the Manistique River made processing and transportation cost effective. Logs as large as seven feet in diameter were floated in the Manistique River which were sawn into lumber and loaded aboard schooners that sailed to Chicago, New York and France., The late 1800's and early 1900's were major lumbering years for white pine at which time five large lumber mills operated in the Manistique area. The Delta Lumber Company operated at Thompson and the Hall and Buell Lumber Company at Southtown, which is just east of Manistique. The Chicago Lumber Company in Manistique had an average annual output of 70 million board feet from 1863 until 1871., The Weston Lumber Company was organized in 1871 when it bought the Chicago Mill and opened two additional mills near Manistique. The three mills were in operation until 1912 when they were acquired by Consolidated Lumber Company. Most of the white pine was cut by 1915 when the Consolidated Lumber Company was sold to Stearns and Culver which operated a hemlock and hardwood industry until 1922 when the Stack Lumber Company took over. Most of the lumbering had ceased by 1926., Part of the legacy of the lumbering industry was the tons of sawdust which now wash onto the shore around the Manistique area. It was estimated that over 5.1 million tons of sawdust were produced in the Manistique area between 1863 and 1912. General milling practices were to dump unwanted sawdust into the Manistique River or transport it out on barges to dump into Lake Michigan. Not all of the sawdust was dumped into the water and some was used for fuel.