October 2014 - Lost In Michigan

Sand Point Sunset at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

Posted on October 27, 2014 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in upper peninsula .

Lake Superior is slowly taking this old boat at the former Coast Guard Station at Sand Point northeast of Munising, I think the inside was painted red and you can see it’s turning the sand red as it dissolves away from the boat, almost like its blood gushing from a wounded soldier.

Sand point is a beautiful place to watch the sunset, and in the distance is Grand Island, you can see the Grand Island light house from here too. I used a long telephoto lens to get a pic of it, but that’s a photo for different day.

Detroit’s Castle

Posted on October 26, 2014 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Detroit .

This castle that sits near downtown Detroit was the former Eighth Precinct Police Station building located on Grand River Avenue in the Woodbridge Historic District of Detroit, Michigan. It was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1973 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

The Eighth Precinct Police Station is the second-oldest police building in Detroit. It was designed by Louis Kamper and built between 1900 and 1901, for a cost of $46,000. The station was originally built as part of the Second Precinct, but in 1910 was renumbered to become part of the Eighth Precinct. Starting in 1954, the Detroit Police Youth Bureau used the station as office space; the buildings were later used by the Detroit Police Personnel Division. In 2013, the building was converted to lofts, as part of the ongoing revitalization of Woodbridge.

Kamper designed the French Renaissance Châteauesque station in two structures connected by an arcade; the main building was used as office space, while the smaller one functioned initially as a carriage house and later as a garage. The station is constructed of limestone on the first floor and brick on the second, and is topped with a side-gable roof. The façade boasts parapet walls and four corner towers with conical roofs.

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Seul Choix Point Lighthouse, is it haunted?

Posted on October 22, 2014 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Historic Places, Lighthouses .

There are Stories that claim the lighthouse is haunted by a lighthouse keeper that served the structure from 1902 until his death In 1910, it is said that he passed away while in the bedroom that is located upstairs. His name was Joseph Willie Townsend. He and his wife resided in the house and was known to enjoy smoking cigars. Unfortunately, his wife was not a huge fan of the smell and smoke associated with the cigars and informed him that he could not smoke them in the house. Since his death, many people have claimed to smell burning cigars in the house. It’s believed that Townsend purposely smokes in the house in the afterlife as his wife cannot forbid it now. People have also claimed to have seen Townsend’s Ghost and that furniture is rearranged. Another strange occurrence is when the table is set and left unattended, then seen later, the forks are turned tine side down, Townsend was known to set his forks down in that position.

Haunted or not, it’s a beautiful lighthouse, and I highly recommend visiting it near the town of Gulliver on Lake Michigan.

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Ten Haunted or Creepy places in Michigan

Posted on October 16, 2014 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Forgotten Places, Historic Places, Lighthouses, Michigan Historical Markers .

I love a good ghost story especially when there is some Michigan history attached to it. Here are some of my favorite spooky places I have found traveling the back roads in Michigan. If you find these places intriguing I hope you will take a look at the Lost In Michigan book for more in-depth information and stories HERE

The Bruce Mansion in Burnside township is said to be one of the most haunted places in Michigan and there is a story of the owner hitting a pedestrian and burying his body on the property

Bruce Mansion in Burnside Michigan

Northville Psychiatric Hospital in Northville, This state run hospital closed in 2003 and supposedly there are ghosts in the tunnels that run between building, I have not been there in a while and I hear it is being demolished for a new project on that site.

Northville Psychiatric Hospital in Northville

The Calumet Theatre in the Keweenaw Peninsula. According to Wikipedia it is inhabited by the ghost of a famous Polish actress Madame Helena Modjeska

Calumet Theatre

Pere Cheney near Grayling was an old logging town that was stricken with illness, all that is left of the town is some depressions in the ground and a cemetery with strange things happening in it. Pere Cheney was a lumbering town established in 1874 and one of the largest towns in the region at the time. The population grew to about 1500 people but in 1893 diphtheria spread throughout the village killing most of its population.

Pere Cheney Cemetery and ghost town

Eagle Harbor Lighthouse, there are stories of a Coast Guard lighthouse keeper in the 1970s reporting many strange happenings at Eagle Harbor, including the sight of a faceless man in a plaid flannel shirt, the sounds of moving furniture and heavy footsteps on the second floor and lights turning on and off.

Eagle Harbor Lighthouse

The Fenton Monastery The monastery was built in 1868 and was originally a Baptist seminary. By 1886 it became a retired home for Baptist priests and their wives and then Converted into apartments between 1935 and 1945. by the 1950s the building became a nursing home. I found some references of it being haunted but no stories of why it is creepy with part of the front fallen down. Sadly the old Monastery was torn down in 2016.

Fenton Monistary

The Pere Marquette Depot on Potter Street in Saginaw one of the largest Victorian era train stations in the United States There are several sources that claim the station to be haunted, bodies of soldiers who died in the war were shipped back to Saginaw by train to this depot. Richard Froeber was a casket maker in Saginaw and his shop was in the depot and he would build caskets for the fallen soldiers. There have been reports of people seeing a ghostly figure of a woman in white roaming the station.

Potter Street Train Station in Saginaw Michigan

The Marquette Orphanage,Built in 1915 and closed in 1980 there is a story of a girl who died in a blizzard and they held the funeral in the basement for her.

Marquette Orphanage

The David Whitney House in Detroit. This house was originally constructed in the 1890s by David Whitney, Jr. It was restored in 1986 and is now used as a formal dining restaurant. Both Whitney and his wife died in this mansion and are believed to remain behind to haunt it. An elderly man can be seen looking out the windows and the elevator will move between floors without anyone in it. Now it’s a resturant with the third floor converted into the “Ghost Bar”

The David Whitney house in Detroit

Pointe Aux Barques Lighthouse in the thumb rumors of an apparition of a woman wearing an apron appearing in a second floor window, footsteps on the tower stairs, ice cold spots appearing then dissipating, Peter Shook, was the first lighthouse keeper at Point aux Barques. In 1849, he drowned along with two others on their way to Port Huron to pick up supplies, leaving his wife Catherine the honor of being the first woman lighthouse keeper in the Great Lakes.

Pointe Aux Barques Lighthouse in the thumb

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The Calumet Theatre Haunted by the ghost of Madame Helena Modjeska

Posted on October 1, 2014 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Historic Places, Michigan Historical Markers, Uncategorized, upper peninsula .

The Michigan historical marker next to the Calumet Theatre reads:
“One of the first municipal theaters in America, the Calumet opened on March 20, 1900, “the greatest social event ever known in copperdom’s metropolis.” The theater contained a magnificent stage and elegant interior decorations, including an electrified copper chandelier. For over a decade, Copper Country audiences witnessed a broad panorama of American legitimate theater, and many prominent stage personalities, both American and European, trod the boards of the Calumet. By 1920s, motion pictures replaced live theater, and subsequently, live drama returned to the Calumet. The reopened community theater resumed its position as a focal point of civic pride for the people of Calumet and the Copper Country.”

According to Wikipedia the Theater is inhabited by the ghost of, Madame Helena Modjeska. The story of the ghost first emerged in 1958, when actress Adysse Lane claimed that the ghost of Madame Modjeska appeared to her during a performance when Lane had forgotten her lines. Since then, unexplainable happenings have occurred. Many people have heard music and felt cold air from nowhere\

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