World's Largest Weathervane

Montague's weathervane is topped by a ship that was lost on Lake Michigan more than eighty years before the vane went up. The City of Montague says the Ella Ellenwood, a 157-ton lumber schooner built in Saginaw in 1869, sailed out of White Lake. On the night of 1 October 1901, bound for Milwaukee with maple edgings and shingles, she ran aground off Fox Point, about eight miles north of Milwaukee harbour. The following spring, the city says, part of her wooden nameplate was found in the White Lake Channel, and the city says a nameplate and scale model of the ship are shown in the lobby of Montague City Hall. The weathervane was built and donated to the community in 1984 by Whitehall Metal Studios, now Whitehall Products, which is a block away. The city's specifications give an overall height of 48 feet, an arrow 26 feet 2 inches long and a schooner 14 feet 3 inches long, with the vane weighing 3,500 pounds and the arrow and schooner 800, while the White Lake chamber gives its weight as 4,300 pounds. The chamber adds that a working weather station sits in the base, with foot access, and places the vane at the corner of Dowling and Water Streets. Not every account agrees: Michigan Enjoyer in 2025 gave the height as 40 feet, and WKFR noted in 2022 that other vanes, including a decommissioned DC-3 in Whitehorse, Yukon, claim the title; its account says the Whitehorse vane dates from 1981. The park itself, the city says, was designed to resemble the town squares of days gone by.