For #61 on our 70/70 quest, we visited Fayette Historic State Park, a historic town site which was home to nearly 500 residents during its reign as one of the Upper Peninisula's most productive iron smelting operations. Between 1867 and 1891, Fayette's blast furnaces produced a total of 229,288 tons of iron using local hardwood forests for fuel and quarrying limestone from the bluffs to purify the iron ore. Today, twenty historic buildings still stand within the Fayette town site including the blast furnace complex, kilns, the company store, the Fayette town hall, a hotel and homes of those who used to live there. The State Park extends beyond the town site to include trails wandering through what had been residential areas, along bluffs overlooking Snail Shell Harbor and Lake Michigan, and through woods filled with wildlife. This made for an excellent morning of wandering and wondering.
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| Entering the town site |
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| Looking at the blast furnace complex from across Snail Shell harbor (visitors can - and we did - go right up to and inside the complex...but I like this view) |
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| Kendall, Taz, & kiln |
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| Walking into town toward the hotel |
And, of course, we had to wander along the trails
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