RR Branstrom | Daily Press Delivery driver Neil Larson fills a bobtail truck, the type that makes deliveries to rural homes, from a 30,000-gallon storage tank at UP Propane in Escanaba.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Daily Press will feature a series of articles about local businesses, highlighting their history and what makes them unique. The series will run regularly on the Daily Press.
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ESCANABA — Proudly local UP Propane does more than install green tanks in yards. Since its beginnings in Iron Mountain, the business has grown to serve 17,000 customers in 16 counties, operate out of seven offices and half a dozen other satellite locations, stock portable propane tanks and sell appliances. They even reconstructed a railroad so that their supplies were not dependent on a pipeline.
Iron Mountain Gas Company was founded by the Bertholdi family in the 1920s. In those days, said Dan Harrington, the current owner of UP Propane, the business model centered mostly around supplying 100-pound cylinders for gas stoves.
Dan and his wife, Cindy, purchased Iron Mountain Gas Company in 2006. Through a mutual friend, the Harringtons had heard that the previous owner of the gas company was looking to sell at a perfect time.
“I’ve been a builder all my life and I was just looking for something where I wouldn’t have to be on roofs in January,” Dan said with a laugh.
He stated proudly that UP Propane is “Definitely a family business.”
Dan was born and raised in Ishpeming. Cindy is from Iron Mountain, where they are based now, and she does most of the paperwork for the company. All of the Harrington children have worked there in places over the years; currently, Dan and Cindy’s daughter, Megan, is the office manager, while their youngest son, Daniel, handles maintenance and delivery driving.
Dan reported that when he bought the business, he had about 1,000 customers.
The name was changed to UP Propane, and under Harrington’s leadership, the Iron Mountain facility was rebuilt. They outsourced several more operations and built a new plant in Marquette County from scratch.
“Part of that growth was with the acquisition of Suburban Propane, which was kind of a key to the Escanaba area,” Dan said.
Years ago, 6731 US Highway 2 and 41 and M-35 was the local DeCock Bottled Gas and Appliance Company. However, immediately prior to becoming UP Propane’s Escanaba facility, this facility, along with another in Germfask, was owned by Suburban Propane, a national corporation.
“We bought it back from the corporate entities to bring it back under local control.” Dan said. UP Propane also purchased Superior Propane and Harvey Oil, both in Marquette County.
The operation serves customers in 14 of UP’s 15 counties, plus some in Wisconsin’s Florence and Marinette counties. All offices and satellites are located in UP
Propane is a popular energy source for rural residences for a number of reasons – for one thing, it’s convenient because it’s relatively safe, stable, and easy to transport. Natural gas pipelines rarely reach remote areas, so tanks for propane — which, unlike natural gas, does not emit methane when burned — are found on many rural properties. Propane is also a more efficient means of producing heat than electricity, some of which is lost during generation and transmission.
Portable tanks from five to 100 pounds can be filled right in the office, where they also sell and service tanks of various sizes and offer a variety of propane appliances such as ovens, refrigerators, heaters and more.
Todd Benoit manages the Escanaba office. This location has tanks to fill the trucks and semis that then deliver propane through the UP
If the average homeowner with a 330- or 500-gallon tank in their yard thinks the 1,000-gallon tank at the restaurant in their hypothetical town looks big, they’d be swayed to see the lot at UP Propane in Escanaba.
Two 30,000-gallon tanks closest to the building hold the volume of a railroad car. Resembling airships at the west end of the lot are tanks that hold 60,000 and 90,000 gallons. These carefully monitored state-of-the-art installations, which Benoit said closed the highway when they were delivered, are connected to mechanisms with automated safety shut-offs in addition to manual emergency shut-off valves.
Behind the huge white and gray tanks is a rail terminal, built in 2020. This project was something of an insurance policy for UP Propane and its customers in response to the controversy surrounding the pipeline, which stretches over 600 miles of the Great Lakes region and has suffered numerous spills since its construction in 1953.
“With all the talk about Line 5 and the shutdown of Line 5 — which supplies, you know, most of the propane for the UP — we decided we didn’t want to put our customers at risk of not having propane,” Dan said.
The railway was in operation decades ago, but was defunct and overgrown until four years ago. Trains now carry propane from Canada to Escanaba several times a month. Canadian National takes the railcars to the north end of town, where Escanaba & Lake Superior picks them up and delivers them down the spur to UP Propane.
Being able to control their intake in this way, in addition to receiving off Line 5, means that UP Propane is subject to less cost variability than other suppliers, “and customers benefit too because you can keep the price low,” Benoit said.
The company offers flexible payment schemes and fixed rates. There are also options for service; tanks can be monitored and refilled by UP Propane with scheduled deliveries or when the customer calls.
