How many of Michigan’s shoe trees have you stumbled upon? When you do, do you point, laugh, snicker, stare, gasp, drop your jaw and say ‘wow’ or just act like it’s no big deal?

You can’t help but stare and eventually wonder why it’s there, right?

Most of Michigan’s shoe trees do have legends attached to them, but many times there’s no sordid tales. The trees are draped with numerous shoes and boots that have been tossed into the branches for one reason or another:
Getting rid of old shoes
School tradition
A Memorial
Pranks

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It’s the legends that make the shoe trees have some sort of fascination.

The Walled Lake shoe tree’s legend is that of the Walled Lake child killer, who buried the bodies near the tree and threw the victims’ shoes into the branches.

A shoe tree on 8 Mile Road has a legend about a man who lived nearby in a house that had a garage with a big yellow smiley face on the door. If the garage door was shut, that meant he was inside killing somebody. If it was open, he was looking for someone to kill. The shoes of his victims ended up in the tree.

Salem has (had?) a pretty good shoe tree, with another legend about a child killer attached to it. The limbs on this tree have been cut down several times by locals who got tired of people coming by to gawk.

There was one in Cheboygan that bothered the neighbors so much, that they called the cops and legally had all the shoes removed. Others who enjoyed that tree said it was a shame, because those shoes were meant as a memorial for a deceased friend.

The Kalkaska shoe tree just may be the most popular one in the state. So much so, that a second one popped up just a half a mile down the road from this one. But recently, the shoes were taken down and the tree is now bare (photos are in the gallery below).

Other shoe trees can be found in Atlanta, Bath, Beaver Island, Drummond Island, Harbor Springs, Hillsdale, Manchester, Oscoda, Petoskey, Traverse City, and many other villages, towns and cities throughout the state, with new ones appearing occasionally.

There are even some Michiganders who claim that strange things happened when they are near a shoe tree, like their car not starting or phone not working until they move away from the tree.

Whether you find them creepy or not, ya gotta admit: they add to the quirky fun of living in Michigan.

Michigan's Shoe Trees

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