The Jafet Rytkonen home is pictured. (Photo courtesy of the Negaunee Historical Society)

NEGAUNEE – Negaunee has been a city on the move. Homes, businesses, churches and even cemetaries have been moved from one end of town to the other.

Most people are familiar with the moving of the West end of town becasue it has been repoened to pubic use with a walking/biking path, otherwise known as the Heritage Trail, with markers depicting points of history.

It has driveable streets and stairs that lead to nowhere, except to those families who remember living there and once had a home there. The retaining wall of what was once the schoolyard of Negaunee’s first school, the Jackson school, is still standing today. So is a sidewalk in perfect condition that was once called “Strawberry Hill.”

The area includes a Jackson Mine lookout and a walking trail to view the opening of a mine pit and rock that still shimmers with Iron Ore.

Iron street extended another two blocks West, beginning at what is now Busters Ice cream shop, and continuing up “dry bush hill” to “Cornish town,” which is now named Michigan street. Lafreniers Furniture Store was moved from this spot on Iron street to its present location on Rail street. Bethany Lutheran Church and the parsonage was moved from the corner of Snow and Cyr streets, to Cherry Street.

Very little is known however about the moving of homes that took place from the East end of town, which was the first vacated area. There are no visible memories. Park Street is no longer there, and neither is the Park Street school.

In 1928 the city was approached about vacating and closing off several streets on the East end because mining under those areas may have caused caving. Main, Case and Peck streets once extended another block east beyond where they are now. CCI proposed a new addition to the city which they themselves would build at no extra cost. This new addition would consist of 155 lots on a triangle of land to the North. The alleys would even be wider to accomodate snowplows so that owners could get automobiles out of their garages.

The first block of Baldwin, Pine and Oak on the north side of U.S. 41 that you see today, are homes that were moved from the East end of town. Immanuel Lutheran Church also was moved from this area to U.S. 41.

The Aug. 24, 1928 edition of the newspaper received a report from Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company that they had bought most of the homes and were offering good settlements. Many homes were moved, but the stately mansions that belonged to the Moss, Maitland and Rytkonen families, were too large and were torn down. The lumber was provided for other buildings to be erected. Some of the interior woodwork was incorporated in other area homes.

The paper noted: “Clearly Negaunee cannot afford to impose hardship on the organizations (CCI) upon which it is dependent for support.”

To bring everything to present day, new homes have since been built in this very area that was once abandoned.