Mike Sonnenberg, Author at Lost In Michigan

The Church On The Other Side Of The River

Posted on January 17, 2021 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Churches .

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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The Milwaukee and the Acacia

Posted on January 16, 2021 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Ships and Boats .

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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The Office

Posted on January 15, 2021 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Iconic Buildings .

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 Concrete Depot

Posted on January 14, 2021 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Train Depots .

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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Michigan’s Abandoned Waugoshance Lighthouse

Posted on January 13, 2021 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Lighthouses .

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.

If you love lighthouses I hope you will take a look at my new Lighthouse book HERE

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Grayling’s Skyline

Posted on January 12, 2021 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Forgotten Places .

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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The Stewart House

Posted on January 11, 2021 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Houses .

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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Station No. 2

Posted on January 10, 2021 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Fire Houses .

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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Fruitland District No.6 School

Posted on January 9, 2021 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Schools .

On a foggy winter day, I saw this old schoolhouse near the shores of White Lake north of Muskegon. The unique-looking belfry is what caught my attention. Most of the one-room schools I have seen in Michigan have a simple square belfry. The historical marker in front of it gave a little history of this old building and reads:

This clapboard school with its octagonal belfry was erected here in 1883, following the organization of Fruitland District No.6 in 1882. The new school was built by Thomas Keilor on land donated by John McNeil. Students attended class here from 1883 through May 1948, when Fruitland Township School District consolidated with Whitehall. In 1961 the school was donated to the White Lake Community Club. The club deeded the property to Fruitland Township in 1990.

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Belle Isle’s Marble Lighthouse

Posted on January 8, 2021 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Lighthouses .

There are several lighthouses in Michigan, about 150 of them if you really wanna know, and the Livingston memorial light is one of the most unique, not only in Michigan but in the United States. It’s one of only 3 lights erected as a memorial in Michigan and the only navigational light constructed of marble in the country.

William Livingston was a prominent businessman in Detroit and served as president of the Lake Carriers Association. He was instrumental in having the government expanding the Soo locks and deepening and widening the channel in the St Mary’s river. He also worked on the project building a waterway for downbound ships in the lower Detroit River, which opened in 1908, and named the Livingstone Channel in his honor. During the early 1900’s, more ships and more tonnage passed by Detroit than through either the Suez or Panama canals.

After his death in 1925, as a tribute to Livingston, the city of Detroit donated the property on Belle Isle and funds were raised by the Lakes Carriers Association to build the $100,000 tower designed by famed Detroit architect Albert Kahn. The flouted art deco tower is made of white georgian marble, and has a light that can be seen for 16 miles on Lake St Clair.

Belle Isle Lighthouse built in 1881. Photo from the Coast Guard archives

The was another lighthouse on the island before the memorial light was built. The Belle Isle lighthouse was constructed in 1881 in the location where the coast guard station is now. Keeper Louis Fetes lived at the lighthouse for nearly 40 years and he and his wife raised their six children on the island, in 1930 the light was automated and by the 40’s the old forgotten lighthouse began to decay and the coast guard demolished it. I found a photo of the old lighthouse on the coast guards website and it was a beautiful victorian looking lighthouse, it’s sad the house is no longer standing, I think it would be one of the most beautiful lighthouses in Michigan.

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