In October 2015, state regulators hired contractors to dredge Muskegon Lake on the state's west side to remove roughly 42,000 cubic yards of debris from the lake's bottom. Thousands of sinker logs, lacking the buoyancy to remain on the water's surface and dating back to the mid-1800s operations of the Hackley-Hume Lumber Mill, were removed. The old-growth pines date back to at least the 1700s.

At the same time, East Los Angeles native Gabriel Currie, a legend-track handmade guitar builder, was pushed out of LA, and California in general, by rising rents and rising odds of failure. The Echopark Guitars owner and builder planned to blow town, move his entire life somewhere new, to him at least. His plan took him to the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and eventually Detroit. Currie landed in Detroit in May 2017 and set up shop in the Old Redford neighborhood of Northwest Detroit.

"For so many the West and LA is the end of the rainbow, but it's all bullshit. It's a facade," Currie, 50, said. "I wasn't running from anything; more like running to something. I was studying up on the logging industry, the lumber barons like Charles Hackley and the craft of making instruments. I needed a place where I could get into my craft and shake the glitter of California. Detroit was it. How could I not be here?"

Little did Currie know when he trekked east, the history books would come to life and he'd come face to face with Hackley's legacy. A chance meeting with Brian Mooney, president of Detroit-based Integrity Building Group, led to a business partnership where Hackley's sunken logs from the depths of Muskegon Lake will soon become some of Currie's priciest and rarest guitars yet. The use of Michigan pine from a bygone era plays into Echopark's growth plans to expand revenue 10-fold in the next five years.

"My instruments are known for being at the top of the food chain, but these are going to be another level," Currie said. "Once the wood is gone, it's gone. I might be able to make 100 pieces ... maybe."

Currie declined to reveal how much the guitars made from Hackley's lumber will cost, but it's reasonable to expect them to cost more than his most expensive offerings now — his Esperanto ES Recording electric guitar retails for $14,000 before upgrades.

Echopark is projected to reach $240,000 in revenue this year, up 30 percent since arriving in Detroit but lower than its peak a few years ago of nearly half a million dollars. Guitars take upward of eight months to a year to make, each one meticulously crafted by Currie and his three employees and a handful of aging wood shop tools.

His guitars are used by rock stars Joe Perry of Aerosmith; Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age; Dean Fertita, a Royal Oak native, of Queens of the Stone Age and The Dead Weather; Jakob Dylan of The Wallflowers; and actor Johnny Depp, who also plays in a band with Perry called Hollywood Vampires; among others.

Detroit bluesman Larry McCray said price tag doesn't dictate quality.

"The quality of the instrument is what makes it a high-end guitar," McCray said in an email to Crain's. "Echopark guitars, in particular, use very high-quality woods and components ... the third ingredient is the knowledge and know-how to bring that instrument to its highest form."