| Huron City Historic District | |
| Nrhp Type: | hd |
| Coordinates: | 44.0311°N -82.8325°W |
| Architecture: | Stick/eastlake |
| Added: | April 28, 1995 |
| Refnum: | 95000446 |
| Designated Other1: | Michigan State Historic Site |
The Huron City Historic District is a historic district encompassing the village of Huron City, Michigan, with structures located primarily along Pioneer Drive. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.
The area around Huron City was first settled as part of the area's lumber boom, with a sawmill constructed at this location in the 1830s or 1840s. By 1852, P. F. Brakeman & Co. was operating a water-powered sawmill. Brakeman sold out to Dowling & Forbes of Port Huron, who sold to R. B. Hubbard & Co., a lumbering firm owned by Bloomfield, Connecticut brothers Langdon and Watson Hubbard and their cousin Rollin Barnard Hubbard; the company itself was based in Sandusky, Ohio. R. B. Hubbard & Co. managed a mill in Lexington, Michigan, and began developing their Huron City operation in the mid-late 1850s. By 1867, both Rollin and Watson Hubbard were working in Sandusky, leaving Langdon Hubbard in charge of the Huron City operations.
By 1871, the Hubbard sawmill was reportedly producing 40,000 board feet of lumber per day, and a settlement had grown up around it. However, the Great Michigan Fire of 1871 completely destroyed the town. Hubbard rebuilt, and by 1875 the sawmill was rebuilt, and the village has a store, hotel, school, and houses. After the fire, Langdon Hubbard began obtaining rights to parcels in the village from the other Hubbard & Co. partners, and by 1881 effectively controlled the entire settlement. However, the 1881 Thumb Fire again entirely destroyed the village of Huron City, with Langdon Hubbard's losses reported at $50,000.
Hubbard again rebuilt, constructing a grist mill, saw mill, boardinghouse, hotel, school, stores, and a number of houses. The sawmill was still in business, but local timber was scarce, and there was an influx of newcomers seeking farmland in the area, allowing Hubbard to sell what had previously been timberland. Langdon Hubbard died in 1892, and William H. Bennett took over the mill. However, without Hubbard, Huron City began to slowly wither. The hotel closed in 1901, the mill in 1903, and by 1907 there was only a single business in town.
However, Hubbard's daughter Annabel had married William Lyon Phelps in 1892, and the couple summered in Huron City nearly every year until Annabel's death in 1938. The Phelpses owned nearly all of Huron City, and the village transformed from a declining mill town to a small rural hamlet, maintaining the former hotel as a community gathering place and re-landscaping portions of the village. After Annabel's death in 1938, Phelps turned over control of the town to his niece Carolyn Hubbard Parcells, who with her husband Charles began the project of preserving Huron City. In 1946 they established the William Lyon Phelps Foundation, which constructed a museum, and restored the general store and hotel.
The Huron City Historic District includes a number of structures, nearly all of which date to the mid-1880s rebuilding of the village after the Thumb Fire. The LaGassa Log House - a relocated structure - is also located within the Historic District. From 1964 to 2017, the site also served as the home for some relocated portions of the Pointe aux Barques United States Life-Saving Service (LSS) Station.
The structures are generally located along Pioneer Drive and Huron City Road. Significant structures and locations, from west to east along Pioneer Drive, include: