Two small communities, Beaufort and Three Lakes are a part of the extended Michigamme community. Beaufort had its origin as a mining town and Three Lakes as a sawmill town.

The sawmill was built by George McDonald, an Englishman from Redruth, England. He bought all of the land between lakes Ruth and George from the Houghton/Ontonagon railrad company who had received it as a land grant for the construction of the railroad.

The sawmill's purpose was to process the pine being cut on the flat and in the hills north of Three Lakes. Later he built a shingle mill to process the cedar being cut in the swampy area between Beaufort Lake and Lake George. The shingle mill exhausted its supply of raw material by 1905 and was torn down.

After the Beaufort mine closed in 1904 the machinery was hauled to the nearby Ohio mine where a boarding house and other houses were quickly built. The Ohio mine employed up to 200 men so a school was maintained in one of the houses to educate the children.

The Ohio mine closed in 1918 and the buildings that were once homes and boarding houses were dismantled and soon forgotten.

Logging continued in the early 1900's as the World Wars increased the demand for lumber. Families from Ishpeming and Negaunee began building their summer homes on the shores of Lake Ruth and Lake George and people often rode the train to and from the Three Lakes area with its cluster of homes in what was once the hay field of Mitchell's farm.