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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Circus, post: 4529430, member: 51195&quot;]More so from lumber camps and lumber mill company stores, In 1882, an organization by the name of &quot;John Otis &amp; Company&quot; built a large charcoal furnace on the site.In the beginning of the corporation, lumber was hauled in from various lumber camps around Northern Mich.After many years of buying material to create the iron with, the company decided to obtain its own timber, and built a small railroad branch (named the Mancelona North West Railroad) heading 2 miles west from the company site. With this spur line, the company logged its own lumber and hauled it in on its own railroad, proving to be quite self-sufficient. This lasted until the 1920s, when the lumber ran out and other ways were developed to obtain the iron. After the war ended, the company quickly slowed down, and closed in 1945. The factory stood abandoned for over forty years, until it was torn down in the mid-1980s. Today all that is left of the old furnace consists of a few foundations, a small outbuilding, and a former railroad siding. The company dumped its waste in a pond behind the building, which years later led to water contamination in the town. The pond, called &quot;Tar Lake&quot;, was cleaned up in the mid to late 1990s.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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