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JOE MACK
The unforgettable, long-serving state senator from Ironwood
Story by Larry Chabot • Sketch by Mike McKinney
The one and only Joe Mack has been dead for over 16 years but is still a powerful presence to friend and foe. Among Michigan politicians, there were none like Joe Mack, before or since. He loved the political arena and its controversies, except the one that drove him from office. Say what you will, Mack fought hard for his people in the 38th senatorial district, which spans most of the U.P. His battles against the bureaucracy, his quotes and his coats are things of legend.
There are many Joe Mack stories. Here is mine, an event on a road running past a new White Pine Copper Company mine shaft in Ontonagon County. White Pine was one of the U.P.’s largest employers, with over 3,000 workers and 1,200 vendors. The new shaft was at the bend in the Tolfree Road, five miles east of the main plant. One of the state’s worst, it had countless ruts, potholes, and little mini-creeks covered with wooden planks. Some ruts were so grotesque they could spin you in another direction. The Tolfree was a worthy candidate for the Ugly Road Hall of Fame.
The previous year, as local officials were seeking funds to rebuild the equally rotten road between Ontonagon and Greenland, Gov. George Romney made a local visit. What timing! The governor was driven at high speed down that route, bouncing and skidding enough to sell him. Mission accomplished: a rebuild was authorized.
Joe Mack watched and remembered. He would try that some day, and the day came when he was asked to help repair the miserable Tolfree. At his invitation, two planeloads of legislators and staff flew to Ontonagon. We had two cars waiting. Sen. Mack took me aside and said, “We’ll divide them up. I’ll lead and you follow. When we hit the Tolfree, I’ll hit every rut and pothole, and you do the same.”
The farther we went, the worse it got, careening over the planks, ruts, and holes. As if on cue, Mack’s vehicle blew a tire and skidded sideways. We stood in ankle-deep mud in the middle of nowhere, staring at the flat, saying nothing. Finally, Mack suggested that maybe we should fix the road. After all, hundreds of miners would soon be using it. A bill was introduced and sailed through the legislature.
The bill unleashed a barrage of criticism against spending state money on a private road to benefit one company. Actually, countered fellow legislator Russell Hellman, the Tolfree was a public road, which just happened to pass by the shaft. Besides, he argued, the state built a private road into a Flint automobile plant. The issue reached the state supreme court, which approved the legislation. Mack said it was “the hardest fight I ever experienced.” He suggested that the county get and bank the money – which they did – and use the interest of $67,000 to buy new equipment. A year later at a road dedication banquet, Mack got a thunderous ovation.
The senator had come from a mining family of 10 kids, learned steel fabrication, and worked on the Manhattan Project (atomic bomb) in World War II. He joined the Merchant Marine and shipped to sea in a convoy heading for the war zones. When his ship docked in Newfoundland, he was secretly escorted off the vessel for return to Allis Chalmers Company in Milwaukee, where he was classified as an essential employee in the war effort.
According to his son Gary, Mack “worked all day, every day” as a welder, taking only three weeks off to hunt and fish. He once coveted a fishing lake owned by the University of Notre Dame which was off-limits to anglers. At his request, a senate colleague introduced a bill guaranteeing public access to every Michigan lake, and soon Joe was dipping a line in Notre Dame waters.
His widow Pam (who died in 2020) was full of stories. Coming from the ‘sticks,’ Mack figured downstate legislators expected him to show up in jeans and a lumberjack shirt. So he began wearing the most outlandish sports coats. Worn with his trademark dark glasses (the sun’s glare hurt his eyes), the coats were as famous as he was. The family inherited samples, and many were given to constituents.
Pam described his techniques. “He would study laws and how they affected the U.P. Other members would come to him with legal questions. He took committee assignments that no one else wanted, and made them important. Once, a downstate city wanted a junior college, so Joe drafted a bill that made his hometown of Ironwood the only eligible place for the school. In return for changing the bill, he negotiated benefits for the U.P.
Mack owned an Ironwood restaurant and part-owned a bowling alley. He lost two runs for Congress but won a state house seat in 1960, was re-elected in 1962, and was elected a state senator in 1964. He focused on the economy, outdoor recreation, natural resources, and individual rights. Son Gary recalls campaigning for his dad armed with a batch of election posters, a stapler, ladder and rake (handy for pulling down opponents’ signs).
