Another Abandoned U.P. Motel: The Macjo in Hulbert

The MacJo Motel is not the same these days. A far cry from what it once was, now it sits abandoned along highway 28, the former cabins deteriorating more and more each year.

The Macjo was built from the ground up, owned and operated by McKinley (“Mac”) and Josephine Harrison in 1947, and named it after themselves - ‘Mac’ and ‘Jo’.

They came to the U.P. from Detroit in 1945 after Mac received bad news from his doctor: “you have only three weeks to live”. Mac said when he takes his last breath, it wasn’t going to be in Detroit – it was going to be in the Upper Peninsula, where he’d be breathing “northern air.”

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So they moved to a place south of Hulbert and decided to open up their own business. It started out as a filling station (gas was 20 cents a gallon) with a gift shop (pop was 8 cents a bottle) and eventually expanded to include overnight cabins for tourists.

The four cabins were in need of paint, so Mac asked Jo to “paint them all, but in different colors.” She misunderstood and painted EACH cabin in various colors! Mac was upset at first but grew to like it; “leave it” he said. Because of the many-colored cabins, the Macjo was nicknamed “the candy place”.

Gas pumps were out front and were not self-serve. Mac would fill your tank – and when he passed away, Jo would be the fill-up attendant...well into her 80s. A sign out front that read “moccasins -souvenirs” brought people in as well. For such an out-of-the-way business, it garnered plenty of press and was featured in many Michigan newspapers, including the Detroit Free Press.

When Mac passed away in 1973, Josephine continued to run the business by herself and by 1985 was talking about selling it. Finally in 1991 it was up for sale.

The exact year it finally went out of business is unknown. In 2011, photos indicate it was still open. In 2016, the motel sign was gone, the cabins were in ruins, and junk all over the yard. By 2018, the old souvenir shop/office had been demolished. In 2024, the whole place was deserted and the cabins were decaying. Anybody who lived there after the Harrisons were long gone.