Rogers City — Pull up a map of Michigan. Find Charlevoix and Rogers City. They appear like a pair at the tip of the Lower Peninsula. One western, one eastern. Charlevoix on Lake Michigan. Rogers City on Lake Huron. On paper, they are strikingly similar. But on the ground, they are strikingly different.
Both cities sit at nearly the same latitude. They are both, decidedly, Up North. To get from one to the other is an 81 mile drive straight through the northern wilderness. Both are practically the same size. According to the 2020 census, Charlevoix’s population is 2,348. Rogers City’s is 2,850. Their elevation is practically identical, and they are nearly same age: Charlevoix was incorporated as a village in 1879, Rogers City in 1877.
These two places are like twins separated at birth. Even the cradle of the natural world where these two towns rest is sublime in the same way. The northern sky, the rush of the waves, thick pines that run up to the shore. Open your eyes 200 years ago and you might not be able to tell the difference between the water in Charlevoix and the waves in Rogers City.
But we are not living 200 years ago. History has happened, and we can tell the difference between Charlevoix and Rogers City clear as day. They are two towns on two different lakes in two different worlds.
Charlevoix
In Charlevoix, Bridge Street is full of activity. The bridge over the channel rises to let the ferry to Beaver Island in and the sailboats out. In the summer, the traffic backs up for blocks. There are little art galleries and boutiques crammed in along the road. It feels like everything in town is contained right here in a few blocks. Clothing shops that charge too much, June through August. Cafes and restaurants busy all day.
There is a pharmacy with an old blue-and-orange Rexall sign hanging above the door. There’s a mural painted along the wall facing Clinton St. A ferry coming toward shore, the lighthouse, a woman wearing clothing from the 19th century carrying an umbrella next to the water. Standing on the promenade next to the bandshell, looking over Round Lake, there are green and white boat houses, large cottages with dark windows, boat slips, a clock, an American flag, well-manicured grass, and a smattering of wooden benches.
Charlevoix was a lumbering hub in the late 1800s, but after a few decades, the area was stripped and the lumber business disappeared. Then the resort era began. Petoskey had Bay View, Harbor Springs had Wequetonsing, and Charlevoix had the Chicago Club. Passenger steamers made regular trips up north and the area became known as a place for summering.
While Charlevoix is historically a place of leisure, there is St. Marys Cement plant just south of town. It’s right on the coast. You can see it from the lighthouse. Though there is a plant right next to town, Charlevoix is not a manufacturing hub. No one would ever consider it a blue-collar town or anything other than exactly what it is. Charlevoix is a resort town.
Rogers City
Coming into Rogers City on Eerie Street, it feels like the road runs right into the water. The waves of Lake Huron roll beyond the concrete. Downtown, there is Nowicki’s Sausage Shoppe, with a great painted red elephant out front. Plath’s Meats with its pink pig in a tuxedo is right across the road.
There’s no traffic at the intersection and no crowds on the sidewalks. The buildings are larger here. More utilitarian, less cutesy. There’s a small movie theater a few blocks down. A Family Dollar next to the post office. The Rogers Theater has an old school sign out front, and it feels just as good as the old Rexall sign in Charlevoix.
In the Citgo parking lot down the road, you stand in front of a mural painted on the wall of the furniture store next door. There’s a freighter at sunrise and a huge fish leaping out of the water with a few others swimming calmly below.
Down along the water in Rogers City, the houses are modest. Simple. The lots are large and open. No one and no thing is packed in tight. There’s no rush on the land. There’s no incredible change to be observed in the housing between the Citgo and North Shore Park. Yes, of course, there is some, but not like Charlevoix.
Walking along Linden St. I watched a mother and her toddler playing in their small backyard. The little Trout River babbled along next to them. Lake Huron less than a block away. The neighborhood along the lake in Rogers City is normal. That’s it. Normal, in the best possible way.
Rogers City isn’t a tourist town. It doesn’t have massively inflated real estate. It’s never been anything like any of the lake towns on Lake Michigan despite having a great lake of its own just outside the door. Rogers City has always been an industrial town. A working-class place. The world’s largest limestone quarry is here, with a huge limestone processing plant to complement it.
There was never a Chicago Club resort in Rogers City. The passenger steamers didn’t come here like they did to Charlevoix. People played in the west; they worked in the east. They still do. Charlevoix is one of the great vacation towns in Michigan. Rogers City is just a town on Lake Huron.
The truth is, the beach is gorgeous in Rogers City. Seagull Point Park is as nice as any beach over on the west side of the state. It’s broad and deep, with nice sand and a vast view. It’s nicer than the beach at Charlevoix. It really is. Remember, you can see a cement factory from the beach in Charlevoix. At Seagull Point Park in Rogers City, the view is far more pristine.
It’s funny how we get stuck in a way of thinking. Lore, tradition, and common knowledge build on one another. Lake Erie was once a polluted hellhole. Now, it isn’t. People go to the Northwest for vacation, not the Northeast. It’s hard to reorient ourselves.
Maybe we needlessly limit ourselves by only referencing common knowledge. Perhaps we box ourselves in too tight when we should think outside instead.
Rogers City has the same kind of natural northern beauty as Charlevoix. If a house came up for sale or rent right down in the neighborhood by Seagull Point Park, I have to say that I might be tempted. A four-minute walk to the beach. Sand stuck to my legs walking home for dinner. The sound of the waves coming through the little windows in a little house I can actually afford. That sounds pretty nice.
O.W. Root is a writer based in Northern Michigan, with a focus on nature, food, style, and culture. Follow him on X at @NecktieSalvage.
