North Grove School looks so lonely watching cars pass by on M24 south of Caro. I am sure at one time kids were learning the alphabet and math, then during recess, playing in the field next to the school, now overgrown with weeds. Times were different back then, and a long ways away from the internet and Ipads.
Congratulations to Ludington State Park for making it past all 5 rounds to win the Lost In Michigan State Park polls, we started out with over a 100 state parks and worked our way down to the winner. Thank you to the thousands of you that voted.
I must be honest with you and say I have never been to Ludington State Park. Since it is so popular, whenever I have tried to make reservations the park was always full. I will go this year even if we don’t camp overnight.
The poll has definitely been worthwhile doing. I learned a lot about what parks are popular and ones that are not and it’s got me curious to visit some of them that I have not been to. I have always had this goal of visiting all the parks, and I have been to about half of them, but I have a lot more to go to and look forward to making the most of my recreational passport.
Driving thru Manchester I noticed this odd looking house down one of the side streets so of course I had to turn around and check it out. It looks like a castle and is not your typical looking house. I searched google and the only thing I found was a photo of a postcard on Flickr circa 1910 and that it was built by A.J. Wright, other than that I could not find anything else. It is truly an unique looking house and who would not want to live in a castle, especially a little boy or girl.
The Manchester Castle House decorated for Halloween last fall
I know I am supposed to write a description, but sometimes a photo is enough to say what I need to say and I think this photo says it better than I can say it with words.
Peter DeWitt Bush (1818-1913), the second permanent resident of the village of Caro, donated the site for the village courthouse square in 1866. Then he, along with two other pioneer settlers, moved an old frame church to the site to serve as the county’s first courthouse. In 1873 the county replaced the former church with a brick courthouse that served the community’s needs until 1932, when the present Art Deco style structure was completed. Designed by Detroit architect William H. Kuni and built by Cecil M. Kelly, a Caro native, the courthouse is faced with Indiana limestone. Situated on the same site as the old brick courthouse, this $180,000 structure was completely paid for when it was dedicated on January 24, 1933, by means of a one-mill, five-year tax levy.
I saw this old house on Marlette road with a cross in the yard between Marlette and Cliffford Michigan. It’s hard to read in the photo, but I could make out Donna carved into the cross. Who was Donna, did she live here? did she die in a roadside accident and someone put up a cross and a wreath. I see a lot of old abandoned houses around Michigan, but very seldom do I have a named associated with it. It makes this house seem so much more real and that someone lived and raised a family here.
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Beautiful downtown Clinton on a gorgeous sunny day in Lenawee county
I saw this beautiful old second empire mansion in Lapeer. I looks like it has been converted into apartments now, but doing a little research on google, I found some websites that say it was the old Lapeer Hospital. I am surprised a house like this does not have a Michigan Historical Marker in front of it. I wonder if it was built as a hospital or if it was built for someone as a residence, then used as a hospital, like the Ammi Wright house in Alma. Anyways its a beautiful house, so I stopped to get a pic of it, since they don’t build them like that anymore.
Methodism in Marlette dates back to 1851 when the first religious sermon in the county was delivered for the Methodist Society. In 1858 the Methodist Episcopalians organized a church. There first minister, the Reverend D.W. Hammond, came to Marlette in 1873. He started the Marlette Indexnewspaper five years later. The original 1871 church burned in 1901. Detroit architect Joseph Mills, who designed the Marlette High School and the Sanilac County Courthouse, planned this Neo-Gothic-style church, which was built on land purchased by the Ladies Aid Society. Dedicated on December 14, 1902, this church also burned – in 1937 and in 1979. With the exterior preserved, however, the church remains a landmark in Marlette.
