Les Cheneaux Historical Museum

About

"Located at the northern tip of Lake Huron, on the south shore of Michigan's eastern Upper Peninsula, the Les Cheneaux area was once a strategic international northern outpost and center of early exploration.  But it was not until the early eighteen eighties that permanent homesteaders came in earnest to Les Cheneaux: Anthony Hamel came over from Mackinac Island, William A. Patrick arrived from Ontario, the Westons migrated north from Chicago, and the likes of Henry Clay Wisner and the McBain-Coryell clan appeared as the area's first seasonal visitors.  From this decade can be traced the story of the evolution of the Les Cheneaux area from unwanted real estate into highly desirable timberland and, almost simultaneously, homestead settlement and summer resort community.  Our story is an individually distinct as any in American history and as important as the opening and development of the Great Lakes and the integration of two great peninsulas into the State of Michigan."