Web Design in Ironton, MI

Web Design Services in Ironton, Michigan

AppWT Web & AI Solutions has been providing exceptional web design and digital marketing services to Ironton businesses since 1997. Located in Charlevoix County, Ironton is home to approximately 184 residents and a thriving business community.

About Ironton, Michigan

History of Ironton

• Robert Cherry settled on the shore of what was then called Pine Lake in 1879. He worked for the Pine Lake Iron Company of Chicago and built a plant that took iron ore barged down from the Upper Peninsula and turned it into pig iron. A post office opened on January 31, 1881, and the community was platted in 1884. The iron operation failed in 1893, but the settlement outlived it; the post office remained until December 30, 1965. The ferry predates the ironworks. It began in 1876 with an operator rowing individual passengers across the lake, and after about four years the rowboat gave way to a horse-powered ferry. Eveline Township around it collected several settlements that no longer exist, among them Bedwin, named for the storekeeper Robert Bedwin and holding a post office only from June 1884 to January 1887, Rock Elm on the south arm with a post office from July 1876 to December 1886, and Raymond, whose post office lasted almost exactly one year from January 1891. Holy Island in the same township was settled by James Strang in 1855.

Landmarks and Places in Ironton

• {'name': 'Ironton Ferry', 'kind': 'cable ferry', 'note': 'A four-car cable ferry across the narrows of the South Arm of Lake Charlevoix, in operation since 1876 and a designated Michigan Historical Site. It is the only direct link between the two halves of Eveline Township.', 'source': 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironton_Ferry'}
• {'name': 'Hemingway Point', 'kind': 'literary site', 'note': "The tree farm at the ferry's south landing, once owned by Ernest Hemingway's uncle George R. Hemingway, and the setting of a scene in The Nick Adams Stories.", 'source': 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironton_Ferry'}
• {'name': 'South Arm of Lake Charlevoix', 'kind': 'lake arm', 'note': 'The narrow water the community sits astride, dividing Eveline Township into two road-separated halves.', 'source': 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eveline_Township,_Michigan'}

The Ironton Economy

• The iron that named the place is long gone and no present-day employer, payroll or business figure is published in any article consulted. What remains as working infrastructure is the crossing. The Ironton Ferry is a four-car cable ferry over the South Arm of Lake Charlevoix, linking the community, about five miles from the city of Charlevoix, toward Boyne City on the far shore. It matters more than its size suggests because Eveline Township is split by the south arm of the lake with no road directly joining the two halves, so the ferry is the connection between them. M-66 provides the north-south road link. Schooling is divided: Ironton is served principally by Charlevoix Public Schools to the northwest, while some southwestern parts of the community may fall to East Jordan Public Schools to the south.

Community Life in Ironton

• For a place of 148 people the ferry has an unusual literary and popular record. Ironton faces a parcel once owned by George R. Hemingway, an uncle of Ernest Hemingway, and that tree farm at the ferry's south landing is known as Hemingway Point. Ernest Hemingway spent summers at his parents' cottage on Walloon Lake from 1900 into the 1920s and also spent time near Horton Bay and at his uncle's farm across Lake Charlevoix; in The Nick Adams Stories, Hemingway Point is where Nick camps and fires rifle shots to signal his father and uncle out on the water, an identification the author's first cousin Margaret Hemingway Bundy confirmed. The ferry reached a wider audience in 1936 when Ripley's Believe It or Not! recorded that its captain, Sam Alexander, had travelled 15,000 miles while never being more than 1,000 feet from his home; Alexander piloted the boat from 1900 until his death in 1948. The crossing is a designated Michigan Historical Site and has been painted many times, among others by the Michigan artist Leland Beaman, who worked in watercolor before the landing and onboard gates were electrified in the late 1970s.

Local reference: en.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org