Birch Harbor

The small town of Birch Harbor is the birthplace of Andrew and Mark Thomason, and site of the original headquarters of Thomason Holdings. The town has had a number of boom periods, but remains a small, quiet town with the original Thomason Industrial Park largely vacant, but still maintained. As part of the Michigan Historic Preservation Area, Birch Harbor largely maintains contact period buildings and infrastructure.
   

Foundation

The village of Birch Harbor was founded in 1806 by the Virginia planter and Continental Army veteran Nathaniel Thomason. As a staunch Federalist, he had a strong dislike for Thomas Jefferson, one so strong that he could no longer tolerate living in the same state. He would begin looking for new land in 1801, finally choosing a site in early 1804 based on maps and descriptions given to him by surveyors. The maps showed a broad river flowing into Lake Huron, providing a sheltered harbor. The surveyors confirmed this and told him about the dense forests in the area as well as the active fur trading that went on. This convinced Nathaniel to purchase one hundred thousand acres, centered on the harbor.
  Nathaniel would send slaves to the area to construct a duplicate of his comfortable plantation house at an ideal location on the river. When they arrived, the overseers sent back worrisome reports that things were not as they seemed, and that the river was not as the maps and surveyors had depicted. Nathaniel would ignore this, simply assuming that his overseers had no idea what they were talking about, and professionals had told him what conditions were. He would continue to ignore warnings as construction continued and he began his preparations to move.
  Construction would be completed in the spring of 1806, and Nathaniel would set in motion his complex moving plan. While he and his family set out on a long trip that involved stays in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York, his slaves would meticulously pack up his plantation house. They would transport it all to the new house and set it up exactly as it had been in Virginia, allowing Nathaniel to essentially move into a house that was identical to the one he had just left in every detail but location. Nathaniel would arrive early that fall after travelling up the Hudson and by ship to the new harbor.
  Nathaniel’s first order of business on arriving was to free his slaves and send them on the ship he had just arrived on to Canada. While he had always treated his slaves fairly, he had no desire for them to settle the area. Setting out in a flatboat to see the river himself the next day, Nathaniel was dismayed to learn that his overseers had, in fact been correct. The river the maps had shown and that the surveyors insisted was there quickly split up into a series of tree clogged creeks and streams.
   

Early Settlement

Nathaniel had envisioned a town of tenant tradesmen, manufacturing goods to be sold to trappers and traders that travelled down the river from the harbor. The lack of any river did not deter him, but it did force him to modify his plans. He would have a trading post constructed, to be run by his son Alexander Hamilton Thomason. Alexander would continuously provoke his father by repeatedly referring to the settlement as “Birch Creek,” since the harbor had proven to be a folly. In turn, Nathaniel would keep all profit from the trading post to himself, essentially forcing his son to be an indentured servant.
  Nonetheless, the two worked tirelessly with the other settlers Nathaniel had drawn to the site to clear the obstructions from the creeks and streams to open them up for traders. The rocky harbor was large enough for a single, small ship to dock, and it did attract trade, even if only a fraction of what had been planned. By 1812 the settlement included a blacksmith, tanner, tavern, inn, and at Nathaniel’s insistence, a bookstore operated by his daughter Martha Washington Thomason. Obsessed with books and learning, Nathaniel would import the latest books from Philadelphia and London and treated the bookstore as his own personal library.
  When the War of 1812 broke out, Alexander would join the militia fighting a guerilla war against the British, while the pro-British Nathaniel stayed at home. When a British regiment arrived to raze the settlement, Nathaniel invited the commander in for tea. He would prove so charming to the British that the commander agreed not to raid the settlement in exchange for Nathaniel’s supply of tea and a silver serving set. The British would depart peacefully, wishing Nathaniel luck in his “effort to civilize the wild Republican rabble.” Immediately after the departure of the British, Nathaniel would order the construction of a fort at the harbor entrance, known to traders as “The White Fort” as it was hastily constructed with birch logs. The site would later be named “Whitefort Park.”
  In 1816, in need of money, Nathaniel would sell ten thousand acres on the opposite bank of the river to Elias Baird, who cleared the land and established a well managed farm.
   

