Iosco County lies wholly in the tract of land ceded to the United States government by the Chippewa Indians, Iosco's first inhabitants, in the Saginaw treaty of 1819. When government surveys were made in 1840, the county was called Ka-no-tin, after an Indian Chief. In 1843, the name was changed to Iosco. This is a word (not pure Indian) of Schoolcraft manufacture and is said to mean "water of light".
An Act of the State Legislature, approved February 16, 1857, created Iosco County as we now know it. At the time there were less than 200 people living here.
The first white settler of the County was Louis Chevalier who lived on the banks of the AuSable River as early as 1800. He was a French fur trader. The American Fur Co. had an outpost at the mouth of the AuSable River in 1828. In the late 1840's fishermen had begun a settlement at AuSable (the first in the county) and Peter Hart was fishing on Tawas Bay. Fishermen were attracted to AuSable in 1848. Horace D. Stockman and George Hulett Duell spent the winter of that year in the region and thus was the first settlement in the county made.
A band of Chippewa Indians with their Chief, O-ta-was, lived on the shore of the bay that bore his name, O-ta-was Bay, where they hunted and fished. Peter Hart and his son, James and family were attracted to this area. (Tawas, a name of common use in this county) is a contraction of the Old Indian Chief 's name.
In the 1850's the United States government saw the need for building a
lighthouse along the shore and one was built at Tawas Point and placed in
operation in 1852 to light the entrance to the largest natural harbor on the
Great Lakes.
In 1853 Gideon O. Whittemore of Oakland County, Michigan purchased large tracts of white pine land on Tawas Bay, founded Tawas City and established the County Seat in 1857. After locating and purchasing 5000 acres of timber he built a steam sawmill in the virgin forest as the nucleus of the community. By 1857 , a mill and dock had been built, a general store building had been erected; dwellings for the pioneers had been built; the river had been cleaned out to permit logs to float down to the mill, a town had been platted and a post office had been established- a staggering amount of work.
Then not satisfied with building a town, the Whittemores realized that some form of local government was imperative and they were instrumental is having the county organized in 1857. Two townships were created- Tawas and AuSable dividing the county equally between its northern and southern boundaries.
In 1864 another town sprang up on Tawas Bay called East Tawas by common
consent. It owes its existence to a lumbering firm- Smith, Van Valkenburg &
Co. In the mid-1860's AuSable by the Land Company began the era of lumbering
white pine and became the principle industry for 50 years, closing when a
disastrous forest fire destroyed the towns of AuSable and Oscoda in 1911.
The quarrying of gypsum rock was begun in Alabaster. A second plant was opened in the 1920's and a third in the 1960's. In the next two decades travel by water was supplemented by stage coach and railroad train. Post offices and one room schools sprang up and churches of many denominations provided for the spiritual needs. Farming was a growing industry and beef cattle was in its infancy in the 1880's. The Townships of Thompson (later vacated) Oscoda, Plainfield and Wilbur were carved out of AuSable Township. Reno, Grant, Baldwin, Burleigh, Sherman and Alabaster were created from Tawas Township.
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(more history of Iosco County)
Salt was manufactured in the Tawas Area, the brine pumped to Oscoda and evaporated there. Small industries flourished for a time and then collapsed . Industries in the big cities took their toll of the population.
The close of the Civil War in 1865 opened the way for establishing the new frontiers and the discovery of large tracts of virgin pine were largely responsible for Iosco County's growth. From a population of 175 in 1860 it reached its all time high in 1890 when the decennial census that year listed 15,224 persons. (the population in 1950 was 10,906) and in 1972 it was 24,905.
For 50 years the manufacture of lumber was the principal business of the county. Fishing, farming and the quarrying of gypsum rock were of secondary importance. The tourist industry was unheard of in those early days, while today it is a multi-million dollar business for the area.
Education and religion claimed the attention of Iosco residents at an early date. Schools of AuSable, Tawas City and East Tawas were opened in the 1860's. The religious life owes much to Mrs. George P. Smith who came to East Tawas in 1866 to find no house of worship, nor an organized religion She organized the Methodist Sunday school, out of which grew the Methodist Church. to become the pioneer religious group and church.
