I had heard of an old historic site called Fayette, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (UP) while working in Traverse City for Midmark during the summer of 2018. This sounded like a great photographic opportunity when I could get to the UP. Looking into this town I found that it “was once one of the Upper Peninsula's most productive iron-smelting operations.” These blast furnaces produced 229,288 tons of pig iron from 1867 to 1891. Those docks saw, shall we say, some heavy usage in those 24 years. Pardon the pun. ;-)

In the fall of 2019, I made it to the UP and traveled to Fayette to make some photographs. What’s left on the site has been preserved and is known as the “Fayette Historic Townsite.” The one specific item that drew me to the location was the remains of the old dock that has eroded over the past 120+ years. This image was created from a section of the remaining dock pilings. These submerged and somewhat eerie pilings seem to be the voices calling out from below to the remnants that have thus far stood the test of time.