Manistique and the Siphon Bridge

Manistique grew up on pine. Starting before the Civil War, loggers drove enormous rafts of white pine down the Manistique River to Lake Michigan, and at the industry's peak in the eighteen eighties and nineties, one hundred million to one hundred twenty-five million board feet of logs floated downriver every single year. When the pines ran out, the town survived on paper mills and fishing.

But the oddest thing Manistique left behind is the Siphon Bridge, built by a pulp and paper company to create water power for its turbines. The road surface sits below the level of the river itself. Water flowing through the flume actually holds the bridge up from below, making it technically a siphon.

A Ripley's Believe It or Not marker calls it one of the world's strangest bridges. The nearby water tower, built in nineteen twenty-two in Romanesque style and standing one hundred thirty-seven feet tall, is on the National Register of Historic Places as well.