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December 5, 2004Locals ponder the future of their villageByRecord-Eagle staff writer NORTHPORT - The door swings open at Barb's Bakery, and a dozen heads - many graying - swivel to attention. This is Northport, population 600, nestled near the tip of the Leelanau Peninsula. Barb Holcomb's regulars are among those who best know the community. Here, gathered around two tables, longtime residents and occasional visitors sip coffee and solve conundrums - theirs and others. They've had much to mull recently. "Things have changed a lot," said Galen Leighton, glancing about at the other regulars. "But we seem to pull together." Northport faces a host of serious challenges, and the signs are ominous. There's talk of closing the high school amid dwindling student numbers. The hospital, which employed 150, ceases its acute care and emergency room services at year's end. Businesses are closing with alarming frequency. "It's scary," said Thea Kellogg, who pours coffee for Barb's patrons. "This town is for sale," said businessman Paul "Buzz" Goebel. It's something of an anomaly in Leelanau County, where communities such as Suttons Bay and Glen Arbor are hotter than ever. Northport residents are leading efforts to combat the downward spiral. A health clinic, an active parent group at the school and a sewer project are all in the works. If it takes a village to save a village, Denise Holland, who leads a newly created chamber of commerce, is sure of their success. "There is such heart in this community ... ," she said. "It's why I wouldn't live anywhere else." DOWNTOWN Northport never really hops in late fall. But the lull that shuttered storefronts this winter isn't seasonal. Some of the "for rent" and "for sale" signs tacked to stores hung there this summer, when the tourist tempo is supposed to tick its fastest. "When I first came to town there (were) probably at least a dozen more retail shops," said village administrator Greg King. Residents remember as many as four gas stations and several grocery stores. Now there's one of each. The hospital will close in a few weeks. The shoe store and meat market are memories. The resort rhythm replaced those shops with art galleries and gift shops that pop up and fizzle out. "Nobody has invested, but times are hard, really hard," said Sally Coohon, owner of Dolls & More. Nagonaba Street cuts through the village, past Coohon's doll store, Pamela Grath's book shop and Lisa Drummond's antique store. The street ends at the waterfront, where there's a long waiting list for boat slips at the marina. But the Memorial Day to Labor Day tourist traffic has proven unreliable. Northport is like an "island," said librarian Deb Stannard. "We are at the end of the trail. You either deliberately come out here or you made a wrong turn at the bay (in Traverse City)," said Leighton, from his perch at the bakery. And if one does putter up the peninsula 20-some miles from Traverse City, he just might miss Northport by circling past it on M-22, King said. But not only is it remote, there's been nary a fish boil here in recent years. It used to be a community ritual: big pots of fish and potatoes boiled in salty water. The meals were run by the chamber of commerce, which collapsed about four years ago. Now, a group led by real estate broker Denise Holland started the Leelanau Township Chamber of Commerce. The chamber will be in business by the first of the year, and its members hope to rekindle Northport. "There really is an ebb and flow of a community. As some of the older businesspeople get tired, it's important for young people to get involved," Holland said. The new chamber will carry the torch, but needs firepower, Holland said. A proposed multimillion dollar sewer system could attract new business and maybe a hotel, giving vacationers the option of staying longer, supporters said. King plans to hold a straw vote on the sewer in the spring, and if the results are positive, the project could begin in two years. Until then, Northport residents are determined to weather the winter and the following seasons of failure or fortune. The village has always had its ups and downs, said Goebel, owner of Woody's Settling Inn for 11 years. But this cycle is bleaker than others. "Northport is in a transition period right now. It's too bad that people had to wait until it got to this level until they got motivated to do something," Goebel said. He should know. His much-loved local watering hole, where since 1978 a bad time has never been had, is closed for the winter. Goebel has no plans to reopen in the summer. Woody's is for sale. THE SCHOOL Not Leland. No Comets. No way, no how, not now. Never. That's the sentiment among some Northport High School sophomores to their superintendent's idea to consider closing the home of the Wildcats - with its declining enrollment - and send students to Leland High School, its cross-peninsula foe. That would be "horrible," said sophomore Jessie Reamer. "I would not be a Comet," said classmate Cecilia Kohler. "Who is a Comet? Give me a break." But beyond the sports rivalries, there are bigger reasons why many in Northport want to save their school. "The students that this school (is) producing are amazing," Holland said. This year, 169 students in kindergarten through 12th grade are housed together in a thoroughly modern building where seniors and second-graders wave hello in the halls. But enrollment is down from last year's 224 total. The high school has 73 students, and projections show it could drop into the 40s in the next five years. Shrinking student counts aren't new. Northport in 2003 pursued a merger with Traverse City Area Public Schools, but a change in state law nixed the nearly $14 million incentive the schools hoped to secure. This fall, the superintendent suggested the school board close the high school. The board instead decided to maintain classes until the end of the 2005-06 school year and make a decision on the high school's fate by October 2005, said board president Vicki Cook. "I looked at these projections. There is nothing in our future to argue those projections, but in the next five years we'll know if we have a sewer system, we'll know things that will allow development and that will impact the school," Holland said. "The challenge for Northport is to figure out how to be a really great K-12 school." Residents have plenty of suggestions, such as creating a magnet school that draws