Mike Sonnenberg, Author at Lost In Michigan

Michigan’s War Dog Memorial in Honor of K9 Veterans Day

Posted on March 13, 2019 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Historic Places .

Michigan War Dog Memorial in South Lyon

Michigan War Dog Memorial Cemetery

In 2013 The State of Michigan has declared March 13th K9 Veterans Day in recognition of the dogs and their handlers that have served our country. March 13 was chosen because, in 1942 the Quartermaster Corps of the U.S. Army began training dogs for the newly established War Dog Program, also known as the “K-9 Corps”. K9 Veterans Day is a time to honor all dogs that have served in the military, police and civilian working dogs and their handlers. I also like to remember the dogs that have served in the past and there is the Michigan War Dog Memorial and Cemetery is in South Lyon, on Milford and 11 Mile Road. It’s a beautiful memorial and final resting place for the dogs of Michigan that have served our country and state so faithfully.

Thank you to all the dogs and Handlers for their service, I can only Imagine the lives that were saved because of your dedication and loyalty.

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Dryden Ladies Library Hall

Posted on March 12, 2019 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Library .

I am always on the lookout for historical markers like the one on the side of this building in the town of Dryden. Maybe someday I will have visited all of them but for now, here is what this one reads:

The Ladies Library Association was established in 1871 to provide reading material at a small cost to the community. In the beginning the association only allowed married women to be members and charged an annual fee of one dollar. The women of the association were also involved in charitable works, such as giving aid to Northern Michigan victims of fire in 1881. The association built this Italianate structure in 1885 for $1,500. The first floor contained the library, dining room and kitchen. The second floor hall, which includes a stage, continues to be used for plays and community meetings. Dryden Township accepted the building in 1974 and made it the public library.

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Woods Barn

Posted on March 11, 2019 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Barns and Farms .

I was roaming the backroads southwest of Clare and saw this old barn bracing itself from the windblown snow. I looked on google maps and it showed I was near the town of Woods. Other than showing up on Google maps, I could not find any info about the town.

as promised on my facebook post from yesterday it’s time to announce Teresa Worthington as the winner of the Lost In Michigan book giveaway. please email me at mike@huronphoto.com with your address and I will send out your book.

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The Yellow House

Posted on March 10, 2019 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Houses .

Frankfort is a beautiful Lake Michigan town and downtown is a wonderful place to visit. I have a feeling that I am not the only person who drives around looking at the beautiful old houses when in Frankfort. Although I am probably one of the few who visits in the winter. I love this old yellow house up on the hill. I am sure many of those old houses have some interesting stories to tell.

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The Old School in the Trees

Posted on March 9, 2019 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Schools .

Hidden among the trees and snow is an old brick schoolhouse I saw not far from the small town of Eagle. Researching the internets I found out that it is or was Brown School. It was built in 1910 to replace a log cabin school that was built in 1837 that had burned down in a fire. The town and township that it resides in were named after Eagle Falls New York where the early settlers came from. Revolutionary War veteran Joshua Simmons II is laid to rest in the town’s cemetery.

P.S. I only take pics from the road and do not trespass. please be respectful of other people’s property if you visit this or any other abandoned place.

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The Girl Raised in this Forgotten House

Posted on March 8, 2019 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Historic Places, people .

Near Arcadia Michigan is this old farmhouse hidden in the trees where a little girl named Harriet Quimby lived with her family. When she was a teenager, she moved with her parents to California where she grew up with a love of writing. She wrote seven screenplays directed by D.W. Griffith, and even acted in a few movies. She eventually moved to New York, and began writing a column for Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly. She would publish articles about her journeys and adventures for the magazine. Ahe visited an airshow where she fell in love with aviation and became the first American woman to receive a pilot’s license on August 1st, 1911.

Harriet Quimby in her Purple Flying Suit: Wikipedia

She became a famous pilot, traveling the world flying in her vibrant purple flying suit, and paved the way for female pilots like Amelia Earhart. She was the first woman pilot to fly across the English Channel in 1912, but received little press coverage, because the Titanic had sunk the day before her crossing.

On July 1st she was Tragically killed in a plane crash when her plane pitched upward when she and her passenger were thrown from the plane and fell to their deaths. Strangely the plane glided back down, and her accident still remains a mystery as to what happened.

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Ladies of the Maccabees Building

Posted on March 7, 2019 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Historic Places .

I saw this big stone building with the columns north of downtown Port Huron and I had to stop and get a pic. I saw ” Ladies of the Maccabees ” on the front, and had no idea what that meant, but then again, there are lots of things I know nothing about.

