Grand Marais — This quaint downtown nestled on a bay of Lake Superior has everything you need: a small grocery store, a hardware store, a museum, a restaurant, and a house made out of a giant pickle barrel.
The two-story structure just off main street is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Its whimsical shape is homely and inviting, and it makes you feel like a tiny cartoon character.
It was built for cartoonist William Donahey, who created The Teenie Weenies, a successful comic strip. His ingenious characters are small versions of normal people. They might live inside a hat or a small pickle barrel.
One lima bean could feed an entire family of Teenie Weenies. For them, it’s a herculean task to move a strawberry or cross a puddle. It’s adorable. Eventually, Donahey partnered with Reid, Murdoch & Co. to use the Teenie Weenies to advertise for its Monarch Foods brand.
Reid, Murdoch & Co. even had a line of Teenie Weenie Pickles that came in a little barrel. Kids would get a small barrel-shaped book with some of the cartoons and a pitch for Monarch-brand pickles.
Then, in a twist of marketing, Reid, Murdoch & Co. decided to give Donahey his own pickle barrel house as a vacation home in the Upper Peninsula. The company of course had its own agenda—selling pickles—so it said “Monarch Teenie Weenies” on the house.
Unfortunately for Donahey, who was reportedly quite shy, the house was well-publicized by the company. It soon appeared on tourist maps, and Donahey and his wife, also a children’s book author, reportedly had to skip town on Sundays because of the sightseers.
“I didn’t realize they were giving it to me free and that there would be so much publicity attached to it or I would never have accepted,” Donahey reportedly told the Chicago Tribune later in life.
The Donaheys suffered through 10 years of tourism before they gave the giant barrel house to a Grand Marais store owner who was eager to move it into town and use it to boost profits.
Michigan Enjoyer got an exclusive tour of the Pickle Barrel House, as did this reporter’s two young children who were endlessly delighted.
Upon entering the upstairs bedroom area, my youngest courteously began to remove her shoes while the older began to lay down on one of the small beds.
Who can blame them?
Despite being a museum, the house is adorable and homey. You feel comfortable in it, maybe because of the handmade quilt on the beds and the yellow floral-print window dressing. Maybe it’s the quaint shape of the ceiling or the custom spiral staircase.
It’s a real barrel, a giant version of the one Teenie Weenies lived in. The company originally built the house on nearby Grand Sable Lake, with painstaking traditional coopering methods and custom doors and windows, drawing inspiration from one of Donahey’s cartoon blueprints.
It’s a shame Donahey and his wife couldn’t enjoy the vacation spot without tourists creeping in, but selling more pickles was the reason it existed to begin with.
You could choose to see it as the pursuit of profits over everything, or you could see it as a whimsical victory: An idea from the mind of a children’s cartoonist was brought to life at scale. You can go inside it and feel like a Teenie Weenie character yourself. It makes you feel like a kid again.
And if you’re a kid, you feel right at home.
Brendan Clarey is deputy editor of Michigan Enjoyer.
