Empire, a quintessential and quirky small northern Michigan town

We love visiting the Village of Empire, Michigan, not only because it is right in the middle of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore area and home to the national park’s headquarters and visitor center, but also because it is just one of those cool little northern Michigan small towns.

The wide Front Street running through the village looks pretty serene in this wintertime view, when about 400 year-round residents pretty much have the place to themselves, but come summer, this village about 25 miles west of Traverse City teems with tourists. Visitors come for the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and Empire events like the annual Dunegrass Festival in summer, which has a full bill of folk and bluegrass music plus displays by local artisans.

I always eagerly await Michigan’s late spring/early summer asparagus season because asparagus is one of my favorite vegetables. Several farms around Empire grow asparagus, and the little town embraces the veggie in a big way with an annual Asparagus Festival.

Producers at the MSN Travel site even took note of this quirky festival, naming it one of the ten weirdest festivals in the world last year.

I hope to get up to Empire during mid-May one of these years to attend the Asparagus Fest. The festival, now in its seventh year, features asparagus, plenty of parties, music, a parade, asparagus theme costumes, asparagus eats at restaurants and stores around town, recipe contests, and cook-offs. One area brewery even offered asparagus beer last year!

Empire also has a great free, public park on the shore of Lake Michigan. The Lake Michigan Beach Park offers an excellent view of the Empire Bluff, which you can see in these summer and winter views. The northwest winds and wide sand beach make it a great place for kite-flying in the spring, while summertime visitors like swimming in the big lake, crossing the parking lot to swim in the smaller and warmer South Bar Lake at the park, or picnicking with friends and family.

Park visitors can also learn about Empire’s history and the importance of the logging industry in the village’s early development by checking out a state historical marker at the former site of the Empire Lumber Company. Plus, geocachers can log another find at this site.

Settlers first came to Empire in the mid-1850s. The community supposedly took its name from a schooner that went aground nearby in 1865, and the vessel served as a village school that winter.

Lumbering came to Empire in a big way in 1887 when the T. Wilce Company established the Empire Lumber Company to provide hardwood for a Wilce-owned flooring business in Chicago. The lumber company quickly became one of the largest hardwood mills in Michigan, making Empire a lumbering boom town in the 1890s and early 1900s.

The village population soared to 1,000 by 1900. The last Empire lumber mill burned down by 1917, spelling the end of the village’s busy lumbering era.

In 1972, the local historians established the Empire Heritage Group to preserve the area’s past. A museum complex that includes a main building, old schoolhouse, fire house and a barn is open during the summer and early autumn.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Comments

[Sarah V.]

This looks like such a fun place to visit! I love the second picture of the beach...there's something so beautiful about waves.

[Dominique King]

Sarah-Empire has such a great beach! I really love it when we're up there at the right time of year to see folks flying kites out on the beach-we've seen some really beautiful kites, and talented kite flyers can really make the kites do all sorts of cool tricks with the wind off of Lake Michigan.

[Steve Davis]

Love your posts. Small towns like this are just so interesting. Thanks for sharing.

[Dominique King]

Steve-I particularly like the fact that Empire has a pretty interesting history, and that the people there are so interested in preserving those stories.

[Kainoa Marquis]

Such a magical beautiful place. My grandfather Arlie McGee was born here in 1906. I have many fond memories as a child running along the shore. This began a life long love of nature for me!