Bina Mae West at age 18, at Capac High, became a teacher and assistant principal. By the time she was 20, she won a seat on the Board of County School Examiners, one of the first women in Michigan to hold elected office. One day she attended a picnic with her aunt that was sponsored by the Maccabees, a fraternal benefit society led by Port Huron native Nathan Boynton. Such societies offered social and self-improvement activities as well as life and disability insurance at a time when neither was common. Benefit societies were a marvelous innovation with a fundamental flaw: They were for men only.

On the spot, she decided she would change that. Her motivation was two of her best pupils, whose mother had died without insurance, and their father had placed the children with well-to-do families to care for the children but the daughter was a domestic servant and the son a stable boy. As West saw it, the youngsters had been torn from their family and denied a formal education because life insurance was unavailable for women.

Over the next 56 years, West devoted herself to her mission. As state organizer for the Ladies of the Maccabees, she built its membership from 319 in 1892 to 5,770 in 1894. The organization, later renamed the Women’s Benefit Association, had 75,224 members in 42 states by 1900. Four years later, it had nearly 150,000 members and 40 employees at its Port Huron headquarters.

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Rogers Carrier House

Posted on March 4, 2019 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Houses .

Down the street from the Capital is this beautiful old Victorian house. The historical maker tells some of its history and reads:

Lansing architect Darius B. Moon built this Queen Anne style house in 1891 for realtor H. M. Rogers. Purchased by Lansing merchant M. R. Carrier in 1905, the house was occupied by the Carrier family until 1964. In 1966, Lansing Community College bought the structure. Students of the architectural studies center began restoring it in 1982. The restoration included redesigning and reconstructing the turret that previously had been removed.

I found out about his house a while ago and on a recent trip to Lansing I wanted to see it. Maybe it’s just me but it seems like Lansing has more one-way streets than any town in Michigan. Whichever way I wanted to go the street was running the opposite direction. I did not think I was ever gonna get to where I wanted to go. I did find this house eventually. Now I know how to get to it so I can come back in the summer when the landscaping is not so dreary.

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Whitefish in Winter

Posted on March 3, 2019 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Lighthouses, upper peninsula .

It’s always a fun trip to see the lighthouse at the tip of Whitefish Point but it is interesting to visit it during the winter. Living downstate we get some snow but they get a lot up at Whitefish Point. It must have been a quite existence taking care of the light way back in the day. Today the historic lighthouse is all bundled up and in hibernation for the winter but a historical marker proudly stands in front of it and reads:

This light, the oldest on Lake Superior, began operating in 1849, though the present tower was constructed later. Early a stopping place for Indians, voyageurs, and Jesuit missionaries, the point marks the course change for ore boats and other ships navigating this treacherous coastline to and from St. Mary’s Canal. Since 1971 the light, fog signal, and radio beacon have been automated and controlled from Sault Ste. Marie.

If you ever get a chance to visit the lighthouse and the nearby T-Falls in winter you should do it. It’s cold but really peaceful without all the tourists.

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The Hanging Tree and a Ghost Town

Posted on March 2, 2019 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Ghost towns, Murders .

Started in the 1880s, near Empire on the shores of Lake Michigan, the town of Aral was a small lumbering community. Charles Wright managed the sawmill and was known for his short temper and willingness to fight. In August of 1889, the Sheriff sent a deputy and treasurer to collect on taxes the sawmill owed to the county. Mr. Wright met the two men as they came into town and after a short argument, he shot and killed both of them leaving their bodies lay in the street. He went back to work at the sawmill as if nothing happened. He must have gotten word from someone that a telegraph message was sent back to the sheriff of the men’s murders. Charles Wright shut down operations for the day and then disappeared into the nearby forest. When the sheriff and a posse of 20 men showed up in the little town of Aral, they found Wright’s native American handyman Peter Lahala, and tied a rope around his neck. They threw it over a nearby tree and pulled him up then lowered him back down trying to get him to disclose the whereabouts of Charles Wright. A the start of hoisting Lahala a third time, two men marched Charles Wright out of the woods and he was taken into custody.

After the deadly events, The tree in town was forever known as “the hanging tree”. The town continued on until the timber was gone. The population slowly dwindled down and by the 1902s all the buildings and houses were moved away. Near Esch Beach, in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is a sign describing the former town of Aral. An old tree lies nearby, and many say that is the remains of the infamous hanging tree. The last two people to leave the town of Aral was Bertie and Donna Bancroft. They moved over to M-22 and built the Ken-Tuc-U-Inn which you can read about HERE

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