The Shadow Town of Sauble: Lake County, Michigan

Sauble, located in Lake County, is one of Michigan's former lumber towns. These days, there are no businesses left whatsoever, but a few homes remain scattered up and down N. Hamilton Road, in the Huron-Manistee National Forest.

Regarded as a 'shadow town' by some and a 'ghost town' by others, Sauble was once a decent-sized village in the late 1800s, getting its water source from the Big Sable River. It had a general store, post office, train station, and several other shops & stores. Now they are ALL gone. By 1918 the population had whittled down to 40.

According to "A History of Northern Michigan and Its People", written in 1912, "About half of Lake County in the valleys of the Little Manistee and Pine rivers.....was originally covered with a dense forest of white pine. As its territory was one of the latest in Northern Michigan to be stripped of this rich clothing, the transformation from a lumber to an agricultural, livestock and dairy country has been fairly under way only within the past dozen years".

This was true on many Lake County lumber towns, including Sauble. Driving through this area now, you would never guess it was actually a little town at one time, that had a decent amount of residents and establishments. It may be worth a detour on your Michigan road trip to just drive through and imagine what this place was once like.

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