Transformation and Development

The death of Nathaniel in 1849, and Alexander in 1855 signaled the beginning of the transformation of Birch Harbor from a tenant settlement into a town. Nathaniel’s grandson Johnathan was a well read, moralizing puritan that believed a clean, well ordered community was preferable to a haphazard collection of rugged settlers. His son Daniel had apprenticed as a surveyor and Johnathan had him survey the entirety of the land in minute detail, using a corner of the trading post as the center point. In blatantly ignoring Nathaniel’s plantation style house, Johnathan was making it clear he was going to go in an entirely new direction. Together the two would lay out roads in a neat grid pattern based on the latest theories from London and Paris.
  Daniel was a rebellious son who was far more interested in travel and adventure than in the mundane life of a shopkeeper, joining the Union Army in 1861. Following the Civil War, he would sell his share of the family land to his brother Aaron in exchange for a single lot next to the store and a cash payment of $5,000. Johnathan and Aaron would then begin to sell off the rest of the lots in a plan that started in the center of town and progressively moved outward.
   

The First Boom

Daniel had invested his money with a variety of businesses, including Standard Oil and Carnegie Steel, allowing him to donate rather lavishly the community. With his assistance, Birch Harbor was electrified in 1894 with a Westinghouse power plant. When Aaron died in 1899, Daniel would donate Nathaniel’s plantation house to the township to use as a township hall. He would then become the first mayor when the town was incorporated in 1910.
  As mayor, Daniel would develop the town quickly, often using his own money to fund infrastructure projects. He would personally finance large portions of the town’s water and sanitation systems. In 1923, oil was discovered on the Baird Farm, and Daniel would have several wells put in on town owned land, the profits of which were used to reduce taxes. Daniel’s grandson Randolph also donated generously to the community, personally paying for the paving of Main Street and the construction of a new breakwater along the riverfront. Nicknamed “Swiss” by the community, it was commented by many that he never saw a piece of land that he didn’t think needed an oil well drilled into it.
   

Depression Bust

The first concerning signs began to appear in 1928, when the oil wells on the Baird Farm were no longer producing enough oil to be profitable. Other wells soon followed, leading to the end of oil production in 1931. The loss of important revenue in the midst of the Great Depression collapsed the local economy. An increasing number of businesses closed, and the mismanagement of funds by Randolph and Theodore Thomason only compounded troubles as they had nothing left to donate, and were themselves forced to abandon their own homes to foreclosure and fall back on the old trading post as a home.
  In the midst of the Depression, a tornado hit Main Street, devastating the largely vacant buildings and forcing those few that remained to close. The situation became so dire that the Town Council voted to discontinue water service to one side of the street, and half the bulbs from streetlights throughout town were removed to save electricity.
  Conditions would only improve with the arrival of the Second World War. Birch Harbor Tool and Die, constructed in the First World War was expanded at government expense to manufacture shell casings. This expansion drew workers back to the community, allowing the economy to rebound. Though not reaching pre-Depression levels, income recovered, and business substantially increased.
  Careful management of funds allowed the town to slowly redevelop Main Street, returning it to the quaint, tree lined boulevard it had been designed as.
   