The first newspaper in the county was established in 1868 by the Whittemores. Telegraph lines were built up the shore in 1872. The first railroad, a logging road, was built in 1878. At the turn of the century three families, then owners of the D&M Railway, acquired and began developing, the Tawas Beach property. For several years a the Tawas Beach Flyer commuted daily from Tawas to Bay City for the convenience of businessmen who lived here and worked in the big city. They .initiated the tourist business with Sunday excursions running special trains from Tawas to Bay City, and Tawas to Cheboygan. Organizations such as the Maccabees sponsored outings. As many as seven to ten coaches full of people came bringing basket dinners. Tawas Beach facilities included a dance pavilion, bowling and an orchestra for the merrymakers.
World War I brought a larger vision. Good roads became a necessity as the world began to move on wheels. Natural resources of hunting, fishing, boating, etc. were opened to tourism and thus the tourist business was born.
Today the tourist business industry is the main industry of the county. US 23 parallels the county's shoreline. M-55 crosses the county from east to west. Small industries are in operation all over the county with some farming still continuing.
On the banks of the mighty AuSable stands the Lumberman's Monument erected
in 1932. It is a memorial to those pioneers, the timber cruiser, the sawyer, and
the rivermen, who felled the mighty pine trees to build the cities and supply
lumber for the treeless prairies.
During World War II Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda brought thousands of military personnel and their families to the area and provided many civilian jobs as well. After the closing of the base several industries were brought in and a special community developed utilizing the remodeled base housing. There are still buildings being revitalized. The Park Library is now located on Base as well as the Community Theater and Alpena Community College Classes and some medical facilities.
Today the great pine forest is gone but the magnificent shoreline , the rivers, and inland lakes remain and stretches of plains land invite you to dream of days gone. Many people who spent their formative years here and then went to the big cities to seek their fortune have returned in their retirement years where they enjoy the memory of days gone by and hope to enjoy the peace and tranquility and natural beauty which abounds throughout the county.
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By Edna M. Otis, Iosco County Gazette, May 1933
The annals of Iosco would be incomplete did they not record the legend of Lake Solitude. This inland lake was first known as Lighthouse Lake because of its close proximity to the old lighthouse on Tawas Point. An early, map shows that it was known also, as Cranberry Lake. Still later it was termed Mud Lake and one will gainsay that the name did not fully describe it. In the 1890’s however, when the D&M R.R. Co. bought the land developed in Tawas Beach, the wild beauty of the place prompted someone to give the lake the euphonious name of Lake Solitude.
As for the legend. The spirit of LaSalle, the intrepid French explorer of the 17th century, pervades the Lake Solitude region. Methinks the ghost of his ungodly pilot still stalks the cranberry marshes nearby, forever mindful of the glory acquired while sailing the salt seas, never forgetting the humiliation of perishing, at last, the detested "le me douce" (the fresh water sea, Lake Huron).
Three generations of Tawas folk heard the tradition of Lake Solitude. They have listened to the story of how the earliest residents found a rotting hulk in the sand and silt at this inland lake, a half mile distant from the big lake. The legend reads that the size of the boat (probably 60 feet in length) precluded the possibility of entering Lake Solitude through the narrow creek that connects the lake with Tawas Bay, an arm of Lake Huron.
Those who claimed to have seen the boat in the early 1860's and 1870's wondered at its presence there, but they made no investigation to determine its origin. It was, to them, an unexplained reality about which to weave tales on a winter evening in lumber camp or village store. That it might have been a history making craft, they did not dream. Succeeding generations have conjectured much about the tradition, but they have never been able to tear away the shroud that surrounded this marine mystery. And so the years have passed.
Today, we believe we have solved the secret of the old boat's presence in the inland lake, by deducing that Solitude was, centuries ago, part of the big lake; that receding waters have left it what geologists call a newland lake. Forest experts have been able to determine the age of the pine fringing the lake shore and growing on the timbered ridge that separates the lake from Tawas Bay. They say that under the most favorable conditions it has taken more than a century of time for these trees to attain their present size. But science has not, as yet helped us to form a conclusion as to the number of years necessary for the, accretion of this land before pine seed could germinate in the soil.
