Biohazard Cleanup Near West Elberta Elberta, MI

Elberta is a village in Gilmore Township, Benzie County, overlooking Lake Michigan across Betsie Lake from Frankfort.

Elberta had a population of 329 at the 2020 census.

The Elberta area was first settled in 1855 by Joseph Robar and Frank Martin, and the village was founded with the help of George M. Cartwright, who developed the site after hearing of federal harbor plans.

Elberta was incorporated in 1894 under the name South Frankfort, and was renamed Elberta in 1911 for the Elberta peach, which was extensively grown in the area.

In 1867 the Frankfort Iron Works built a large blast furnace at Elberta — the largest in Benzie County — with ten charcoal kilns, and a rail line was built in 1870 to haul wood to the furnace.

Starting in 1892, the Ann Arbor Railroad ran cross-lake car ferry service from Elberta's docks across Lake Michigan to Wisconsin ports such as Manitowoc, as well as north to Manistique and Gladstone — among the world's first railroad car-ferry operations.

Railroad and car ferry operations at Elberta finally ended in 1982, closing the book on the village's era as a working transportation hub.

M-168, the short highway that once linked downtown Elberta to the old ferry docks, was just 0.95 miles long — one of the shortest state highways in Michigan — before it was decommissioned in 2012.

Benzie County, where Elberta sits, is the smallest county in Michigan by land area.