MAY 24 ISSUE ANSWERS: This oil painting by Romeo artist William Gibbs is hanging in the Romeo Historical Society’s Archives museum. The man in the painting is Harvey Mellen, Michigan House of Representative and Senator (1889-1893.) Mellen helped discover the first iron ore in Northern Michigan and was a successful lumber baron. The Mellen house, an 1863 Italianate at the north end of North Main and Gates Streets now occupied by Macomb Family Services, was the home of the Mellen family and later became their “summer cottage.” The device in Mellen’s arms is a solar compass invented by surveyor William Austin Burt of Washington Township. Because of the large quantity of iron ore in the Upper Peninsula, surveyor’s compasses were inoperable. Using the solar compass, directions were possible using the sun not the earth’s magnetic field. This device made Mellen rich. There were a number of Romeo lumber barons in Romeo. Below is an 1873 quote from The Romeo Observer: “The only lumber business that is being done near Fish Lake at present is being done by the firm of H. Stephens, H. Mellen and Tackles, residents of Romeo. This company owns 3,000 acres of heavy timbered pine land, the standing pine estimated at seventy-five million feet. Besides this the company has seven million feet of pine logs and one hundred and seventy thousand feet of oak logs, and $60,000 worth of sawed lumber in the mill yards.” Romeo Historical Society staff and members