Mesick, the Mushroom Capital

The little village of Mesick, out in the southwest of the county where M-37 and M-115 meet, calls itself the Mushroom Capital of the United States — and it earns the title every spring. When the morel mushrooms push up through the warming woods, the village throws its Mushroom Festival, and the hills around town fill with people hunting for the prized, honeycomb-capped morels that grow so well in this sandy, wooded country.

Mesick got its start as a logging town in 1890, set down along the railroad and the nearby Manistee River, and it became a village in 1901. The big timber is long gone, but the forests came back, and the mushrooms — along with the river, the trails, and the fishing — are what bring folks here now. If you’ve never hunted morels, a spring weekend in Mesick is about the best introduction you’ll find in Michigan.