When the federal government settled the boundary dispute between Michigan Territory and Ohio in 1835, Ohio was elated. Michigan, on the other hand, was not overjoyed. To end the squabble, the federal government awarded the Toledo strip to Ohio. As a consolation prize, Michigan was given what would become known as the Upper Peninsula.

From Michigan’s point of view, it was not much of a prize. For one thing, the new territory was not the government’s to award; it belonged to the Ojibway. The treaties of 1837 and 1842 transferred the lands from the Ojibway to the federal government, which still did Michigan little good, because while the lands had been given to Michigan, even before it achieved statehood, the federal government now administered the western half of the lands as mineral lands, under the Missouri Lead Laws.

Of course, once copper, then iron, was discovered in the western and central sections of the peninsula, Michigan became quite happy to have the property, from which it eventually derived substantial tax revenue.

But, by the early to mid-20th century, it had become obvious that copper production would not last much longer. The state government began looking around for new ways to exploit the Upper Peninsula for alternative revenues as copper production declined.

The Michigan Economic Development Commission contracted with a New York company, Ebasco Services, Inc, to conduct a comprehensive engineering study of the economic resources of the Upper Peninsula. The result of the study was a 220-page report published in June, 1953.

For the study, Ebasco divided the U.P. into four regions: The Eastern, East Central, West Central, and Western districts. The study first focused on each district, then on the peninsula as a whole.

The report stated that, in 1950, copper production was valued at just under $19.5 million, and employed 12,500 workers. At the same time, agriculture employed 12,200 workers and generated $19,68,000 – agriculture had surpassed copper production economically.

Forestry and forest products surpassed them both. In 1950, this industry generated $127 million, employing nearly 19,000 workers to do it. It is not surprising then, that the report emphasized this industry.

“One of the important fields for potential development lies in forest products,” the report stated. “Small-log sawmills coupled with kiln drying facilities are needed to handle second-growth hardwoods and aspen.”

The expansion of dairy farming, as well as potato and strawberry production, was also recommended for expansion.

While these were sound ideas from an economic standpoint, the report neglected to consider that these industries shared a disadvantage: they were land intensive and required significant financial investment in acreage and machinery.

Ebasco also inadvertently insulted many Copper Country business owners in the hospitality industry in its report, when it opined:

“However, to encourage greater travel, resort and recreation, business more and better facilities are a real necessity.”

Already in 1947, the Copper Country classified business and professional directory for Houghton, Keweenaw, Ontonagon and Baraga counties boasted:

“Hotels, tourist cabins, cottages, rooms, camping and trailer parking arrangements are available in every locality for the overnight transient, and week-end visitor or the guest who plans to stay several weeks or months. Roadside parks equipped for outdoor cooking dot the area, and in several communities, there are beaches with bath houses and playgrounds.”

Of course, all of this was to make the middle and upper class vacationer and traveler feel welcome and comfortable.

In 1959, the Travel Market published the results of a national survey on travel and recreation. It reported that those with a family income above $10,000 (about $115,700 in today’s money) accounted for nearly 40 percent of non-business rail trips, and 14 percent of non-business auto trips. People with incomes in that bracket were few, however, according to the November 1956 Current Population Reports, Consumer Income, published by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

According to that report, about 4/5 of all men who worked in 1955 were employed full-time, and the median income was $3,200, far below the $10,000 level. Among women, the average income for that year was $1,100.

If Ebasco, which had conducted the U.P. economic study, had reported there was room for expansion in farming across the U.P., that might be explained by the Department of Commerce. According to its report, farm income averaged $1,300 in 1955, as compared to the $3,200 income for non-farm work. Of non-farm employment, small business owners and sales workers trended higher: These sectors averaged $3,900 in 1954, and had risen to $4,500 by 1955.

The engineers who conducted the study provided a myriad of suggestions for increasing industry, manufacturing, retail, wholesale sectors as well as hospitality. But it failed to account for an adequate labor force to achieve those objectives. The region’s young workers were leaving in droves.

“There are some unfavorable situations of major importance,” the report pointed out, “an attitude of defeatism in some localities, a lack of appreciation of changing market demands and some evidence of undue reliance on outside help all of which must be recognized and remedied.”

The report’s researchers seem to have stumbled onto, then failed to recognize, their discovery:

“The people of the Upper Peninsula communities are affected less by economic cycles than people in metropolitan centers, since they have the opportunity to supplement their income with farms, wood lots, hunting and fishing, and by participation in the recreation industry.”

This struck right at the core of outward migration of the young: Working full-time at jobs that paid so low that adding farming and harvesting firewood just to survive was a ridiculous concept by 1950. It allowed no time or energy for “participation in the recreation industry.” To voluntarily submit to a subsistence lifestyle so the state could enjoy the fruits of economic development was ludicrous. To many, it sounded like an invitation to return to Medieval feudalism.

“The continual yearly loss to other areas of the aggressive young people of the Upper Peninsula is a problem of the Upper Peninsula of major proportions,” the Ebasco report stated, seemingly in some dismay. “The glamour of jobs in metropolitan centers is seriously draining this vital element of the labor pool.”

The young people who were born and raised in the Upper Peninsula had watched their parents and their grandparents, aunts and uncles, struggle through lifetimes of poverty and substandard income levels for the sake of mine profits and business owners, with little personal gain. They wanted something more, and they were satisfied to leave the region to obtain it.