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Somehow I picked out the little town of Freda on the map some time ago and had read a little about it's history. Looking at a map of Upper Michigan, the town sits southwest of Houghton on the Lake Superior coastline. It's a road that you ride in on and go back the way you came in. It was a town created around one of many of Upper Michigan's copper stamping mills. The mills would take mined ore and turn it into high grade copper ingots which were then shipped to customers around the Great Lakes. This required grinding up the rock and used lots of water to separate the copper from other materials. The Copper Range Company built the Freda stamping mill below the big bluff in 1899. The company also built employee houses and most town facilities. In 1910 Freda had about 500 residents. I'm not sure how many are still left today, but there are a number of nice little house above the plant ruins. The mill was finally closed in 1967 which surprised me. I usually think of these mining operations closing down in the early 1900's. So after we checked in, unloaded the bike and had a good lunch, we gathered up our cameras, helmets and headed to Freda. We did make a quick stop at the BP station up the road from the lodge to top off the tank and put some air in the tires. You learn quick when riding the U.P. that there may not always be a gas station at the end of every road or in every town. As we cruised north on M-26, we passed through an number of small towns. As we approached Houghton, the road went four lanes with all the typical box store businesses lining up along the road. I decided to take a quick ride through Houghton to refresh myself with the town. Houghton mainly consists of two one way streets. Headed east you take the upper road which really doesn't offer much other than a good look down into town. Seems like parking would be a real pain in town. Houghton is a college town with Michigan Tech University located on the east side of town. I was in Houghton during it's record snowfall year which topped 300" of snow. It was unbelievable how much snow fell that year. To find Freda, I had to take Canal Road west out of Houghton so we looped down to main street and road back through town. Finding Canal Street wasn't hard. The road parallels the Portage Canal providing some great views of the waterway. There were small and large boats cruising the waters. Canal Road proved to have own set of bumps. As we road. I was constantly slowing down to cross over sections of the road have been cut out for some reason and replaced with 3-4' gravel crossways. Like Highway 45, hopefully this road too is scheduled for repaving. About 4-5 miles up the road I saw a small sign saying Freda, so I turned left on what I believe was Liminga Road. A feeling of isolation is how my wife put it as we cruised past old farms, abandon buildings and then stretches woods. You just got the feeling if we broke down, we might be there for a while. Still people manage to make a living out here and we'd pass by an occasional farm, house and business. The road wasn't the greatest, but it was a lot better then riding on gravel. About five miles up the road we road past the town of Redridge or what is left of it. You know you're there because you pass by an old steel dam left over from the towns early mining days. Seeing a little turn around area beside the damn site, I pulled the bike in. There was a cement marker there noting the dam's construction.
The turn around was soft sand so it wasn't much fun muscling the bike around. Fortunately there were a few good rocks poking up through the sand so I could find something to put the kickstand on. I had just started to walk down to the dam when I spotted all these little hand written signs saying keep out. Normally I would have ignored them, but a SUV pulled in behind us and not knowing if they were locals or not, I decided to skip it. Besides if I were to slip and fall, I don't suppose there would of been a doctor in town. After Redridge, the road becomes Freda Road and headed into the woods. It soon starts adding some curves and small hills to the ride. I let myself get lulled into believing all the turns were the same, but after just going around a 90 degree turn listed at 15 mph I found myself in a turn where I had to lay on the brakes. There was a reason the curve had a guard rail. Had I been going much faster I'm sure my knee would have kissed the rail. It was deceptively sharp turn and I should have known better. Of course my wife made it know when we stopped that she didn't like it at all. One of the first things you see as you arrive in Freda is the tall smoke stack. If you ride the Copper Country, you're going to see a lot of them. Every Copper Stamping plant seems to have had one.
As we rode into town, I didn't really see a town sign or know which way to go, so I just started taking roads. After a couple of turns I wound up next to a little parking area that overlooked the ruins of the old copper stamping mill. I parked the bike there and started taking pictures. We soon discovered a little path down the side of the hill to the mill. Later my wife later found a paved road where we could have walked. Even though the entrance to the road was marked private, we never hardly saw anyone out or around. I really wish I could have met someone who lived there during the mills operation. I'd of even paid for a little tour and explanation of everything we were looking right now.
As we walked around the ruins of the old mill, it seemed rather spooky for some reason. I had been to other old mining operations, but this one seemed different. There were so many huge stone structures, many of which seemed like old ovens. Again, I sure would have liked to know what their purpose was. You could tell that this was a place of fire and heat just from the looks of things. I was sorry to find one area full of old appliances and garbage. The trash didn't look recent so that was good. I could see many of the concrete buildings were collapsing now, so I hollered to my wife to be careful. Near one large building I found a strange open hole to a 2-3' diameter tunnel heading down from one large concrete structure to another. As I stood there trying to imagine what it was it suddenly occurred to me that maybe the ground under me wasn't so safe so I move on.
Walking around I started remembering reading about old Mayan ruins and now that's what this place reminded me of. There was even his huge shaped bowl about 30' in diameter that caused my imagination to draw up some thought of human sacrifice. I couldn't help but wonder what its real purpose was. When I ride Upper Michigan's roads that seem to lead to nowhere, I never know if the ride will be worth it. Sometimes I get half way down the road and have to turn around. Other times, I find places like Freda that make the ride worthwhile. Freda is literally at the end of the road. The only way out is back is the way you came unless you have a dirt bike. Come to think of it, I'll bet dirt biking is pretty popular in the U.P. For others considering a ride to Freda, I didn't see a gas station after leaving Houghton, so make sure you're gas tank is topped off. Also the only restaurant in Freda looks like it's been closed for a while, so I wouldn't make the trip hungry. I never did see any kind of official town sign when we entered town so I took this picture on the way out of town.
If you're all about riding nice roads with lots of sweeping turns and flowing hills, then the road to Freda isn't for you, but if you're a bit of history buff like me, then by all means take the ride to Freda and don't forget your camera. Page 2 of 7
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