Company Towns of Michigan's Upper Peninsula by Christian Holmes

Author:Christian Holmes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2015-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Company president Charlie Good promotes the town sale at Nahma. Delta County Historical Museum.

The lifestyle of the Native Americans living in Sandtown was clearly below the standard for those residing in Nahma proper. Although they attended the public schools and had full use of the Club House, where they attended movies and used the snack bar, other dimensions were clearly subpar. Their work in the mill was mostly confined to sorting and stacking lumber in the “yard.” Their homes were tar paper shacks that had no chimneys (just holes in the roof), and a portion of their diet included discarded fish guts and unused portions (typically internal organs) from the slaughterhouse and butcher shop.

In the 1940s, it became apparent that the availability of timber for the Bay de Noquet Company was becoming limited. The company had purchased a large section of land from the Cleveland Cliffs Company near what became the Munising “Pictured Rocks” area on Lake Superior, eighty miles away. In addition, it later trucked logs from the Grand Marais area (nearly one hundred miles, one way). In October 1948, BDN stockholders were notified that it would be necessary to sell the company. Final approval followed in December. This information was not shared with the Nahma community. On February 1, 1951, the announcement was made that the Bay de Noquet Lumber Company was for sale at a price of $250,000. Much of the cutover land had been sold to the U.S. Forest Service for what became the Hiawatha National Forest. Other parcels were sold to paper companies, hunting clubs or private individuals. What was left was the village of Nahma and 4,300 acres between Lake Michigan and Highway U.S. 2. Many in Nahma were stunned. They were losing their major employer, their landlord and community leadership. Others felt that “they should have seen the handwriting on the wall” due to diminishing timber supply in the central Upper Peninsula. The company tried to soften the blow by setting aside $100,000 severance pay and seeking another employer for the community. A major marketing campaign was launched that included publicity that was truly national in focus.

The president, Charlie Good, launched a campaign that included bringing a railroad car of media personnel from Chicago to the U.P. It worked, as articles appeared in Life magazine and the Wall Street Journal. He received three hundred inquiries from around the country and some from overseas. His pledge was to sell only to a buyer who would fill the void as a major employer for the Nahma community. In September 1951, he found such a buyer: the American Playground Device Company of Anderson, Indiana. It was the major manufacturer of outdoor playground equipment in the United States.

American Playground immediately began work on modifying and restoring the industrial buildings to accommodate its needs. Its product lines, all of which needed wood products, included park, picnic, swimming pool and dressing room equipment, along with flagpoles and bicycle racks. Initially, it employed 50 employees (later rising to 100), quite short of the 250 who had been employed by Bay de Noquet at the time of the sale.

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