• Sunday-What'sUP December 11 - 12:38 pm

Mail delivery here in the Copper Country has changed over the years. Here in Eagle River (where the Pasty Cam Started in 1998), we used to have a post office in the home of the Jam Lady, a cozy place to step inside and check your mail. For the past decade our boxes have been out in front of the Courthouse - with no shelter from the wind.

I'm not sure how they have mail delivered in Jacobsville these days, but in the first half of the twentieth century the residents there also enjoyed the benefit of an honest-to-goodness post office. Looks like you could buy more than stamps there, too.

Our thanks to the Michigan Tech Archives for a virtual museum of U.P. history. Browse around if it's been awhile since you visited their website.

By the way, our pasty shipping schedule is almost filled up in case you have a former Yooper on your gift list, who would enjoy a taste of home. Locally in the Copper Country you can stop in at The Hut in Kearsarge to pick up some for the holidays, or let us deliver them to you via Fedex or UPS.

Have a good week :0)

I guess I didn't know that Jacobsville ever had a post office. Thanks for the history!

Summer sitting on the steps of the Eagle Harbor general store waiting for the mail delivery was a rite of passage. Ms Clair Smith was in charge in the corner of Rudy and Mary's business. Never any mail but it was fun trying!

I can't remember where this was....but I do remember going into a store somehwere up there that had a post office as well. There was a window with a counter near the back...you could mail a letter, package, whatever, and some folks picked up there mail as well...Tapiola maybe ? or maybe by Freda?
dreaming?

My Grandmother Anne Wetton was the PostMaster there when the Quarry was in operation at the turn of the century. Her husband John was the Superintendent of the quarry. She always mentioned and horse and buggy ride's to Houghton that took many hours.

It just amazes me how rough it was way back when. How did those poor people survive? What's really ironic is that now-a-days people go out of their way to take a horse and buggy ride for fun. It wouldn't have been fun back then!

I use to go to the Jacobsville PO/store for icecream as a kid. Fun memories. Guess there weren't enough people in Jacobsville to keep it going. Sad to see the place demolished a few years ago but it was really getting run down. We were given permission to take a few momento's before it was all gone! Glad to have them. A little bit of Jacobsville History! Thanks for the picture!

Even though I didn't grow up in the UP, I still remember the Post Office/Grocery Store/Soda Fountain in Illinois. Boy do I miss the good old days! When I lived in Germany and Austria, we had markets that sold it all. All you had to do was take your little mesh bag and go to market. I can still remember the Russian soldiers giving us chocolate bars, what a treat!
Kind of reverse rolls, eh?

Joanie, I beg to differ, but my grandmother told me stories about how fun buggy rides were back when as they are now. A lot of them had a romantic way. The scenery was not spoiled by a smelly car with engine problems, no traffic jams, you could enjoy nature first hand. Maybe it was the way she enjoyed buggy rides is where I also enjoy buggy rides provided by my own horses.

The property is owned by Maxine Huggard, who purchased it with her husband, the late E.C. Huggard in the 1960's. They spent weekends and sometimes a week or two at Jacobsville in the late 60's early 1970's sometimes while their 3 children were attending MTU. Their oldest daughter Harriet graduated in pre med and later graduated MSU. We had on several occasions the opportunity to spend nights at Jacobsville while vacationing in the Houghton/Hancock, Calumet, Copper Harbor areas of the Keeweenaw. My wife Chris and son Alan and daughter Lisa and in laws Nicholas and Josephine Campagna and brother and sister in law Gary and Judy Lankfer. When the Huggards purchased the property the post office/store was no longer in operation, but the furnishings and equipment including the gas pump were still there. Gary was an MTU grad and has purchased a home in Hancock near the portage. The 4 of us along with Larry and Sharon Wagner stopped to visit Jacobsville this summer to enjoy the view from the cliff. Dreamland used to be a popular stop either coming or going or both for a cold one, but did not find time to stop this summer. The view from Jacobsville is worth a million dollars and one of the reasons the Huggards purchased the property over 40 years ago.

Sorry, JanieT, maybe it was fun back then. I'm sure it wasn't fun for the people that had to survive for a living and had to use horse and buggy for transportation. I'm sure you enjoy buggy rides provided by your own horses. But what would you do if you didn't have a car? Now, I beg to differ!

The view of Lake Superior from Jacobsville is fantastic. I am so fortunate to spend every summer up there....and that's a lot of years! I am curious about the Jacobsbville store owners as the Tomlinson's owned it not THAT many years ago?? Are you sure the Huggard's still own the property? It's been a while since I was a kid eating icecream at the store. As I recall, the Tomlinson's were the last owners of the store when it was in business for any length of time. Since Cecile and Jean had the store, it was run for a short time by someone but it didn't last. Maybe the Huggard's bought the place in the mid-late 70's?

Having grown up on a farm in Jacobsville, I as a child would ride my bicycle to the store to get a few items and the mail. The mail was delivered by Waino Sorvala daily after he rowed the boat to Portage Entry and then by car to Chassell. In the winter, he would ski across the lake and return the same. Our box no. was 75 and the panel of mail boxes from the store is now on display in the museum in Lake Linden. Residents would congregate at the store awaiting for the mail and having the pleasure of engaging in conversation. In the winter, I would either ski, walk, or hitch a ride with Eino Huuki in his 1951 Ford or Pete's Model A. Lots of fun memories from the 1950's-60's. My guess is that the mail was then transferred thru L. Linden around 1964 or so. Bruce Tomlinson, an avid reader of pasty.net-where are you?

Chktraprock--What a wonderfully informative description of a rural
childhood. I hope one day that you write and publish your
memoirs.

If you look into the history of where most of the immigrants came from, you will find many were escaping from extreme poverty or political/religious repression. Life may have been "hard" by our standards, but I believe the majority of them felt themselves very fortunate to have such a good life in their beautiful new world.

There was the time Art and "Shorty" stopped by the store to buy grocerys for one cannot live on beer alone. They had Uncle Freds '38 sedan. They had just come out of the store and made their way to the car. I happened to be across the road from the car about then. Art decided Shorty should play the consertina for me, but Shorty didn't feel "up" to it. Art grabbed Shorty by the shoulders and forcefully sat him on the running board of the sedan parked out by the gas pumps, got a couple eggs out of the "grocery" bag, put them in Shortys' hat, and smartly put the hat back on Shorty. Next he got the concertina out of the car and stuck it on Shortys' hands. I got serenaded with a rousing rendition of "Spring Time in the Rockies" and Shorty had egg running profusely down the sides of his head. AAHHH life in the little burg of JACOBSVILLE , the center of the known universe!

Or how about the time the deer got hit by the car and knocked out. It was put in the trunk and off the drivers went to the Store to by a deer license, then back home to get the deer rifle. They shot the deer in the trunk! --Names eliminated to protect the guilty--

Shorty also stood guard at his own front door on New Years Eve with a musket in his underwear. Now that was a party!! You can't make this stuff up folks!

Rowdy,please email me or provide your email address directly to me.