Return To Michigan
In 1862, Robinson returned to Michigan and settled at the village of Hancock, where he worked as a shipping clerk in the Quincy Mine until 1873. During that time, he had acquired about 2,000 acres (8 km²) of pine timber land. In 1873, he organized the Sturgeon River Lumber Company, which built mills in Hancock.
The owners of that company also organized the Sturgeon River Boom Company in 1875, and built a channel to bring logs from the Sturgeon River to Pike Bay. In 1881, Robinson purchased the land of John Chassell, a local banker and business man, located on Pike Bay. Robinson moved into Chassell's house and later built a new house on the same lot. To accommodate further expansion, the company's mills and principal operations were moved from Hancock to Chassell in 1887-88. By that time, the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railway had extended a line to the area with a stop at the growing community that Robinson named Chassell.
The new mill at Chassell, which had a capacity of twenty million board feet (47,000 m³) a year, employed over two hundred and was considered one of the largest in the state. Robinson maintained an interest in the business until 1902, when it was sold to the C. H. Wooster Lumber Company. Robinson also invested successfully in orange groves in Florida.
Read more about this topic: Orrin W. Robinson
Famous quotes containing the words return to and/or return:
“The chickadee and nuthatch are more inspiring society than statesmen and philosophers, and we shall return to these last as to more vulgar companions.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“O God of our flesh, return us to Your wrath,
Let us be evil could we enter in
Your grace, and falter on the stony path!”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)