The Barry County courthouse stands in Hastings and was constructed between 1892 and 1894. After a devastating fire swept through the town of Hastings it was decided that a brick courthouse would be less susceptible to fire and would not burn as easily as the previous courthouse even though it was spared by the fire.
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I saw this old house somewhere near Wolverine. I don’t know its story or any history on it but it looked lonely sitting in the snow.
Since I don’t have a story for this house I want to take the time to thank all of you for reading my posts. I especially want to thank those of you that have subscribed to email notifications. It is a tumultuous time but if you have been reading my posts for a while you know I have been posting my normal posts and have been avoiding discussing current events. I plan to continue down this path and hope that you enjoy seeing your daily email. It’s not that I don’t care or have an opinion about what is happening in the world right now, I just figure it’s best to do what I have always done and try to keep a sense of normalcy.
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I was in Lansing recently and I decided to take the long way home and drive through some towns I have never visited. I went through the beautiful town of Portland and I saw this old wooden church on the other side of the river from downtown. I had to stop and take a photo of it. It did not have a name and it seemed out of place like it was moved to that location. I have not had time to contact anyone in Portland about but I did find an old photo. I think it is the church but it must have lost the pointy part of its steeple sometime throughout its life.
Of course whatever someone had written at the bottom of the print was cut off. I think it was the Baptist church built in 1877. The beautiful little church stands separated from downtown, patiently waiting for someone to notice it.
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When you are driving along US-31 through Manistee it is hard to miss the SS City of Milwaukee and the USCGC Acacia. Both ships have been decommissioned and tied up on Lake Manistee and are serving out their retirement as museum ships.
The SS City of Milwaukee was built in 1930 for the railroad is a ferry for transporting railroad cars across Lake Michigan. She was retired in 1980. The Acacia was built for the Coast Guard during WWII and served as a buoy tender on the Great Lakes until she was retired in 2006.
The past few times I have been in Manistee it is has been in the off-season. Hopefully, I can stop by sometime in the summer and take a tour.
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North of downtown Flint near the Flint River is this two-story brick building. It is not ornately decorated with victorian ara trim, nor is it extremely large but it is an important starting point for one of America’s largest companies. It was constructed in 1895 to be used as an office and showroom for the Durant-Dort Carriage Company. In 1915 the company became the Dort Motor Car Company manufacturing four different models of cars until production ended in 1924. It was Dort’s partner William Durant that went on to consolidate several automobile manufacturers into General Motors.
Over time the building went through a few different ownerships and configurations. It even had a third story floor and flat roof added to it. In the 80s, the Genesee County Historical Society restored the building to its original construction. In 2013 GM purchased the building and designated it a General Motors heritage site.
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The Millersberg train depot looks a little different than other depots in Michigan. While most are made using lumber or bricks this one is made with concrete blocks. The town of Millersberg not far from Onaway suffered from three major fires. In 1908 the Metz fire swept through the town. In 1911 a fire in the summer burned over 30 homes and destroyed half of downtown. In 1929, a fire destroyed seven buildings and three homes in downtown.
The original depot built in 1898 burned down in 1914. This concrete depot was constructed in 1917 and has stood for more then a decade. The railroad abandoned it in the 1980 but it now used by the historical society.
P.S. The old railroad bed is now used by snowmobilers, cyclists, and hikers. If you are in the area and need a bathroom, they have a nice one next to the depot.
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The Wagoshance Lighthouse (or as the old sailors called it, Wobbleshanks) sits out in Lake Michigan not far from Mackinac City off the coast of Wilderness State Park. It is at a remote place out away from sight by most tourists and has been forgotten and left to crumble into Lake Michigan. It was the first lighthouse in the Great Lakes completely surrounded by water when it was built in 1851. It’s unique looking “birdhouse style lantern room illuminated the dark for decades guiding ships into the Straits of Mackinac. As ships got larger, the shipping lanes changed and the old iron-clad lighthouse was no longer needed and was decommissioned in 1912. Being left to the elements was bad enough, but the Army Air Corps used it as a target to test drones and bombed the outcast Lighthouse. What the elements did not destroy, the fire from the bombs did. It is just a shell of rusted metal and crumbling stone and bricks. If this old light was sitting in front of Mackinac Island, or in view from the bridge, people would be wondering about it, but I guess the old saying “out of sight, out of mind” is true.
The lighthouse is listed as one of the most endangered lighthouses by Lighthouse Digest and with the non-profit organization that was trying to raise funds to save it being recently disbanded, the old lighthouse is left to unceremoniously collapse into Lake Michigan.
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The old Skyline Ski Resort sits empty somewhere south of Grayling. It has been a long time since skiers rode the lift and slalomed down the hill. I am not sure when it closed but it has been at least ten years. I never skied here my wife and I usually drove a little further to Treetops. I guess that is one of the reasons it closed. It looks as if it is still being maintained. I figured someone still owns it and did not poke around on their property. I don’t know if it will ever open again and what else could be done with the property but it does have a spectacular view, I imagine it is spectacular in the fall when the colors are at their peak.
P.S. I say somewhere south of Graying because I don’t want to encourage people to trespass.
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This beautiful old house sits near downtown Chesaning. A Michigan historical marker gives some history on this magnificent old home. It reads:
Leamington and Madeline Stewart built this Queen Anne house in 1895 – 1897. The design was based on Design No. 53 in George F. Barber’s The Cottage Souvenir No. 2, a pattern book published in 1891. Barber advertised the house’s cost at $5,250. Pattern books were popular in the late 1800s as a way to obtain contemporary house plans at bargain prices. An Ontario native, Stewart practiced medicine in Chesaning until his death in 1933.
It is hard to believe this house was built for about $5000 dollars. But then again when most people earned about 25 cents an hour five grand is a lot of money.
P.S. It just hit me that last time I returned a 12 pack of empty Fago cans for the deposit, that is what someone earned in a day about a century ago.
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I was roaming around Battle Creek and I came across this historic fire House. Carved in the stone at the top is No.2 Fire Station 1903. It is a beautiful looking building and still used today. Trying to find a little info about the building I came across this postcard from 1909.
It is always fascinating seeing an old photo of someplace I visited. I wonder about the stories the men could tell if this old postcard could talk.
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