The Ghost Village of Bigelow on M-32, Montmorency County
I came across this little burg one afternoon while on my way to Alpena...it’s a good thing I didn’t blink or I would have missed it. The two old buildings were intriguing enough to make me wonder “was there a village here at one time?” I figured there was more here than meets the eye.
There's not much written about this mysterious place, named "Bigelow" - seen on only a few Michigan maps. This is a tough little community of which to find any information - it does show up on Google Maps - but I did find a couple of nuggets.
The deserted village of Bigelow is located not far from another empty town, Big Rock (which you can read about HERE), in Vienna Township within Montmorency County. This whole area was full of prosperous pine logging operations, but by 1900, most of the trees were gone and timber was depleted.
Then came the Kneeland-Bigelow Company, founded in 1902. The company bought up most of the land that contained hardwood timber, mostly the west & southwest areas of Big Rock. They located their company offices in the area 4 miles southwest of Big Rock, which they gave two names after themselves: "Bigelow" and "K-B". To this day, it's listed as "Bigelow".
But that's basically all we know about it - it was a lumber town and was named after a lumber company....and at one point it was referred to as "Lundeen" for some reason. All that remains are a couple of former abandoned buildings (now renovated), no businesses, and a few homes scattered throughout the area.
Bigelow history is difficult to find, so until someone can offer up more, that's all I have. Scroll down and check out the photos below on how it currently appears.