Alone Together in the U.P. Wilderness: The Tiny Town of Ralph

The U.P. hamlet of Ralph isn’t quite a ghost town – it's more of a shadow town. It’s smack in the heart of the Upper Peninsula’s mining and lumber area.

Ralph is another tiny U.P. hamlet which still has a couple of interesting buildings left, as you'll see in the gallery below. Ralph was named after Ralph Wells, the son of Menominee lumberman J.W. Wells.

This Dickinson County hamlet and train station along the Escanaba & Lake Superior Railroad were called Ralph, but when a post office began operating in 1901, it was called ‘Bryden’. Postmaster was Wallace Taylor, so the name ‘Bryden’ could have come from a railroad CEO or some other big shot.

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In 1904, the post office name was changed to ‘Ralph’ to coincide with the town and station.

Nothing too spectacular about the town of Ralph, other than some cool old buildings and the northern atmosphere, with plenty of pines and the unique smell that only the north has.

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