The Michigan Ghost Town of Salo in Houghton County
Salo - or what's left of it - sits along the road in the U.P.’s Houghton County, Keweenaw Peninsula. But where exactly is/was it? We turn to Wikipedia, whose total information output on this town is the following:
“Salo is an unincorporated community in the township.”
That’s it.
Well, that was sure worth it.
So to find any information or history whatsoever on this Michigan Ghost Town, one has to do a little digging…and there’s not much out there.
There is an old one-room schoolhouse sitting alongside Salo Road that is the only reminder that this is/was/ever a town. The schoolhouse was built in 1905, giving us some kind of window to work with. Classes shut down for good in 1945, and the school eventually turned into a township hall; it has changed ownership a few times.
Realtor.com says the school still has the original chalkboards, students’ coat hooks, hardwood floors, bead board cabinets, and a full basement. It also still has the old school piano and a separate, unattached original blackboard.
If you use Google satellite views, you see very few newer houses in the area, and possibly one or two old deserted ones in the woods, but not much else.
According to GhostTowns.com, Salo was “a place where children grew up, and where the elderly passed away” and that it was “very important to those who lived there”. Salo was founded by European settlers who turned it into a farming community…but where did they all go? There is no Salo cemetery that I could find.
Roadsidethoughts.com states “So far, we have found very little information about Salo. The little that we've found leads us believe that the community is historic”. Well, no kidding. Any ghost town is definitely historic, but where is all this history recorded? Where can we find it?
The old Salo schoolhouse is located on the west side of Salo Road, 7 miles north of Hancock and 5 miles west of Boston. Even though the school is the only remnant of Salo, it’s still worth a stop next time you roadtrip thru the Keweenaw Peninsula.
See some photos in the gallery below!