Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Mike DesRochers, chair of the Baraga County Historical Society Subcommittee to Save the Ford Sawmill, gives an update on the group’s efforts at Monday’s Baraga County Board meeting.

L’ANSE — The drive to restore and reopen the Alberta sawmill and pumphouse is making progress, members of the group behind the effort said Monday.

Mike DesRochers and Wayne Abba, members of the Baraga County Historical Society subcommittee working to preserve the structures, updated the Baraga County Board.

Work to preserve the sawmill and pumphouse, part of Henry Ford’s planned community in Alberta, began last year after word Michigan Technological University was planning to tear the buildings down. Tech has since been cooperating with the group on preservation.

“We did find out that it was in their plan to tear down the pumphouse last year,” he said. “So if we hadn’t intervened when we did, the pumphouse would be gone, if not the sawmill itself. So we think that we may have stepped in at just the right time.”

The nearby pumphouse is on track to be fixed up early this spring, Abba said.

“We would have an interim place where people could come in,” he said. “(We’d) take some of the exhibits from the sawmill and put them up in the pump house, so people would have something to actually go to. And then as time goes by, we hope to be able to get them back inside the mill again.”

Tech’s social sciences department has shown interest in the restoration, Abba said.

“They teach a class called industrial archaeology, and they can’t imagine a better place to have somebody learn about lumbering industrial archaeology than an intact sawmill created by Henry Ford,” he said.

Tech’s social sciences department is putting together a package to apply for the site to be added to the National Registry, Abba said. The subcommittee had a conference with the State Historic Preservation office last year.

The SHPO representative had been impressed when she learned the site’s original buildings were intact, as well as the original 1,700 acres donated by Ford, Abba said.

“She said you never see that when you’re talking about historic preservation, and so that makes it an obvious candidate for the National Registry,” he said.

The sawmill opened in 1936. Ford had two other sawmills in the county located in Pequaming and L’Anse.

While those two were focused on production, Alberta was intended as a public showcase.

“Never a production mill — a demonstration mill, a PR kind of operation as well, but a place that came to mean an awful lot to a lot of us,” Abba said. “You don’t have to scratch hard to find Alberta and Ford roots around here.”

Ford operated it through 1954, before funding renovations to turn the site into a museum, Michigan Tech’s website said. The mill, buildings and 1,700 acres of forest were given to Michigan Tech for educational purposes.

Michigan Tech forestry students used the sawmill regularly until it closed in 1980. It was last operated in 1997, when Tech sent 14 logs through the mill to document the process on video.

Starting in 1996, the public could visit the sawmill, which was kept open with interpretive displays. Tech closed the site to the public about five years ago, citing necessary upgrades to electrical systems, walkways and lighting.

Addressing one of Tech’s fears, the SHPO representative said the designation doesn’t prevent Tech from tearing down a structure if it becomes necessary, Abba said.

The SHPO representative also told them there would be grants available specific to logging history, which is underrepresented in preservation efforts, Abba said.

“They may be smaller grants, but these are the things that we would be needing support on as we move this forward,” he said.

Members of the Henry Ford Heritage Association are also interested in coming up to tour the mill, Abba said.

The group asked the county board to work with the group to recognize, advertise and promote Alberta as a regional tourism attraction. Abba said they also hope to put up an informational kiosk at Alberta and update the signage at Canyon Falls. The current signage, years out of date, gives visitors a phone number they can call for a tour of the sawmill.

“You go by Canyon Falls, it’s hard to get a parking spot any given day anymore,” he said. “You look at those two things together, it’s really the entry point not only to Baraga County, but to the western U.P.”

The group is also working with Alexis Dahl, a YouTube influencer who has worked with the Baraga County Chamber of Commerce on projects including the Iron Range Railroad. Dahl is visiting the sawmill at 2 p.m. Friday to make a video about the sawmill project. The building will be open to the public.

The subcommittee asked for $1,000 to go towards the $3,000 fee being paid to Dahl; MTU had already agreed to the other $2,000, DesRochers said.

Baraga County Clerk Wendy Goodreau said she would have to consult with the county’s auditors to see if the county was able to donate money to the group. The board took no action Monday.

In other action, the Baraga County Board:

• Approved hiring a new Baraga County deputy to serve as a school resource officer in L’Anse. The grant-funded position will run for at least three years. When school is not in session, the deputy will work on other patrols, including ORV and snowmobile, Sheriff Joe Brogan said.

• Accepted Sally Klaasen’s resignation from the Board of Trustees of the Baraga County Extended Care Corp. The county is also seeking a representative for the Western Upper Peninsula Planning Development Region board.

• Approved a grant application for $64,768 in expenses for the county’s remonumentation program. The 2023 program calls for 42 corners and 43 records to be surveyed and researched.

• Approved a lease agreement with the State of Michigan for space in the county administrative building. The five-year lease sets rent at $400 a month for the 160-square-foot office.