We have turned back the pages of time and history to read the long list of ships that once sailed the Great Lakes, and never returned to port, in the hope of finding a clue to identify Lake Solitude's lost boat. The story of LaSalle's ill-fated Griffin claims our attention. The first boat to sail the lakes lost when homeward bound to Niagara in the fall of 1689, while making its maiden voyage, does Lake Solitude hold the key to that mystery? There are those who believe it does.
Some day we shall find Lake Solitude's phantom Some day we shall write the final chapter of the story that has intrigued us since childhood; but meanwhile Lake Solitude guards its secret.
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LIXEY FISHERIES
Established 1897
Joseph Alex Soudriette was the son of Alexander Soudriette whose grandfather was born near the River Raisin in 1724. Alexander was married to Elizabeth Campeau, niece of Joseph Compeau of Detroit history, and had a trading post near what is now Bay City. The Indians had trouble pronouncing Soudriette and used the name Lexy for Alexander and thus the name Lixey was born. Joseph began fishing in Saginaw Bay in the late 1840's. Some years later he moved to the mouth of the AuSable River, where a fishing settlement had sprung up, and began fishing there in 1860. Cotton gill nets were used in those days and were laboriously made by hand during the winter months. They were set and lifted by sailboat. The fish (whitefish, lake trout, herring, and pickerel) were salted and shipped to market by lake going schooners.
Henry Lixey joined his father in fishing in 1887. He moved to the East Tawas area in 1897 where he began his own fishing company and had two Indians in his employ. Pound or 'pond' nets were now in use. They were made of cotton twine which had to be treated with tar to prevent rotting and were held in place by long poles driven into the lake bottom. Boats with engines came into use shortly after 1900 and the fish were iced and shipped to such distant markets as New York by train.
In 1926, Henry with brother John, son Ralph and Eli Herrick, formed a new fish company in East Tawas located at the end of Alice Street. In 1932 , they began using the submarine trap net They were constructed with 'pots' which trapped the fish and allowed them to swim freely. Whitefish spawn had been saved by the fishermen and was used by the Alpena hatcheries to restock the lake annually as since the 1890's they had already shown signs of depletion. After 1932 this practice was terminated and the whitefish catch fell off drastically. There were at this time 13 major fishing companies and several smaller ones from the losco County line to Oscoda. These folded rapidly and by 1950 were out of business.
In 1957 , Richter and Donald Lixey, sons of Henry , formed their own company, and with a third brother, Mervin, resumed the family occupation. They built their nets of nylon twine which did not require tarring or coppering and lasted indefinitely. Whitefish were still not plentiful and the catches were modest. The pollution of Saginaw Bay, the whitefish spawning grounds, and the infiltration of the lamphrey eel through the St. Lawrence Seaway was blamed for this.
In 1978, the use of gill nets, which kill all fish becoming entangled in their meshes, became outlawed. Another method was sought to catch the round whitefish or menominees for which the gill net was successful. Donald Lixey designed a trap net under the supervision of the Federal Sea Grant biologists from the University of Michigan. This net uses a much smaller mesh and has proved to be very successful as well, catching perch and whitefish, also with no damage to undersized fish which can be returned to the water. They have also developed their own retail and wholesale marketing and rarely ship to city markets.
Richter Lixey died in 1980 leaving Don and Mervin to continue until Mervin died in the 90's. In the present day Don Lixey continues the company and enjoys working in the market. Whitefish, menominees. and perch as well as salmon (purchased from Indians) are sold at the market.
This long time family business will probably come to a close when Don decides to quit as none of the younger generation has been interested in continuing. The Lixey Fisheries have long been part of the growth and development of losco County but in today's fast paced world operational costs, long hours, hazards of the sea and low profits do not make fishing an attractive occupation for the new generation.
Information furnished by the Lixey family, a name and industry woven into the history of losco County.
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