Logs cover the shoreline at the Hopkins sawmill in Bear Lake, Michigan, in this late-1800s/early-1900s view labeled “Scenes of By Gone Days.”
Bear Lake grew into a regional service hub during the lumber boom. Local histories credit the Hopkins brothers with building major mills and creating transportation links to get lumber to market, including the Bear Lake Tram Railway and the Bear Lake & Eastern Railroad to Pierport.
One 1882 county history said a “new sawmill” tied to the Hopkins operation had a capacity of 40,000 feet of lumber a day — a reminder of the scale of work behind scenes like this.
Do you have family stories about the Hopkins mill or other Bear Lake-area lumber camps?
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