Web Design in Mikado, MI

Web Design Services in Mikado, Michigan

AppWT Web & AI Solutions has been providing exceptional web design and digital marketing services to Mikado businesses since 1997. Located in Alcona County, Mikado is home to approximately 893 residents and a thriving business community.

About Mikado, Michigan

Mikado is an unincorporated community in the northeastern corner of Mikado Township, Alcona County, in northeastern lower Michigan. The township had 850 residents at the 2020 census across 71.4 square miles, down 10.2% from 2010. It is a small, quiet place built around a railroad crossing and a hotel that a Scottish-Canadian homesteader put up in the 1880s, and it has an unusually well documented founding story published by the township itself.

History of Mikado

• Mikado was founded in 1886 by Daniel D. Bruce, born 1850 at King Center, Ontario, the son of Scottish emigrants. His grandfather moved the family to Huron County, Michigan in 1863 and was granted citizenship and homestead rights in 1868. Bruce left Sand Beach, now Harbor Beach, by boat and landed at Greenbush in 1870.
• Bruce bought land from the U.S. government west of Greenbush, an area once called West Greenbush. The Bruce Plat was surveyed and the legal document signed and paid for in 1884, and he built the Bruce Hotel and livery barn in 1885.
• In the winter of 1886 Bruce received a letter saying railroad officials would hear his request for a train stop at 9 a.m. the next morning in Tawas. With a foot of snow on the ground he walked through the night, arrived at daybreak, laid $360 on the table, all the money he had, and got the assurance that trains would stop at the crossing by his hotel.

Landmarks and Places in Mikado

• Mikado Township Civic Center, the township's meeting facility, pictured on the township's own homepage.
• County-designated highway F-30 runs through the northern portion of the township and F-41 runs along the eastern edge; the two intersect in Mikado.
• Alvin, a former lumbering settlement in the southeastern portion of the township (44°31'28"N 83°26'33"W).

The Mikado Economy

• Lumbering was the founding industry. In the early 1880s the Detroit, Bay City and Alpena Railroad ran north from Alger through Tawas, Oscoda, Mikado and Lincoln, then northeast to Black River where the Alger Smith Lumber Company had its headquarters.
• The Bruce Hotel and livery barn, built 1885, served the lumber trade as operations expanded and family dwellings multiplied around it.
• Present day: no named major employer is published. The township's active business is land use. Its planning commission is amending the Mikado Township Zoning Ordinance, creating an Appendix of Ordinances, and editing a Workable Renewable Energy Ordinance, all under lawyer review pending a public hearing.

Community Life in Mikado

• Mikado Township is served by two public school districts. Most of the township goes to Oscoda Area Schools to the south in Iosco County, while a small northwestern portion is served by Alcona Community Schools.
• Edith Bondie (1918-2005), a Chippewa basketmaker, was born in Mikado. She worked in black ash gathered near her home, won the Michigan Heritage Award in 1985, and her work is held by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, and the Besser Museum for Northeast Michigan.
• The township operates a Civic Center that serves as its meeting and event facility.

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