A few miles outside of downtown L’Anse sits a building that the community knows well. For nearly 90 years, the Whitman family has owned and operated the Whirl-I-Gig. Originally a dance hall that has become an icon in Baraga County. It is also the last bowling alley in the area where families can make memories.
Around 1933, Ron Whitman’s aunt and uncle built the Whirl-I-Gig to host community dances and celebrations. When Ron’s father returned from service after World War II, he convinced his brother and family to expand the building. Starting to dig under the Whil-I-Gig for a basement outfitted with a six-lane bowling alley and barroom.
“You can kind of see here in the shot, all of this came a decade after they’d been doing dances and stuff upstairs,” said Dan Mares, general manager of the Whirl-I-Gig. “Then Frank ran it for about 30 years, and then Ron, youngest of those eight kids, has been doing it for the last 35-ish, give or take.”
Mares says bowling reached a peak in the 1980s. Doctors, lawyers, the local bank, radio stations and machine shops each had their own teams and leagues. In recent years, bowling across the country has become popular again as a social activity for multiple generations.
“Like this weekend we had a grandfather and then the two sons and then all the grandkids out there together,” Mares said. “There’s not too many things where all of the family can actually partake. You might go to some place and do it, but the whole sport, the chatter seems to be that we’re back on the rise. Our high school program has been doing better than it ever has.”
Mares adds that Ron’s passion for the business has been kept alive by the community’s connection to the building, where many residents have held wedding receptions in the dance hall and others have developed lifelong friendships in the bowling alley.
“We also have kind of developed a little bit of a destination wedding kind of identity,” Mares said. “We’ve had customers that want to rent the whole place out so that they can dance and party upstairs. But then you can come down and bowl and kind of hang out as it winds down. It’s such a, just it’s one of a kind. It is, it’s genuine, authentic.”
The Whirl-I-Gig has long supported the community by helping host events. Mares says the business hopes to get more involved with the Baraga Chamber of Commerce to highlight the community’s unique quality of life built on connections with neighbors.
“You can travel far and wide or we can try to introduce more stuff in our backyard,” Mares said. “We want to be able to offer things closer to home, especially in the winter months. When travel just might not be an option.”
On Saturday, the Baraga County Chamber of Commerce will host the Family Fun Tournament at the Whirl-I-Gig. Brackets will start games at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Mares encourages people interested in unique local history, bowling, family fun or building community to stop by the Whirl-I-Gig to learn more about this special place in L’Anse.
Comments