LIFE IN A NORTHERN TOWN Why Emmet County? PROTECTING OUR LAND Enjoy Our Public Recreational Properties SUPPORT FOR BUSINESS Living and Working REDISCOVER THE PLEASURES OF AIR TRAVEL Pellston Regional Airport Pellston Regional Airport is a pleasant surprise in many ways. An award-winning terminal, short lines, free parking, convenient business amenities and superlative staff remind you of the golden age of air travel. 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Conference Room for Bridal Showers, Bridesmaids’ Luncheons or Rehearsal Dinners U Terrace overlooking beautiful Bear River Valley U Limousine service available within Petoskey area for hotel guests. 1751 US 131 SOUTH, PETOSKEY | 888.497.0105 | [email protected] Custom Wood and Log Homes Hunting and Fishing Camps MACKINAW CITY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE Harbor Springs, Michigan We’ve got 231 348 2684 phone 231 348 7079 fax an experience darntonbuilders.com for every [email protected] season. “Integrity, trust, and delivering mackinawchamber.com what we promise.” 888-455-8100 - Richard Darnton ! " # $ %& ' ( #) ! " # $ *&+( ,--. ' " / &.(&+ 0++1**(-(0 2 CONTENTS 8 Why Emmet County? The People of This Place 10 Four Season Living 8 15 Local Flavor 10 Downtown Shopping, Dining, Community 15 >LJHUI\PSKP[ 3PJLUZLKYLZPKLU[PHSI\PSKLY^VYRPUN [OYV\NOV\[UVY[OLYU4PJOPNHU 17 Where to Live in Emmet County >>> +>:)<03+,9: *64 17 21 Life in a Northern Town Accolades and Demographics of Note Celebrate History 22 Big City Service, Small-Town 22 Appeal 26 Protecting our Natural Resources 32 County Map 35 Emmet County’s Public Parkland Grounds open daily throughout 36 Arts & Entertainment the summer. The lighthouse open Alive in Emmet County for guided tours: Saturdays, 9 am – 5 pm (5/30/09 – 9/5/09) 36 38 Support for Business Sundays, 10 am – 3 pm (5/31/09 – 9/6/09) 42 Rich History, 42 Colorful Past 45 School Districts 500 Headlands Dr, Mackinaw City 46 Annual Happenings emmetcounty.org · 231.348.1704 McGulpin Point Historic Site is an Emmet 48 Local Lore County public recreational property. IMAGINE ForFor Daily Health. emmetcounty.org EDITOR For Long-term Health. FRED GRAY [email protected] Patients – both established and new – have at their service a full staff ART AND PRODUCTION DIRECTOR of physicians and clinicians, MICHELE NICKEL-FRASZ plus a comprehensive referral NICKEL DESIGN, INC. [email protected] system to some of the nation’s finest specialists. WRITER Establish a relationship BETH ANNE PIEHL with Internal Medicine of NORTHERN MICHIGAN REVIEW [email protected] Northern Michigan, the preferred practice for all adult ART ASSOCIATE health and wellness needs. ANGELA SOLOMON NICKEL DESIGN, INC. [email protected] ADVERTISING SALES JEFF JOHNSON [email protected] MATT KINNEY 231.487.9702 · imnm.net [email protected] BURNS PROFESSIONAL BUILDING, SUITE 300 · PETOSKEY PHOTOGRAPHY G. RANDALL GOSS Doctors for Adults · New Patients Welcome · Annual Physicals & Screenings · Most Major Insurance Accepted NORTHERN MICHIGAN REVIEW FRED GRAY CYNTHIA MNICH [email protected] MICHELE NICKEL-FRASZ EMMET COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS LESTER ATCHISON THOMAS FOLTZ LEROY GREGORY JACK JONES DANIEL PLASENCIA THOMAS SHIER JAMES TAMLYN, CHAIR IMAGINE is published by Emmet County, 200 Division Street, Petoskey, MI 49770, in conjunction with Nickel Design, Inc. (231.582.9299) and Northern Michigan Review, Inc. (231.347.2544). Content may not be reproduced without prior written consent from publisher. Content subject to change without notice. All rights reserved. ©2009. For more information about Emmet County, visit emmetcounty.org or call 231.348.1704. 6 emmetcounty.org LIVE. WORK. PLAY. Dear Seekers of QUIET ADVENTURE, or 25 years, I have had the privilege of serving as administrator of Emmet County, the land of the Crooked Tree, Odawa Indians Fand Ernest Hemingway, located in the unspoiled and spectacular natural beauty at the tip of the Michigan mitt. As you pore through the area’s fascinating history, you’ll find legends of nomadic Native Americans and tales of dashing French voyageurs, British Redcoats fighting American patriots, and a coterie of religious zealots, one of them the nation’s only king. Entrepreneurs among them gave us fur coats, Mackinac Island fudge, the Grand Hotel, the Mackinac Bridge, and a coastline peppered with romantic villages and lighthouses. In fact, we’re dedicating this publication to the county’s newest acquisition, McGulpin Point Lighthouse, which will again become a beacon to shipping on the Straits of Mackinac for the first time in 100 years. In