students to Northport from other school districts. A fine-arts focus might attract students from elsewhere, said parent Lynn Kinker. Or, the school could borrow the charter school concept and develop a strong academic curriculum, said village president Mike Rogers. Northport has always rallied around its school, approving millages and donating money to build a 450-seat auditorium, Cook said. And small classes aren't new at Northport, natives say. This sophomore class has 21 students. Holcomb's 1969 class: 17. Bonnie Huck's 1990 class: 10 - two shy of a dozen, and Huck married one of her classmates. "So I married 10 percent of my class," joked Huck, who wants her children to graduate from Northport, too. "I can't imagine not having a high school here," she said. Eighth-grader Sara Rogers chatted with other students during the school's annual community Thanksgiving lunch. "We don't think it should close, I want to graduate. I've been here since kindergarten," Sara said. TORCHBEARERS The sesquicentennial village of Northport, which celebrated its 150th year in 1999, boasts of its colorful history on a plaque at the waterfront. "We honor the founders of Northport who passed the torch to us," it reads. Honored founders include the Rev. George Smith, who accompanied American Indians to the Leelanau Peninsula during the summer months, according to "A History of Leelanau Township." In 1849, Smith desired to make the scenic spot his year-round home and arrived in Northport with wife Arvilla on board the schooner Hiram Merrill. He chose the "beautiful, peaceful cove on the eastern side of the peninsula," for its "natural harbor, abundant hard woods and freshwater creek," the history states. Northport, or Waukazoo, saw its first swell in 1854 when a wave of settlers responded to a letter Joseph Dame wrote to the New York Tribune. The piece lauded the site, where land was only $1.25 an acre. Dame received 64 inquiries in the next mail, but Smith in his diary expressed concern about the flurry of new arrivals, not an uncommon sentiment even among current residents. "Perhaps serious evils will grow out of it. The future only can tell," he wrote. Dame and his son drew the village plat, recorded in 1856. Lots sold for $5 that first summer. A few months later, land values soared 20 percent - to $6 a lot. Ten years after Smith's arrival, Northport was the "largest community in this northwest section of northern Michigan," the history states. As the village grew, so did its perceived vices - a traveling beer wagon made routine trips to Northport in the 1880s and poker was popular sport among some villagers. Cherries were grown in Northport almost from its beginning. In the 1920s, orchards blossomed everywhere. During the Depression, migrant workers picked cherries and Jamaicans came during World War II to help with the crop. Smith started the area's first school. In 1890, three teachers taught 187 students. Two decades later a two-story brick school was built and then leveled in 1971. Students moved to the present school. That sesquicentennial plaque, passed unread by most on a recent November day, recounts some of this history, but it also broaches the future. It is a challenge many current residents echo: "Who will accept the torch in our time?" IN TRANSITION Northport natives can get "a little uppity" if they hear negative talk about their hamlet, to which they are unceasingly loyal, said King, the village administrator. But most readily admit the village is in a "slump," a time of "ebb" not "flow", a "low" rather than a "high." The term most preferred is "transition." "It is a transition that is occurring, and we are right now going through the hardest part ... ," said Holland, head of the new chamber of commerce. "Northport is naturally working through its evolution. This village is not going away, it's here to stay." Ten years ago, King said senior citizens comprised less than half the of the village's population. The graying ranks have crept to 70 percent, he said. That trend reflects plummeting student counts at the school. The lakeside spot has experienced other sea changes, said Rogers, the village president. "It is one of the down cycles, obviously. There's been a couple of them," he said. "We used to have 3,000 to 4,000 migrants in the summer." The advent of the mechanical cherry shaker in the late 1960s and early '70s changed that, he said. "At the time we were agricultural and tourism, those were the two pillars ... ," Holland said. "It is finally dawning on everybody that we aren't an agricultural community any more." Now, Northport should position itself as a "resort and retirement community," she said. But to accomplish that and maintain the village's vitality, some said Northport needs to draw young people and families. Huck, a young mother and Northport native, is buying a house. She said affordable homes are scarce and jobs are few. "It's very difficult to move here because getting in on the ground floor with a small house is so difficult," librarian Deb Stannard said. A community group is working to solve the affordable housing problem, Stannard said, and, ultimately, she expects a "rebound." Therein lies Northport's quandary. Most want a lively village, but almost none desire major development or hundreds of people descending on the small spot. Northport has been "ambivalent" about the prospect of growth, said book shop owner Pamela Grath. "How can Northport grow in that smallish increment that might help?" asked Doug Drummond, who relies on the Internet to run his business from Northport. "What we need is to get - not many - (but) families with children here," he said. No matter what happens to its population, Northport will never be a "ghost town," Rogers said. "People who say Northport is a ghost town haven't obviously looked at their tax bills," he said. Northport is very much the kind of place where those who moved here decades ago still hesitate to say they're "from" Northport. One resident said she is most definitely "not a native" having "only been here 30 years." That's not to say the community isn't welcoming. It's tight-knit and loyal and friendly to outsiders and insiders alike, villagers said. So, how will Northport change and what will it look like in another generation? "That's a damn good question ... ," King said. "Who knows. It is going to be a thing where you throw it up in the air and see how the potatoes land."
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