Tuesday, August 23, 2011

More on Mitiwanga

Looking east on US Route 6
Here's another look at Mitiwanga, that tiny blink-and-you-might-miss-it resort community on US Route 6 just east of Huron.

Below is the entry for Mitiwanga from a facsimile edition of Lake Erie Vacationland in Ohio, a 1941 travel guide compiled by the Ohio Writers' Program of the Works Projects Administration.

Postcards featuring Mitiwanga are easy to find on Ebay, although trying to get 'then and now' shots of them is just about impossible, since all the cottages and buildings are well off Route 6 (if they do indeed survive).

Nevertheless, here's a variety of Mitiwanga postcards to give you a bit of the flavor of the resort.

Wild Waves Hotel, postmarked 1932



The Wild Waves Motel maintains a website here.

For a great collection of vintage Mitiwanga photos, as well as the definitive history of the resort, visit the Vacationland page on Drew Penfield's Lake Shore Rail Maps website by clicking here.
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11 comments:

  1. DJAugust 23, 2011 at 10:43 AM

    I wondered what a Mitiwanga was during my visits to Huron and Vermilion earlier this summer. Many thanks for enlightening me!

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  2. PaigeSeptember 3, 2011 at 3:07 AM

    Thank you for posting the description from the travel guide! I've not run across that before. The majority of the original Mitiwanga cottages are still there. I'm actually working on matching postcards to present cottages as part of a book I'm writing on the history of Mitiwanga.

    I love that you've got a link to Drew's electric line site!

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  3. AnonymousJuly 31, 2015 at 3:40 PM

    Mitiwanga may have a Huron mailing address but I'd considered to be more part of Vermilion (it is in the Vermilion school district). Anyway, I went to high school in Vermilion in the mid to late 70's. In those days Mitiwanga was quite the hippyish freak hang-out then and had been for quite a while. I visited Vermilion again a few years back (2012-ish) and someone told me that it's still that way.

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  4. PattySeptember 30, 2015 at 9:43 PM

    I lived in Mitiwanga in the 80s. I miss it and plan to buy a home there in the future.It is truly a beautiful place. I would like to know the meaning of the name(where it came from in history)not sure its tied into the rail lines. Please let me know if anyone has information.

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  5. KathFebruary 27, 2016 at 11:50 PM

    I visited Mitiwanga in June of 2015 to retrace the steps of my aunt, who was a nanny to a family there in the summer of 1925. I was struck by how little the place had changed from that era. Have lots of her old photos, if you are interested!

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    Replies
    1. UnknownFebruary 18, 2020 at 6:25 PM

      I lived there for 30 years . I love seeing the old pictures.

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    2. AnonymousFebruary 4, 2023 at 10:38 AM

      I'm from there as well.

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  6. UnknownFebruary 18, 2020 at 6:26 PM

    My home, I miss Mitiwanga so much.

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  7. AnonymousFebruary 4, 2023 at 10:38 AM

    Me too.

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  8. AnonymousFebruary 4, 2023 at 10:38 AM

    I go back as much as I can. I was raised there in the 70s and 80s.

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