Irish Hills Towers
In the 1920s, the Michigan Observation Company built a tower as an observation point to view the wonders of the surrounding countryside. The basic business premise was that guests would pay to see the view from these towers. A farmer who owned the land adjacent to the original tower started his own company and started a company to open and run the Irish Hills Observatory just a few feet from the original tower. Not to be outdone, the Michigan Observation Company built yet another tower on top of the original one, and now a few feet higher than its competitor and renamed its attraction to the Original Irish Hills Observatory. In this fashion, they operated as competing towers until the 1950s when they were both acquired by Frank Lamping and connected with a gift shot and gantry. Today they sit disused and abandoned. However, conservation and restoration efforts were begun in 2013. (Onsted, Michigan, USA)
