MICHIGAN GHOST TOWN: The Lost City of Damon
Looking at the photo gallery below, it's hard to imagine that there was once a booming lumber town at this site.
The town of Damon still shows up on maps but is basically a ghost town, with very little remnants of what it once was.
In Damon's late 1800's lumbering heyday, the mail stagecoach drove through and the town had four blocks full of businesses...including a 50-by-80 foot warehouse, a general store 100 feet long, schoolhouse and hotel. Behind the general store was an "oil house" that stored fuel & kerosene for the logging camps and homes for lamps and lanterns. There was another large building that was called the "Refrigerator," keeping big blocks of ice packed in sawdust to keep fresh the sides of beef they hung to store and feed the residents and lumberjacks.
Owosso author James Oliver Curwood visited the town of Damon in 1911 and dubbed it "The Lost City of Damon." Curwood passed away in 1927 but his writings about Damon turned up in his novel "Green Timber" that was published after he passed away.
The Damon Cemetery is approximately one half mile south of this ghost town's dirt road intersection on the west side of the road...there are old, original wooden grave markers that still stand among the marble tombstones.
If you travel east about three miles out, there's a site where an old sawmill used to stand...there may be parts of the mill's old concrete foundation still around, but more than likely hidden in the underbrush.....if you have the spirit to search.
Damon is another chapter in Michigan's history and an interesting place to visit if you enjoy discovering items from our past that are buried or hidden among the trees and bushes. Check out the photo gallery below...the pictures will help you see where some of these buildings used to stand and where you may be able to look for artifacts among the weeds and brush.
By the way, take a look at this photo gallery of Damon's cemetery!
The route to Damon is not a simple one...but I will say that it's straight east of Higgins Lake and Roscommon. You will definitely need a map or GPS to get you there correctly, as it's down mainly dirt roads.
DAMON
MORE MICHIGANIA:
MORE: A Close Look At the Firemen's Memorial in Roscommon
MORE: Seven Crazy Michigan Town Names Explained