This beautiful old house stands along M-25 south of Lexington. I am not sure about its history but it is now a bed and breakfast.
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Category Archives: Thumb
Nestled among the trees and over a small creek is an old iron truss bridge. The sign hanging from the top beams reads: MICHIGAN BRIDGE AND PIPE CO. LANSING MICHIGAN. You can see the old bridge from M-25 near Port Austin and it was part of the old sawmill town of Port Crescent. The town started back in 1844 when Walter Hume built a hotel and trading post near the mouth of the Pinnebog River. A few sawmills sprang up in the area around the river and the town was known as Pinnebog but another town upriver had the same name. It was decided to change the name of the town to Port Crescent for the crescent shape the river made as it flowed into the Saginaw Bay.
The lumber town continued to thrive and even survived the Great Fire of 1871. Woods and Company built a large steam-powered sawmill with a brick smokestack that soared into the sky. The town had several houses and even built a large two-story schoolhouse to educated the children. By 1881 the lumberjacks had cut most of the timber, and what was still standing, was mostly destroyed by the great fire that swept through the thumb. Slowly houses and buildings were moved or dismantled and taken to the surrounding towns such as Port Austin and Bad Axe. By 1894 all the buildings were gone and very little remained of the once prosperous town. The trees were gone, but a few people realized the sand was valuable for glass making and copper smelting and began mining and shipping the sand around the Great Lakes.
By the 1930s sand mining operations have ceased and that would have been the end of the land being used for anything. After WWII and the prosperity that followed Michigan families began vacationing during the summer. The state of Michigan acquired the property along the shoreline in 1959 and established the Port Crescent State Park. Little remains of the town of Port Crescent. The old bridge is used for a hiking trail and the foundation for the sawmill chimney stands near the entrance to the campground. Next time you visit Port Crescent State Park, or drive past the sign for it on M-25, maybe you will remember the town and the hard-working lumberjacks who lived there.
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This big old red and green house stands near the tip of the Thumb in Port Austin. It is now known as the Garfield Inn but it was originally built by Charles G. Learned. A historical marker stands next to it and reads:
A native of New York, contractor Charles G. Learned helped build New York City’s water-works system and the Erie Canal. Around 1837 Learned and his brother-in-law purchased several thousand acres of pine land in Michigan’s Thumb area. Two years later, Learned and his wife, Maria Raymond, came to Port Austin and bought a house and three acres at this site. Learned’s cutover pine land became a 2,000-acre farm where he prospered as an agriculturalist and dairy farmer. With profits from his lumbering and farming enterprises Learned enlarged and updated this house in the French Second Empire style. In the 1860s Ohio congressman, later president, James A. Garfield, a family friend, was a frequent guest here. From 1931 to 1979 the house served as the Mayes Inn and Tower Hotel.
There were rumors that President Garfield was smitten for Charles Learned’s wife Maria and that president requested that he travel to Port Austin to see her after being shot, but he was not permitted to travel and died from his gunshot wounds.
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The small town of Silverwood sits in the Thumb between Mayville and Marlette. I always thought the name sounds like something from a TV western or movie. It was not the first name of the town. When the railroad was built through here in 1882, the residents applied for a post office. One suggested naming it something easy to remember, and the post office named “Easy” and opened on 13 April 1882. I am not sure why but in 1890 The name changed to “Rollo” and changed again in 1892 to “Silverwood”, after the nearby stands of white pine.
P.S. There is a nice old building in town that is used as a store. For years I have been trying to get a nice pic of it but every time I am in the area, there are a bunch of cars parked in front of it. So instead, I took a pic of this building. I am not sure what it was but the stone at the top reads. H. C. BEARUP 1896.
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This old General Store sits in Huron City near the tip of the Thumb. It was built in 1885 after the great fire of 1881 that swept through the forests of the Thumb. It closed in the 1950s and is now part of the Huron City Museum.
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This large brick building stands along M-25 near the tip of the Thumb. Above the front door carved in stone are the words. GRINDSTONE CITY SCHOOL. I have seen several one room schoolhouses around the Thumb, so I imagine when this building was built in the early 1900s, the citizens of Grindstone City were proud of it. I am not sure when it closed, but it is privately owned now.
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I saw this old building, or at least what is left of it in the town of Pinnebog. It’s located near the tip of the thumb on the Pinnebog River. It was started back in the 1840s as a lumbering town. Another sawmill town had the same name, but when they established a post office the town changed its name to Port Crescent. That is where the state park is now and is named after the former town.
Some of the buildings from Port Crescent were moved to Pinnebog. I am not sure if this one was one of them but maybe it could have been. There is only a few houses left in the small town and I am sure it has been a long time since it heard the whirring of saw blades at the sawmill.
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I saw this old service station in Watertown in the middle of the Thumb. I am not sure if it is an old Sinclair station or made to look like one but either way I like it.
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Roaming the back roads in the middle of the thumb I came across the small town of Deford. The Grand Trunk Railroad came through the area in 1883 and a station was named Bruce for local landowner Elmer Bruce. Arthur Newton founded the village around the station and renamed it after his friend Mr. Deford. I saw these old buildings in town. I am sure they were not around when the town was first founded but the looked old. The faded hand painted sign on the one building looks like it had the word BLACKSMITH on it.
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A few miles south of Unionville is an old schoolhouse. Above the door is the lettering 1909 Columbia Dist. No. 2. Most of the old schools I find have the date when they were constructed, but I have never seen the date when they closed. I am not sure when this old schoolhouse last taught children inside its brick walls. However, I did find out that the school was part of a small town called Columbia Corners. The community started in 1854 and it had a post office from 1879 until 1903. Not much of the town exists today, but I wonder how many kids learned to read and write in the little schoolhouse.
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