A Bit of Modern in the late 1800's

Last week my daughter and I travelled to Fayette across US 2, along the Lake Michigan coast of the Upper Peninsula.  Our original goal was to visit Fayette, Michigan.  Fayette is a historical site dating from 1867 to about 1890.  It was a small city created to make pig iron from iron ore mined in the UP.  While it only existed less than 40 years it had a working class neighborhood, a middle class area and of course the company executive home area.  The State Parks system and the historical preservations/archeologists have done a wonderful job of recreating and show casing this "ghost town" encased by the dolomite cliffs of the Garden Peninsula.  Many buildings are open and clearly demonstrate how these families and workers lived and worked.  One of the homes' exhibits explained how the women kept busy while their husbands worked 10-12 hours per day, 6 days a week making and supporting the pig iron foundry.  Of course quilting was one of the necessities, not hobbies.  The blocks shown below are original to Fayette.  The one block at first glance looks very modern with a cut and slash pattern, but alas it was the fabric.  I thought you might enjoy seeing these blocks from 120 years ago.

                               The lower right block at first looked like a cut and slash technique.

                                                        Some of the town buildings

 Jeny is standing in front of the building where charcoal was made/used to stoke and first the foundry.

                                      The view of the bay looking in Lake Michigan

                                                      The pig iron foundry.
As you can see we had perfect weather!  Much is said by many about Michigan weather, here's an example how gorgeous it can be in the Upper Peninsula.