Journalists knew how he fought for his constituents. Rick Pluta of Michigan Public Radio wrote that Mack “was well known in the Capitol because he was such a character. He was very good at tucking in [budget items] that helped the western U.P. There hasn’t been anyone like him with such an outsized personality.” His ability to “bring home the bacon” meant a lot to voters.
His feuds with the media, bureaucrats, and environmentalists were well-known. “The Detroit News” wrote that he regarded newspapermen “as a homeowner did termites.” In his 30 years in office, he held only two news conferences. One downstate paper tailed him, taped phone calls, then attacked him. Mack sued for libel and won; he took no money, only a retraction. He figured that every negative article in the “Detroit Free Press” was worth another thousand votes.
When asked his opinion of the backpackers roaming the U.P., he coined his most famous quote: “They arrive with a five dollar bill and one pair of underwear and don’t change either one.”
Joe Mack, Dominic Jacobetti of Negaunee, and Russell Hellman of Dollar Bay were known as the “U.P. Mafia” for their ability to bring lots of tax money to their districts. They were also called, said Gary, the poster boys for the need for term limits. Storm clouds, though, were forming over Joe Mack, triggered by a casino flap. To stymie the campaign for gambling in the Detroit area, he submitted a bill permitting casinos at least 600 miles from Detroit, which confined them to Gogebic County. The bill lost.
He told me that, shortly after the casino flap, he was charged with misuse of his mileage allowance. Following heart surgeries in 1979, he wintered in Florida, applying his Ironwood-Lansing mileage allotment to his airfares. “Until the casino incident, no one questioned this,” he said. “Then I’m told that, to collect mileage, I must leave from my district, not from any other location.” Mack resigned from the Senate in 1990 under an agreement with the attorney general to accept a misdemeanor plea, pay a
$100 fine, and return some mileage money. He was allowed his pension.
Son Gary said it was later revealed that 17 other legislators had done the same mileage thing without being charged. With his senate career over, Mack returned to Ironwood with his wife Pam. (His first wife, Marian, had died in a traffic accident). They kept busy following their eight grandchildren through high school, college, and into the job market. After a long and truly colorful career, he died in 2005 at age 85. A senate resolution “mourned his death with utmost sorrow. He exemplified the heart and soul of the Upper Peninsula…Joe Mack had ‘Sisu.’ He will be missed.” Some thought this gesture was too little, too late.
His memory lives on with family and constituents, the media who covered him, and with Senator Ed McBroom, who serves Mack’s old district in the legislature. The Mack family gave McBroom a giant sculpture of the U.P., which Mack had gotten from Michigan Tech. “Like this giant sculpture,” McBroom said, “Senator Mack was larger than life and represented his constituents with passion and dedication on issues critical to the U.P. He earned the deep and sincere gratitude of the working men and women of the U.P.”
Gary Mack, who lives with his wife Sara in Spring Lake, was an official at Grand Valley State University. His brother Dennis lives in Grand Rapids; his daughter is an engineer at the Eagle Mine near Big Bay.
There was never a doubt where Joe Mack stood: in the doorway, between his people and his enemies. “People called me from all over,” he said. “If their own senator couldn’t get something done, they often called me, because I wasn’t afraid of the DNR or anybody else. My people live off the land. Without mining and lumbering, we’d be dead. If you haven’t lived in the U.P., grubbed in the U.P., or been unemployed in the U.P., don’t tell me how to solve the U.P.’s problems.”
Pam Mack said Joe “was a great husband, father, and grandfather, a single dad who raised his sons after his wife’s death. He loved his constituents, and knew their names. He even learned Finnish for campaigning in the Copper Country. If he knew someone needed, say, a load of wood, he would get it from somewhere. He’d stop at nursing homes and talk with everyone. If he passed a picnic, he’d go over and shake hands and ask if they needed any help. He wanted everyone to call him Joe – except in Lansing, where he chose to be called Senator out of respect for the office.”
“He was born in Ironwood, lived in Ironwood, and died in Ironwood,” said Pam. “His home, his people, and his heart are here. It was my pleasure to be by his side.”
About the author: Larry Chabot is a freelance writer who has written for several publications, including over 150 articles for Marquette Monthly.
