Iron Mountain Central Historic District

About this property

The Iron Mountain Central Historic District is a historic district, broadly located between Fleshiem and C Streets and between Iron Mountain and Stockbridge Avenues in Iron Mountain, Michigan. The district covers the city's central business district and adjacent areas. It is primarily commercial, but also contains the historic county courthouse complex, and school, library, and church buildings. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013. A major iron ore deposit was discovered near what is now Iron Mountain in 1878/79; the first ore from the first area mine (the Chapin Mine) was produced in late 1879. Iron Mountain was first platted in December 1879 by Samuel M. and Isaac Stephenson and Joseph Flesheim; their platting encompassed what is now the northeast portion of the Central Historic District. Numerous other mines opened in the area, and workers began flooding in. Buildings appeared in Iron Mountain almost overnight, and in 1881 the Stephensons and Joseph Flesheim executed a second plat, extending the original one to the west. In 1882 they made a second addition, and other businessmen added plats so that by late 1883, the entirety of what is now the Central Historic District had been platted. During the decade that followed, the population of Iron Mountain soared, to over 5000 in 1888 and over 8500 in 1890. Following the population boom, wooden commercial buildings sprang up along Stephenson Street, beginning at Fleishem and continuing south to C Street. Following a string of fires, in 1889 an ordinance was enacted to mandate masonry commercial buildings. A number of buildings were constructed in the late 1880s and early 1890s, including four large masonry structures in 1891. As the 20th century turned, the population boom of the late 19th century had plateaued. The Panic of 1893 precipitated an industrial slowdown and a surge of unemployment in the local mines. Although the local economy recovered, the 1900 population was just over 9000, only a few hundred more than in 1890. The subsequent gradual decline of mining in the early twentieth century, with few new industries in the area to take its place, heralded a slow decline in population; by 1920 Iron Mountain again had a little more than 8500 people. Mirroring the general economic health of the city, only a few new buildings were constructed from 1900 to 1920. With the onset of the 1920s, the local economy again boomed. Ford Motor Company constructed a sawmill and body plant in 1921–22, which employed 2200 people in 1923 and over 7000 in 1925. In addition, the surge in national automotive traffic and improvements in roads boosted the local tourism economy. By 1924, an additional 5000 people had moved into Iron Mountain. The boom in population again heralded a boom in construction in the downtown commercial district.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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