The Retreat Bar was built by a man named Maschke in Katinka Village. It was located at 7544 County Road P. It was eventually sold to Gene and Stella Sromalski, and then Stan and Fran Saweikas. In the fall of 1984, Gary and Sue Wallace bought the Retreat. They raised their four boys in the home attached to the bar.In May 2002, the business caught fire and burned down. The Wallaces decided to build a home in the location on the lake. Gary bought the land on Highway W where the bar currently sits after the former business, The Wild Goose, had also burned down. The bar reopened in 2003. After Gary died in 2014, the bar was sold to Beth and Jim Marohn who own it as of 2024.

A Chamber of Commerce Ad from the 1960s for the Retreat

The first page of a news article about the fire from the Lakeland Times

The second page of a news article about the fire from the Lakeland Times

The original location of the Retreat Bar was on Highway P on Presque Isle Lake. In 2002, the bar burned down. It was rebuilt in 2003 on Highway W

The Retreat Bar

Welcome to the Presque Isle Clio Heritage Tour. Clio allows you to explore fun and historic destination using any digital device. Just click on an entry and explore our town's amazing histories. Please enjoy all the themed tours and join us in preserving our history for future generations.

During the early years when Fosterville and Winegar were lumber company towns, there was no cemetery in the Presque Isle/Winchester area. An area of land was chosen near where current Highway W ends in Highway B, up the hill from the mill. Some of the first people to be buried there were a group of orphans who worked for the lumber company who died when their shanty caught fire. Locals who died from natural causes and lumberjacks who died from injuries were also buried here until the town built a new cemetery along Highway W. Few families could afford a headstone, so white wooden crosses were used to mark gravesites. The area became known as "Widowmaker Hill" from the logging term that took the lives of many lumberjacks.Eventually the cemetery fell into disrepair, and the town of Presque Isle with the American Legion fixed it up. According to Michael Dunn and the Lakeland Times, the town held a contest for North Lakeland Elementary School students to name the cemetery. Early lumberjacks were known as Shanty Boys because they lived in small shanties that could be moved around easily. Drawing inspiration from them, the spot was named "Shanty Boy Hill." There are four specifically marked stones in the cemetery: Joseph Grogg, Arthur Peterson, Oliver Jakeway, and one reading simply "Hovde." Arthur Peterson was 24 when he was crushed by some logging cars. It is unknown what happened to the others named on stones, however there is a record of people who were buried in Winegar and are presumed to be at this spot. Lumberjacks Mrs. Gosh, Mr. Hanson, Mr. Hoffman, and Mr. Dufor were all killed in tree mishaps. A man named Gallager supposedly die after drinking too much moonshine. A man named Sprangeal died after attempting to use dynamite to bust up a stump and instead he "dynamited his eyes out and his scalp off" (Dunn).

Hidden behind the ball fields, down a path lined with raspberry bushes, lies a small cemetery; a relic from the logging heyday in Fosterville/Winegar/Presque Isle.To find this cemetery, park behind the Presque Isle Town Hall located at 8306 School Loop Road, walk down between the ball fields, and take the path to the right once you hit the woods. Down a path lined with raspberry bushes, you'll find a sign constructed from a saw from the original mill and the story of the Shanty Boys that reads, "As lumbermen they lived inshanties in the woods. They were the workers who cut our forests, rode the logs, broke the jams, and, often died doing these things."

Shanty Boy Hill

In the early 1900s, brothers Eric and Elof Peterson immigrated to Chicago from Sweden. Eager to find land similar to their homeland, they joined a Swedish Fishing Club that owned land on Presque Isle Lake. In those days, around 1920, it took them 17 hours to drive over gravel roads to make it from Chicago to Presque Isle. Eventually the club disbanded and the land was divided into several lots listed as Sellstrom's Subdivision. Eric Peterson bought the point that divides the bays from the "big lake," and Elof bought several lots east of his brothers, curving around into the bays.Eric and Elof were both carpenters and used their skills to build vertical log cabins with vaulted ceilings using the resources around them to build their cabins. Elof built his in 1924 when there were about two dozen houses on the lake. In those days, the family would take daily trips across the bay to fetch spring water. They came up in the winter to cut ice from the lake and store it in the side of a hill lined in saw dust to have a place to keep things cold through the summer.Family lore recalls the first outboard motor on the lake coming up from Chicago - a twin cylindered Lockwood on a large, flat-bottomed boat, big enough to hold a string band. Story goes they would go out in the lake and play instruments. Legend says an old piano was sunk in the bays at one point.Eric's cabin was built at what is now 7710 Point Road. The land is privately owned, and as of 2024, the cabin is still standing, though not inhabitable.The original log cabin that Elof built at 7726 Point Road. It was sold to his son Bill who added another house on the property. Eventually his son Ralph bought it and remodeled the house Bill added. Every year the family would have to stuff the spaces between the vertical logs with moss, and eventually it was replaced with concrete. Younger kids were sent crawling under the floors to run wires when electricity came to the Northwoods. Eventually a bathroom replaced the outhouse. Unfortunately, the original cabin was showing it's age and could no longer be preserved. It was torn down in 2020 and an updated cabin was built in the same spot.Elof married Edith and had seven children. When they married and had kids of their own, Elof built another cabin for himself and Edith on the next lot over (7730 Point Road). That red cabin sitting on a peninsula is still there, now owned by some of Elof's great-grandchildren.Elof's son Mel wanted to build a house, so in 1965 Elof sold him the land at 7720 Point Road. That house was sold in 2012.The last house built in the Peterson Family was at 7734 Point Road, a home built for Elof's daughter Eleanor and her husband Jim Bjorkman. That was sold in 2023.All of these homes are on private property, but can be viewed by boat on Presque Isle Lake. From the Presque Isle Boat Launch off of Bay View Road, go south along the shore line. When you reach the end of the peninsula and have to turn east around the bull rushes, you'll be rounding Eric's property. Next comes Mel's, then Bill's. Elof's original cabin was at the top of the stairs behind the boat house, and his second house was on the peninsula that sticks out as you go into the bay. Once you get past the no wake buoy, you'll be near where Eleanor's house was built at the top of the hill.

In the early 1900s, the Swedish Fishing Club of Chicago owned land at the end of Point Road in Presque Isle. Eventually it was sold and two brothers bought several lots of Sellstrom's Subdivision. The first vertical log cabins were built in the early 1920s, and eventually six houses would be built for the growing family. As of 2024, three homes remain in the family.

Presque Isle Heritage Tour

The Retreat Bar

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources