SMI Agricultural District

Of South Manitou64 Island’s 5,260 acres, approximately two-thirds are beach, sand dunes or steep slopes unsuitable for agriculture, yet the island has a vast history of farming, especially in its center portion.

While many of the crops grown were sold for profit, due to the island’s isolation from goods and supplies, the residents were always subsistence farmers to some extent.The 1870 census indicated that of the 14 households on the island at the time, 12 listed farming as the main occupation.

The major crops produced on the island were wheat, rye, corn oars, potatoes, barley, as well as peas, beans, apples, peaches and butter. One of the most notable crops grown was Rosen rye. The island was chosen as an ideal site to grow this new, extremely productive strain because of its isolation from other land, and hence from cross pollination that would reduce the yield.

While farming on the island was successful for many years, the introduction of new technologies led to its decline. With the conversion from steamers to coal burning ships, it was no longer necessary to stop at the island for fueling, and better roads and railroads on the mainland made those farms more accessible and competitive than island farms. Both led to the island’s isolation from the markets it once sold to on the mainland. Soon it became much too difficult to transport goods and find buyers, and by the 1940′s, several farming families began to leave, selling their farms to developers who hoped to turn the island into a tourist destination.