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Photograph of Onota, Au Train Township, Michigan
Photograph by Shonebrooks, CC BY 2.5. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Bay Furnace

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.

From the record

“Onota was a village in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. It was located on the Grand Island Bay of Lake Superior near the present-day community of Christmas about five miles (8 km) west of Munising in Alger County.”

Wikipedia article Onota, Au Train Township, Michigan, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 14 National Register listings published here for Alger County · listed in 1971 · category: Structure.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service · the Wikipedia article

The listing

  • What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
  • Address. NW of Christmas off MI 28 in Hiawatha National Forest, Christmas, 49862
  • When was it listed? September 1971
  • Category. structure
  • Township. Au Train township
  • National Register reference number. 71000382 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

12 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 12 fires within 5 miles of Bay Furnace between 1992 and 2020, burning about 19 acres in total. 1 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause Fires
Recreation and ceremony4
Missing data/not specified/undetermined3
Power generation/transmission/distribution1
Smoking1
Equipment and vehicle use1
Natural1
Debris and open burning1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
5 September 2020Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreHiawatha National ForestISLAND
28 August 2003Naturalunder an acreMichigan Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
16 July 2011Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreHiawatha National ForestGAME FENSE
13 July 1998Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreHiawatha National ForestMURRAY BAY
22 June 1998Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreHiawatha National ForestWICKES POINT
9 May 2016Debris and open burning2.0 acresMichigan Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
26 May 2020Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresMichigan Department of Natural ResourcesAUTRAIN TOWNSHIP VFD 0001220 - 2020
2 May 1994Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMichigan Department of Natural Resourcesnot named

Every fire recorded in Alger County

Mines and quarries near this property

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Bay Furnace: 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Fire Clay (Refractory). Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Shaw and Lobb Clay PitFire Clay (Refractory)Past Producer

Every working recorded in Alger County

Storms near this property

3 since 2005

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Christmas, the town this property stands in, in 3 storm reports between 2005 and 2017: 2 hail, 1 tornado. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
June 2017HailChristmas-There was a public report of 1.5 inch diameter hail near Christmas. The hail lasted approximately ten minutes.
July 2005Tornado (F0)Christmas-Brief tornado downed several tree branches on Grand Island.
May 2009HailChristmas-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Alger County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

5 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph PropertyDistance Listed
Grand Island Harbor Rear Range Light0.8 miles1990
Lobb House3.1 miles1976
Schoolcraft Furnace Site4.1 miles1977
M-94 (old)-Au Train River Bridge6.2 miles1999
Paulson House7.3 miles1972

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 71000382 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Alger CountyAll 14 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

  • Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
  • Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
  • How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
  • Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
  • Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
  • Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.