There was a time when most every town in America had a blacksmith shop making items from metal, everything from farm tools to weapons to household goods. It’s something you don’t see much of anymore, since so much production of metal wares has been automated for generations.
Yet, Mackinac Island still has a blacksmith shop. In fact, there are two!
Take a look at these two historic blacksmith shops that you can visit while on a trip to Mackinac Island:
Benjamin Blacksmith Shop on Mackinac Island
By the time Robert Benjamin took over a blacksmith shop on Mackinac Island in the 1880s, the trade already was being phased out by advances in technology that prompted the Industrial Revolution. Still, the shop survived into the 1960s.
After all, as a car-free destination, Mackinac Island runs on horses. And all those horses needed horseshoes – a specialty of the Benjamin Blacksmith Shop!
The shop for the past several decades has been part of Mackinac State Historic Parks and is located next to the Biddle House Mackinac Island Native American Museum in Historic Downtown Mackinac. It’s where you can watch a blacksmith demonstrate the traditional technique of forging hot iron into items such as horseshoes and carriage wheels. The specific reenactment period dates to the 1950s when the Benjamin Blacksmith Shop also busied itself with lawnmower repairs and boat motor maintenance.
You can visit Benjamin Blacksmith Shop every day from early May into October. You can buy a Historic Downtown Mackinac ticket for admission to the Benjamin Blacksmith Shop as well as the Biddle House Mackinac Island Native American Museum, Richard & Jane Manoogian Mackinac Art Museum, the American Fur Co. Store & Dr. Beaumont Museum, and the McGulpin House. Otherwise, a ticket to Fort Mackinac includes same-day admission to each Historic Downtown Mackinac attraction, too.
Learn how blacksmithing on Mackinac Island changed through the 1800s and 1900s
Forge A Memory on Mackinac Island
As many blacksmiths were pushed out of business by machine production, some others began using their skills as farriers. That’s the term for someone who makes horseshoes. Of course, farriers are vital on Mackinac Island to this day. That’s how Chad Osborne made a living for many years, bending steel and shaping it to fit the feet of Mackinac Island horses.
In recent years, blacksmiths also have increasingly used their talents to make artistic works from metal. That’s the aim at Forge A Memory, which Osborne started in 2017 in Mackinac Island’s Surrey Hill neighborhood.
Forge A Memory helps customers turn old horseshoes and railroad spikes into souvenir knives to commemorate their visitor experience. The blacksmith heats the metal and the customer beats it, smashing a hammer into the hot steel.
The shop even makes some blades using hundred-year-old Mackinac Island carriage springs and wooden handles crafted from fallen lilac branches.
Forge A Memory is open daily and advance reservations are recommended.
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