Emmet County, you’ll find such treasures as: • 800 acres along Cecil Bay, once a thriving lumbering community that has reverted to Lake Michigan wetlands without a trace of settlement; • The Headlands, 600 acres of native forest, flora, fauna and beachfront; • Camp Pet-o-se-ga on Pickerel Lake, where you are invited to bring your family to fish, recreate and relax under your own tent or in a rented cabin; • The newly renovated Community Fairgrounds, where the Emmet-Charlevoix County Fair takes place every August, and where antiquing, concerts, festivities and other activities abound throughout the year; and • The Odawa homecoming pow-wow in August on tribal land between Harbor Springs and Petoskey. In the pages that follow we present the story of our fair county and the solace it offers to those buffeted by the noise and confusion of big city life. And, we invite the imaginative and industrious among you to join our friendly communities and start and nurture a business in a quiet, sophisticated environment through the four seasons of the year. We believe Emmet County is a wonderful place to live, work, play, invest and retire. We know you will, too. Come join us! Lyn Johnson EMMET COUNTY CONTROLLER LIVE. WORK. PLAY. emmetcounty.org 7 Why Emmet County? Nils, Nicole, Jack and Emma tap a sugar maple on their property in Emmet County. 8 emmetcounty.org LIVE. WORK. PLAY. THE PEOPLE OF THIS PLACE Nils and Nicole Lindwall They landed jobs and bought a open house, they had to call their house far enough in the country for the friends in Seattle to tell them about it. share a common ideal kids to roam but close enough for quick “If you don’t go away from northern access to shopping, dining, school and Michigan, you don’t realize this doesn’t for their children: work. Nils is a geotechnical and civil exist in other places,” Nicole engineer with Northwest Design emphasizes. That here, they can Group, and Nicole is the children’s Nils said he and his wife, both in services program administrator for the their 30s, are inspired to become more grow up just being kids. Women’s Resource Center. Both involved with community organizations masters-degree educated, they find as a way of giving back. “There is hey picture games of kick-the-can, Emmet County’s riches in the people something about this community that summers at the beach, and and resources, rather than in the daily makes you want to be involved,” he Texploring woodlands and back grind of working simply to afford the says. “It’s a small town but it’s not yards while developing connections to high housing costs and child care sleepy. There’s a lot going on.” expenses that are part of big-city life. the environment and the community. In between their desire to help This is what brought the Lindwalls out Their children, Emma, 6, a others and getting to know their of a fast-paced Seattle suburb known for kindergartner, and Jack, 2, are learning community, the Lindwalls can likely be its link to Microsoft to a place that, what makes Emmet County the special found on any given day not too far from simply, felt like home, in Petoskey. place their parents longed for. “In home. “We spend a lot of time in the In spring 2007, the Lindwalls made Seattle, there was no place,” Nicole back yard, because it wasn’t something the decision to return to their Michigan says, “to just be.” we could do in Seattle,” Nicole says. roots, trading commutes on a six-lane Up north, the couple has enjoyed “We made a conscious decision to do highway and West Coast routines for taking part in a chamber-sponsored this for our kids.” nature hikes and Popsicles on the front leadership program, eating at a small porch. “I knew one shop owner in the lakeside restaurant, the Crooked Lake eight years we lived in Seattle, and it Grill (made locally famous by its was my dry cleaner. Here, I know so breakfasts), and browsing the shelves at many people already,” says Nicole. “As independently-owned McLean & Eakin soon as we moved here, it felt like Booksellers in Petoskey. And when they home,” adds Nils. attended their first Petoskey holiday LIVE. WORK. PLAY. emmetcounty.org 9 FourFour SeasonsSeasons LivingLiving thethe OutdoorOutdoor LifestyleLifestyle4 365365 DaysDays Golfing Morel Hunting Biking In-line skating Hiking Beaching-it Swimming Boating Snorkeling Kayaking & Canoeing Camping Skydiving Parasailing Festival-going Food Tastings Art Fairs Outdoor Concerts Autumn Color Tours Hunting & Fishing Farmers’ Markets Pumpkin Patches & Corn Mazes Downhill & Cross Country Skiing Snowboarding Ice Skating Hockey Tubing & Sledding Ice Sailing 10 emmetcounty.org LIVE.