The Thomason Miracle

Birch Harbor would remain a quaint, somewhat sleepy town until Victor Thomason purchased Birch Harbor Tool & Die in 1988. Renaming it Thomason Tool & Die, he would heavily market its standards of quality and precision, gaining him a number of contracts in manufacturing. In 1998 he would reorganize the company again as Thomason Industries, as it was now also manufacturing items for the automotive industry. By 2000 he had increased the company revenue enough that he was able to purchase a bankrupt and abandoned steel foundry in Pennsylvania, renaming it Thomason Steel and putting it back into service. Thomason Heavy Industries was created in 2001 to manufacture prefabricated bridge trusses. Materials supplied by Thomason Heavy Industries were found to be so precise that virtually no on site modification had to be done, vastly accelerating construction projects and gaining many more contracts. All of this brought a steady stream of jobs into the community.
  The arrival of the Mykentians brought Admiral Kosos to Birch Harbor in 2009 (676 MY), as he searched for a firm to manufacture replacement rings for jump drives. He was so impressed by Thomason Heavy Industries, and especially the standards demonstrated by the company’s Quality Control Manager Andrew Thomason, that he immediately offered them a contract. He would also offer a contract for computer components to Thomason Computing, which at the time consisted of Mark Thomason and five salespeople.
  Contracts for additional components would come in the following years, resulting in the massive, rapid expansion of Thomason Industries. Farmland adjacent to the original Tool & Die building was purchased to create the Thomason Industrial Park.
   

The Second Bust

In 2039 (698 MY) Leon Thomason would move the corporate headquarters of Thomason Holdings into Book Tower in Detroit, the first move of his envisioned “Star City Project.” Additional jobs would move to Detroit as construction advanced on Star City, resulting in the gradual closure of many businesses in Birch Harbor as the population rapidly decreased. Recognizing this, Leon would have Thomason Holdings purchase the homes of those who were moving to Star City. Those within the historic town limits would be preserved and resold, while those outside were demolished and eventually either returned to use as farmland leased to local farmers or reforested.
  The completion of the Star City Project not only saw the eventual renaming of the city of Detroit, but the return of Birch Harbor to its state of quiet neglect. It would remain this way until the Enmalex War.
   

Imperial Era

Under the Terran Imperium, Birch Harbor was essentially forgotten. Most members of House Thomason lived in Star City or their new estate on Remus, though they would continue to use various buildings in the Thomason Industrial Park for special projects. House Thomason would also maintain the residence of Michael Thomason, requiring the heirs to the House to spend at least two years there during their childhood. The official crest of House Thomason included birch branches in recognition of their origin in Birch Harbor.
   

Restored Mykentian Republic

Andrew Thomason would move back to Birch Harbor following his term as Hilt from 2352-2365 (922-931 MY). From there he would commute to Star City as the Chairman of Thomason Holdings, though he would also spend much of his time at his other residences scattered across Terra. He would gain a reputation throughout the village as someone who did not expect special treatment and often visited local shops himself rather than sending his aide to do so.
  Xavier Thomason also maintained an apartment in the town above the former Thomason Computing storefront, though he rarely visited.
   

Enmalex Occupation

Birch Harbor was largely regulated by its Historical Society and survived primarily through tourism. As the birthplace of both Andrew and Mark Thomason, they created the Thomason Historic District encompassing the street they had grown up on. Maintaining the appearance of the twenty-first century, pre-contact village became paramount, resulting in an incongruous mix of technologies. While the town had a micro fusion reactor, the majority of power was transmitted by alternating current across power lines. Wireless energy transmission was restricted primarily to small devices and appliances. The town also featured a functional land line telephone system.
  As technology was removed, the primitive improvisations and community mobilization efforts of Lars Sorensen saw him elected as mayor in 2408 (962 MY). Discovering which technologies were prohibited by the Enmalex, he would devise authorized solutions which kept most town services functioning throughout the occupation.
   

The New Boom

With the wholesale dismantling of Star City by the Enmalex, the returning Leon Thomason had few options available to keep the newly rebranded Thomason Group functioning. This would force him to reluctantly return to the original Thomason Industrial Park in Birch Harbor. Wanting to keep the small town feel of Historic Birch Harbor intact, he would purchase vast tracts of farmland to build a new residential zone ten kilometers away, leaving a forested buffer zone in between. He would also refuse to build new buildings on what was now being called the Thomason Group Campus, opting to renovate and repurpose existing buildings whenever possible instead.