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Old Victoria - (Yooper History Hunter) by Mikel B Classen (Paperback)
About this item
Highlights
- Old Victoria, a ghost town from the copper boom, shows what life was like homesteading in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
- Author(s): Mikel B Classen
- 34 Pages
- History, United States
- Series Name: Yooper History Hunter
Description
About the Book
Both history and travel guide, this thoroughly researched and gracefully written book--illustrated with both historical and contemporary photographs--is a must-read for people planning visits to lesser-known parts of the Upper Peninsula.
Book Synopsis
Old Victoria, a ghost town from the copper boom, shows what life was like homesteading in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Over the years, some of the site has been destroyed or has collapsed; still, many of Old Victoria's original homesteads remain standing. Thanks to the efforts of a local group, The Society for the Restoration of Old Victoria, quite a few of the buildings have been restored and refurnished in their original condition. Unlike Fayette, the U.P.'s best-known ghost town and a small shipping port on Lake Michigan, Victoria is a remote, rugged mining town, buried in the Ontonagon wilderness.
Thus, Victoria is one of the least-known yet most interesting attractions of the Upper Peninsula. The town was carved out of one of the harshest sections of the rugged U.P. landscape. Situated at the top of a Michigan mountain, part of the picturesque Ontonagon River Gorge, Victoria is within the Gogebic Mineral Range. When visiting here, you get the feel for what it was like to struggle in a remote mining town.
Join Mikel B. Classen, the Yooper History Hunter, on a romp through time with two dozen photographs that portray more than a century of Old Victoria!
"Mikel B. Classen couldn't have chosen a more interesting subject for the inaugural volume than the ghost town of Victoria." -- Tom Powers, Michigan in Books
"Both history and travel guide, this thoroughly researched and gracefully written book -- illustrated with both historical and contemporary photographs -- is a must-read for people planning visits to lesser-known parts of the western Upper Peninsula." -- Jon C. Stott, author Paul Bunyan in Michigan
"Old Victoria: A Copper Country Ghost Town, the inaugural volume of the Yooper History Hunter Series, offers a colorful, up-close look at the life of a small mining town in one of the remotest corners of Michigan. Painstakingly researched, but an effortless read." --Victor R. Volkman, Marquette Monthly
Learn more at www.MikelBClassen.com
From Modern History Press www.ModernHistoryPress.com
Review Quotes
"Old Victoria is the first volume in the Yooper History Hunter Series. Each installment will explore the history of a specific, and often overlooked aspect or subject of U.P. history. Based on the first in the series, each volume will be composed of numerous historic photographs interspersed with contemporary, full-color images that complement a precise, fact-fill historical narrative that is fascinating without wasting a word. The author couldn't have chosen a more interesting subject for the inaugural volume than the ghost town of Victoria. Despite being listed in the National Register of Historic Places it is probably one of the fewest visited or even generally known historic sites in the Ontonagon area. The village rests atop a mountain within the spectacular Ontonagon River Gorge in the rugged Gogebic Mineral Range. The last couple of miles to the village is up a bone-jarring rock-strewn road. To call Victoria remote is a grand understatement. Copper was discovered here in the 1600s but for 200 years it couldn't be profitably mined. Then came Thomas Hooper who built a Taylor Hydraulic Air Compressor by digging three 400-feet-deep shafts into which the Ontonagon River and air were directed. The result (somehow) was compressed air that powered the entire mining operation and even a locomotive powered by compressed air. Mining became profitable, the village grew and prospered. The author covers working conditions (one in seven miners died in the mine) and the social and living conditions in the village. The mine closed in 1917. The village emptied, and the buildings fell victim to time and neglect until the Society for the Restoration of Old Victoria was founded and began restoring the village. This is a pure and highly polished nugget of Michigan history." -- Tom Powers, Michigan in Books