COMMUNITY

We are pleased to announce that the kids are practicing on the ball field behind the Civic Center. We are so happy to see it used. Thank you to Huron East Knothole Association Oscoda & Alcona

HISTORY OF MIKADO TOWNSHIP

Daniel D. Bruce was born at King Center, Ontario, Canada, 1850, the son of Scottish emigrants. In 1863, the grandfather moved his family to Huron County, Michigan. He applied for, and was granted, citizenship and homestead rights in 1868. Two years later, he left Sand Beach (now Harbor Beach) by boat and landed at Greenbush in 1870.

In the early 1880s, the railroad began its move northward. The Detroit, Bay City and Alpena Railroad train traveled from Alger through Tawas, Oscoda, Mikado and Lincoln, continuing north six miles, then turning northeast to Black River where the Alger Smith Lumber Company had its headquarters.

In 1885, Daniel built the Bruce Hotel and livery barn. Lumber operations expanded, family dwellings multiplied and the hotel business thrived. Aware that a small community had sprung up about him, Daniel petitioned railroad officials to grant a train stop at the crossing near the hotel but they were noncommittal at that time.

When Daniel learned that a railroad ran west of Greenbush, it inspired him to purchase land from the U.S. government on which to build a hotel. That land. Once referred to as West Greenbush is now Mikado.

The Bruce Plat was surveyed and the legal document, which includes a map of the land purchased, was signed and paid for by Daniel D. Bruce in 1884.

Then, one afternoon in the winter of 1886, he received a letter stating that officials would discuss his proposition at 9 a.m. the following morning at Tawas. A foot of snow lay on the ground but Daniel trudged on throughout the night, arriving at Tawas at daybreak. He laid $360 on the table, all the money he had, and received assurance that the train would stop at the designated crossing.

On his return home, Daniel wrote to the Postmaster General at Washington D.C. suggesting the name “Bruce Crossing” for his newly-founded village. But postal authorities informed him that a town of that name existed in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It was the Assistant Postmaster General who named the town Mikado because he had recently enjoyed the Gilbert and Sullivan Operetta by that name. And that is how the town, founded by a Scotsman, came to have a Japanese name.

Daniel L. Bruce, son of Daniel D. Bruce was interviewed in 1986 who, at that time, was the only living person able to give an accurate account of the town’s history and had legal documents to verify his dates and facts. Here is the story he relates as told to him by his father, the founder of Mikado in the year 1886.

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