Mancelona, MI

Mancelona is an Antrim County village on the northern Lower Peninsula’s US-131 and M-66 routes, with the Jordan River watershed stretching through the woods nearby. Perry Andress established a homestead here in 1869 and named the community for his daughter, Mancelona; the township followed two years later. The area’s industrial past was heavier than the village’s size suggests. The Antrim Iron Works operated about a mile south from 1882 to 1945, using local hardwood charcoal and timber for a major iron-making and chemical works.

These days, the Jordan gives Mancelona its outdoor edge. The river’s 33-mile course begins in northwestern Antrim County and runs through a valley of channels, trout water, forest, and state-managed land before reaching Lake Charlevoix. Graves Crossing State Forest Campground sits about ten miles north of the village, while local school life runs through Mancelona Public Schools and its Ironmen teams. It is a place where a former industrial site, a working school district, and the nearby river valley all point to different eras of the same north-country map.