The Empire Lumber Company operated from 1887 to 1917 and dominated a once booming lumber town. Empire, incorporated in 1895, took its name from the schooner “Empire,” which was icebound there during a storm in 1865. George Aylsworth operated the first mill between 1873 and 1883, and Potter and Struthers built a second mill in 1885 that the T. Wilce Company purchased in 1887. Under the Empire Lumber Company, it expanded into one of the largest and best equipped hardwood mills in the area, capable of producing up to 20 million feet of lumber a year. Docks, several businesses, and a railroad sprang up in Empire. After fire destroyed the mill in 1906, it was quickly rebuilt, but when it burned again in 1917, it was not replaced because most of the nearby virgin timber was gone. Empire is now a picturesque village near the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.