Jail and Sheriff's Residence

Jail and Sheriff's Residence is a Michigan historical marker in Cheboygan, Cheboygan County, dedicated 2005.

404 South Huron Street, Cheboygan

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This structure served as the Cheboygan County sheriff’s residence and jail from 1880 to 1969. The building originally had seven cells. Faced with overcrowding, the county built an additional sixteen cells in 1912. During the local lumber boom (1860-1920) drunken rowdy lumbermen sobered up in the jail. The inmates often did chores in exchange for their bed and meals prepared by the sheriff’s wife. In 1972 the building became a museum devoted to Cheboygan County history. Of all the lawmen who lived in this building, Sheriff Frederick Ming (1865-1943) was the most notorious. He was a farmer, a veterinarian, and a state legislator who fought for the tuberculosis sanatorium in Gaylord. As sheriff, however, in October 1900, Ming forced the Burt Lake Indian people from their homes at Indian Village and stood by with his deputies while land speculator John McGinn burned the village in a land grab. The burnout left most of the Indian people homeless and impoverished.

TodayHistorical map

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, The New York Public Library

Historical maps covering this location

1860 · County map of Michigan, and Wisconsin. (Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, The New York Public Library)
1873 · Michigan. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1874 · Colton's Michigan (1874) (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1897 · Southern Michigan. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1907 · Map of the original swamp areas of the lower peninsula of Michigan. : 1907. Compiled from… (University of Michigan Library)

Colton's Michigan (1874), 1874, covering the location of Jail and Sheriff's Residence, with a pin at the marker's coordinates — Colton's Michigan (1874), 1874, covering this location. Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries. The pin is ours, placed from the marker's coordinates.

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Marker data: Michigan History Center
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More markers nearby

Old Cheboygan County Courthousesame spot
St. Mary Churchunder 1 mi
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Bois Blanc Island / Bois Blanc Island6 mi

On the National Register nearby

Cheboygan County Courthouse140 ft

Places within about 300 feet of this marker that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A nearby listing is not always the marker's own subject.