HULBERT

Region: Tahquamenon & Seney, Grand Marais & Whitefish Point

Jetta Girl

Finished in 1936, this little Methodist chapel once had a choir of 20. That was back when Hulbert had a wooden bowl factory and lumber mills.

Being near an established area of vacation homes and some small resorts has helped keep Hulbert more alive than many similar old logging villages. Worth a look is the Hulbert Methodist Chapel, an ingenious combination community hall and chapel. It's at the corner of Maple and Third in the village, a charming rustic affair of cedar logs and beach stones. It was built in 1935 with money from the Depression-generated Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works. A Methodist minister from Newberry who served a dozen far-flung northwoods churches orchestrated the project for the "Little Church in the Big U.P."

The chapel is full of decorative touches inside and out: a pulpit made of a log, a fireplace by the stage, a combination chimney/bellcote of carefully ordered stones, stained glass memorial windows. Reversible seats let the audience face either the pulpit on one end or, in its community hall guise, the fireplace and stage at the other.

A rugged ridge runs south and east from this village, located just south of the East Branch of the Tahquamenon River. Vast expanses of swampland surround the town. Especially from May through June, the black flies and other insects make venturing out into the hinterland an uncommonly painful experience. One fly-fisherman came back saying he looked like he had been the victim of multiple ice pick stabs. Nonetheless, downstaters have bid up prices for available land to where it would be hard to find anything for less than $1,000 an acre.

Return to Tahquamenon & Seney, Grand Marais & Whitefish Point

PLACES AROUND HULBERT TO

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