I saw this old barn living near Standish amongst the wildflowers. Looking at the ladder running up the side of the silo I can’t imagine having to climb it.
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Monthly Archives: July 2016
Edgecliff Cottage on the western bluff of Mackinac Island
About 20 years ago I visited Mackinac Island with my wife and I remember looking at a beautiful cottage and on a sign out front it read,” Home of the Inventor of the Manila Folder”
for some reason that always stuck with me, The Folder seems like such a simple thing but I guess someone had to be the first to fold a piece of cardboard and stick a paper in it. Kinda like some caveman had to be the first to invent the wheel. The thing that stuck with me is not only did this person invent the file folder but they bought a house on Mackinac Island too, it must have had a pretty good life from a simple invention.
A few months ago I was on the Island and we went over to the cottages on the other side of the Grand Hotel, and I could not find the sign that had been etched into my memory. I took a bunch of Photos, and hoped I got a pic that I needed and set out to find out what happened to the folder guy.
I found a book called ” View From the Veranda” by Phil Porter and found the name of William A. Amberg. so off to see my know it all friend Google and I found THIS article about William Amburg and how he was the inventor of a file folder system and with his great fortune he and his wife, Sarah Agnes Ward, purchased the West Bluff’s Westover cottage on Mackinac Island which they remodeled in 1892, and renamed it Edgecliff Cottage.
William was king of the file folders for a few years but then his patent was challenged and the judge deemed it “intellectual Property” but he must have still made out pretty well on his folders to have such a beautiful place on Mackinac Island.
I always think of that house every time I am sticking papers into a manila folder and if you have read this something tells me you will too.
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I can only imagine how lonely and isolated it must have been to be a Lighthouse keeper in northern Michigan, but for the crew at Poe Reef Lighthouse, it must have been especially challenging. In the fall they survived Michigan storms raging with the waves of Lake Huron splashing up the sides of the lighthouse. In early spring ice would pound on the concrete foundation violently shaking it.
In 1893 a lightship was anchored above the reef located at the east end of South Channel near Bois Blanc Island east of Cheboygan. In 1928 a concrete structure was built with a lighthouse on top of it replacing the lightship. The Poe lighthouse was originally painted all white, which sometimes confused mariners because they shared colors and a common structural design. Thus, a decision was made in 1957 to paint Poe in contrasting bands of black and white.
Photo of the Poe Reef Lighthouse in the 1930’s from the U S Coast Guard archives
The Poe Reef station was designed so that the onsite crew could also remotely operate the Fourteen Foot Shoal Light. By 1974 both lights have were fully automated and the fog horn is still in service. In 1929, Poe Reef Lighthouse and Cape Henry Lighthouse became the first in the United States to be equipped with synchronized radiobeacons and fog signals. When these two signals are sent simultaneously, a mariner can note the time interval between the arrival of the radio signal and sound signal and calculate the vessel’s distance from the lighthouse. Poe Reef Lighthouse was operated by a five man crew and had four diesel engines, four gas-operated generators and an eight-foot long pane of radio instruments.
The reef and light are named for lighthouse designer Orlando M. Poe. During ten years of service as Engineer for the Eleventh Lighthouse District he designed eight lighthouses in Michigan and his”crowning achievement” is considered to be the Poe Lock in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.
In 2005, the Poe Reef Light lighthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the parallel state inventory of historic sites
If your wondering, I took this pic from the shoreline of the Cheboygan State Park near the lighthouse ruins of the old lighthouse HERE
you can get a print of this pic or any of my images HERE
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Drosts Ice Cream shop and Candy Store in Indian River
There is no better way to finish of a hot summer day than with some Ice Cream, especially if your in Michigan watching a spectacular sunset. When I am up north with the family, we always get ice cream, and I like to stop at a local ice cream shops. It seems like almost every small town in northern Michigan has one, especially if it’s a “tourist”town.
Zanner’s Ice Cream Shop in Au Gres
My favorite flavor is Mooney’s sesquicentennial Michigan Apple Pie. It’s vanilla ice cream with apple sauce swirled into it, with pieces of cinnamon pie crusts. Sadly Mooney’s only made it for a few years during Michigan’s sesquicentennial in the late 80’s, If I only had a time machine.
On a personal note: What’s been happening with me at Lost In Michigan. I have been doing this website for a few years now, and it takes up a lot of time, taking pics and researching history. I love doing it, but I still need to pay the bills and support my family. That’s why this past week I was selling t-shirts. Thank you for putting up with me while I had them on sale. I am getting back to taking pics and writing stories, and will probably do shirt sales once a month. I really don’t want to have to sell anything, and just do what I love to do, but hopefully once a month won’t be too annoying for you and me. I still have a few shirts left, and they are on sale until Tuesday if you want one, I hope you will check out my shirts HERE.
Thank you for reading my articles, and all your comments, and sharing with your friends, your support really means a lot to me
Fuzzy’s in Saginaw
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The Chicago Fireboat Engine No. 37 was name in honor of Chicago mayor, and newspaper editor, Joseph Medill. The 92 foot long fireboat was launched in 1949, and designed to get under the bridges of downtown Chicago. The boat was retired from service sometimes after 1986 and in the early 2000s the boat had been gutted and is now setting in a field overlooking Lake Michigan in Escanaba. How a boat from Chicago ended up in Escenaba I don’t know, but it sure looks sad just sitting on land stripped of all its hardware and rusting away.
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Roaming the back roads between Mt Pleasant and Remus, I found this old farm house hiding behind the trees. At one time this house must have been full of life as it raised a family inside celebrating birthdays and holidays. It stood proudly overlooking the fields of corn and wheat that supported the family, but as time went on the family grew older, and so did the house, only to be left alone looking at the fields of grass that took over the farm fields.
