North of Alpena on the east side of Grand Lake is the small town of Presque Isle. If you have ever traveled through the town you may have seen this log cabin that sit’s near the road. It has an interesting story to tell on the historical marker that stands next to it.

In 1858, German immigrant John C. Kauffman (1833-1913) left Buffalo bound for Chicago aboard a ship that later ran near Bell Bay. John walked ashore and made his way to Burnham’s Landing at Presque Isle Harbor, where he found work cutting firewood for lake steamships. In 1861, John married Elizabeth Woodruff. During the Civil War, he served in the 13th Independent Battery, Michigan Light Artillery. His unit was with the 13th New York Cavalry during the search for President Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth. It helped capture one of Booth’s accomplices. Kauffman returned to Presque Isle after the war. There he served as township supervisor. He was postmaster for the last fifteen years of his life.

John and Elizabeth Kauffman applied for a 149-acre homestead in Presque Isle Township in 1862. He built a log cabin near Grand Lake, but drifting snow off the Lake forced him to move it in 1876. John marked each log to make reassembly easier. Using a team of oxen, he and his family skidded the hand-hewn logs up the hill to this site and rebuilt the cabin. Nearby Grand Lake made the cabin a popular tourist stop in the summer. Visitors remembered John sitting on the porch in his military uniform every Fourth of July, telling stories of his service. After John died, his family loaned, then deeded, the cabin to the Grand Lake Association. The building has served as a community center, recreation facility and gift shop.

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I thought maybe I traveled back in time when I saw this old Sinclair Service station in Cassopolis. I am not sure what the story is on this place but it looks as if it was used as an office or something.

It reminds me of being a kid and pulling into the gas station with my dad in his big blue Oldsmobile Delta 88 and the bell inside going DING DING.  Getting gas is so much different with the fancy card swiping digital pumps. If I ran a gas station especially near the expressway I would convert it into a retro-looking service station. I would have neon lights and illuminated globes on top of the pumps. I would even put in a hose that goes DING DING. ( until it drove me insane)

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The St. Clair tunnel was the first international underwater railway tunnel in the world when it was constructed in 1891. The tunnel runs between Port Huron and Sarnia under the St. Clair River. It was vital for the transportation of supplies and during World War 1 it was the target of a clandestine German organization to destroy several important targets in the southeastern part of Michigan. Albert Carl Kaltschmidt, A German Immigrant living in Detroit, along with some German friends planned to blow up some weapon manufacturing plants in Detroit and Canada along with the tunnel under the St. Clare River.

Support for the group came from Count Johann von Bernstorff, the German ambassador in Washington, D.C., and Captain Franz von Papen, who later became Adolf Hitler’s vice-chancellor. Kaltschmidt and his men planned to dynamite the Detroit Screw Works which produced shrapnel for the allies. His plans were deterred by the guards at the plant and his other targets where discovered. He had planned to load a railroad car with dynamite to destroy the historic tunnel. He was captured and tried and convicted in federal court where he was sentenced to four years of prison. After three years he was deported back to Germany.

Photo from Wikipedia showing the new and old tunnel.

In 1995 a larger tunnel was constructed next to the original one to handle larger rail cars. The old tunnel was decommissioned after more than a century of use.

P.S. I could not get a really good photo of the old tunnel. I did not want to poke around too much since it is an international tunnel has security around it.

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