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Onaway Historical Museum, Onaway, MI

Photo: David Coats, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped and resized.

Museums

Onaway Historical Museum

Local history museum on the ground floor of Onaway's restored historic courthouse, covering the town's past from its founding to the present.

20774 State Street, Onaway, MI · Onaway, MI

About Onaway Historical Museum

The museum is run by the Onaway Historical Society and shares the story of the northern Michigan town from its late-1800s founding onward. Exhibits trace the community's early hopes of becoming a county seat, its growth into a lumber-driven factory town, its harder years, and its later rise as a tourist destination. Current displays recreate scenes from around 1900, including a classroom, a military room, a doctor's office, and a parlor, along with a large collection of wooden steering wheels made by the American Rim Company, also known as the Lobdell-Emery Wooden Steering Wheel Factory. The society also plans to renovate the former Lobdell Administration Building into a future home for the museum.

  • #local history
  • #courthouse
  • #lumber industry
  • #wooden steering wheels
  • #turn-of-the-century displays

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