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I finally got a chance to get a pic of the famous Ransom Gillis house in the Brush Park neighborhood of Detroit. This is the house that Nicole Curtis renovated for her HGTV show. I was down in Detroit a few years ago but I never took a pic of this house before Nicole started working on it. I did find a photo of it on Wikipedia from 2005, and it’s unbelievable how bad of shape the house was in before the restoration. I see beautiful old historic houses thought the state, but they are in need of serious restoration. I get a lot of comments that they are “too far gone” but I know a lot can be done, if someone is willing to do it. Money wise, it’s up for debate if it’s worth the investment to restore an old home, but it’s hard to put a price on history. you can build a new house, but you can build a new historic house.
The Ransom Gillis House in 2005: wikipedia
The Ransom Gillis House was built in 1876 at a cost of $12,000 for Ransom Gillis, a wholesale dry goods merchant. The property was sold by Gillis in 1880. The house and property passed though the hands of four different upper-income families between 1876 and 1919. After this time, the main structure was converted into a rooming house, along with most of the other structures on the street. The carriage house behind the structure was rented by Mary Chase Perry Stratton in 1903, becoming the first home of Pewabic Pottery (which you can read about in my post HERE). The pottery moved in 1906, and the carriage house was then occupied by an auto repair shop, a battery service shop, and finally a filling station, before being torn down and replaced by a restaurant in 1935. The restaurant operated until the 1960s and was demolished in 2005/2006, as part of the city’s “mothballing” work on the property.
The Ransom Gillis House brought to Detroit the Venetian Gothic style, made popular by John Ruskin’s book The Stones of Venice. The centerpiece of the structure is the turret situated in the front left corner, the circumference of which is accented by five rows of tiles of simple geometric designs in hues of bright blue, red, yellow, and brown. Similar tile work was spread throughout the rest of the structure. The base of the turret is decorated with stone carvings of quadruplets of flower blossoms, similar but all slightly different. The turret was supported from below by an ornate stone post. Dark ornately carved wood columns enclosed the porch at the entrance to the house. Lastly, a steep, dark slate mansard roof with ornate iron cresting completed the peaks in a traditional detail of the day
I hope to someday see the Ammi Wright house in Alma restored HERE or the Sleeper Mansion in Bad Axe HERE or the Cat Lady House in Saginaw HERE
P.S. I watched the Batman Vs Superman movie to see the house in the movie before it was renovated. they showed if for a few seconds. (There’s 3 hours of my life I will never get back.)
Lost In Michigan books are ON SALE this weekend on Amazon HERE
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Hidden among the trees in northern Michigan and along the shores of Lake Huron in the Cheboygan State Park are the ruins of the old Cheboygan Point Lighthouse.
The first light at Cheboygan Point was built in 1851. There was a dwelling and a separate 40′ round brick tower, which was fitted with a Fifth Order Fresnel lens made by L. Saultier & Company of Paris. The light was built on a pier and after only eight years of service, high water was washing away at the foundation and the light tower was removed.
In 1859 the station was rebuilt as an eight foot square wooden tower resting atop a two-story eight room dwelling. The new tower rose 22 feet above the house and included the same white light which was used in the earlier tower. In May of 1890, a standard locomotive steam fog signal was installed in a separate building.
1890s photo of the lighthouse from the Cheboygan State Park sign
When the nearby Fourteen Foot Shoal Light was constructed offshore in 1930, the old Cheboygan Light Station was abandoned and the land was deeded to the State of Michigan. Following the vandalism, the buildings were dismantled in the 1940s when George Kling, son of Fred Kling, the last keeper of the lighthouse, purchased the station’s boathouse for $1 and moved it to his home in Cheboygan to serve as a garage. Bill Singer acquired the lighthouse and sold its materials to Bert Toles, who used them to build three small houses. All that remains today is the foundation from the old lighthouse, which you can see along the hiking trails at Cheboygan state park.
Besides guiding ships through the straits of Mackinaw the lighthouse marked the entrance to Duncan Bay and Duncan City on the opposite side of the bay from the lighthouse. Once the county seat of Cheboygan County(1853-1857), Named after Jeremiah Duncan who started lumbering in the area the city was a company town with a population of about 500 in its heyday, and also a refueling stop for Great Lakes steamships. Duncan City began to lose its importance when the Cheboygan River was dredged out deeper, thus allowing more shipping traffic to go to Cheboygan itself. The final blow for Duncan City came in 1898 when the sawmill burned to the ground. The property is now all residential and privately owned and nothing remains of the city today.
If you love lighthouses I hope you will take a look at my new Lighthouse book HERE
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I had a lot of women, I assume they were all women, but you never know, (not that there’s anything wrong with that) ask me for women’s fitted t-shirts and tank tops. I screened printed some up with the Lost In Michigan logo, and they are on Sale this week along with all my other T-shirts. I hope you will look at them, they help me with expenses to do this website. I really really appreciate all of you that got one, and helped me out, and if you didn’t get one I still am thankful that you read my posts and sharing them with your friends.
if you want to check out my shirts CLICK HERE
if you have been following me for a while you know I like taking pics of train depots, just about every town in Michigan has one. Some are in better condition than others. I love this adorable red brick train station in Howell. I also like the red caboose next to the station. I find a lot of old cabooses around Michigan. It’s been a long time since I seen a caboose on the back of a train, the last time I remember seeing one was in the 70’s when I was a kid. I wonder if I could by one now and the train would pull me along on the tail end. I wold love to see Michigan from and old caboose.
P.S. I get a lot of requests to get pics of the library in Howell. I was there last summer and the library was being worked on so I could not get a pic, I hope to get back down there soon and get a pic of the library, it is a magnificent building.
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