Urban Legends and Folklore of Michigan's Upper Peninsula

The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is a beautiful yet mystery-filled place.

From east to west, the entire area is steeped in history, and as with many places with that much history, there are a ton of urban legends, folklore, and hauntings surrounding it.

⬇️Check Out These 50 Haunted Michigan Locations⬇️

I started looking into some of these stories after stumbling across this thread on the official Upper Peninsula Reddit page earlier this year.

I grew up in the U.P., and there were several that I had never heard of in the 20 years that I called the area home.

Let's take a look at a few of them.

The Vanishing Ghost Town of Peterson, Michigan

While the U.P. is filled with ghost towns due to the many towns that popped up in the area during the mining boom that simply couldn't survive, Peterson is different than most.

According to legend, it disappears. Those in the know say that the town will appear to people hiking in the woods of the U.P. once but then can never be found by them again.

The Ontonagan Triangle in Ontonagan and Houghton Counties, Michigan

Google Maps/Canva.com

This mystery creeps me out even more because the story unfolds during the timeframe that I lived in the U.P.

It's hard to say what's happening in this 50-square-mile area of the Upper Peninsula, but four people went missing in these woods between 1987 and 1993, never to be seen again.

Jimmy Hoffa's Rumored Final Resting Place - Seewhy, Michigan

This is another one that I'm surprised I had never heard of. Not only had I not heard the Hoffa theory until recently, but I also had no idea that Seewhy existed. And it's in the county where I spent my childhood!

At least one man has a theory that Hoffa was killed and buried in the ghost town of Seewhy, located in Chippewa County in the Eastern Upper Peninsula.

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Those are just three of the more than a dozen stories of hauntings, folklore, and urban legends I discovered on my search. Check out the rest below.

Hauntings, Folklore, and Urban Legends Surrounding Michigan's Upper Peninsula

Michigan's Upper Peninsula is beautiful, and it also has its fair share of folklore and superstitions.

Gallery Credit: Wendy Reed

50 Haunted Michigan Locations

Below is just the tip of the iceberg—a list of fifty Michigan hauntings that have been "reported" in cemeteries, houses, woods, jails, businesses, neighborhoods...if you can name it, there's probably a haunting for it.

Take a look at the list of fifty Michigan hauntings below and come to your own conclusions.