Drone Photos of the Irish Hills Twin Towers

The 'Twin Towers' in the Irish Hills sit on a hill by the road, looming over all the traffic that scoots by every day.

In 1924, the Michigan Observation Company built the first tower in order to hopefully bring in more tourists and travelers with money to spend. One problem, though - Ed Kelly was a farmer who just happened to own the other half of the hill where the tower was...and he wasn't about to give up his half. While the Michigan Observation Company kept busy trying to find a way to get Ed Kelly to sell the property, Kelly was busy building his own tower right next to the original. He dubbed it "Gray Tower" with the words "Kelly Knoll" on the side.

“OH, YEAH?” thought the Michigan Observation Company. In retaliation, which today sounds like grade school “na-na na-na na-naaaa” they painted "Original Irish Hills Tower" on their tower. That'll show that rube farmer, right?

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But whose tower was tallest? This competition was feverish and childish (my own opinion). The company actually threatened Kelly to either give up his property, or they'd build an even bigger tower that would dwarf Kelly's and “make it look like an ant hill”.

Knowing he, just a country farmer, was no match for a whole company, Kelly finally gave up. The towers brought in the paying tourists for the following decades.

In the 1950s, a gift shop was added on the ground floor. So to this day, both towers stand side-by-side on that hill, now for over 100 years. In the year 2000, the towers were permanently closed off to the public. They were deemed unsafe in 2013, demolition was discussed, but still they "remained shuttered" thanks to a lack of funding.

The gallery below has a few drone photos of the towers, giving you a view of them that you may have never seen before...(thanks to Draco Aerial Photography).