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 this old house in the small town of McMillan west of Newberry. I don’t know anything about it but it caught my attention. The community of McMillan was first settled in 1881 when the railroad built a depot named the McMillan Station to serve the area. The station was named after railway executive
I pass by this old church near US-23 often and one day I decided to take the backroads instead of the expressway. I came upon this beautiful old church north of Ann Arbor and standing next to it was a historical marker that reads: Catholicism in Northfield Township dates from the early nineteenth century. In
The town of Holly had two railroad lines and together they built this beautiful red and yellow brick depot. The Detroit and Milwaukee Railway and the Flint and Holly Railroad founded by Michigan Governor Henry Crapo carried passengers into Holly. Probably to the now famous Battle Ally, which you can read my post about it
The small town of Leonidas north of Colon has one of the most unique school buildings in Michigan. The shape of the building is a rather ordinary square but it is adorned on the outside with ornately placed fieldstone. The school was constructed in 1935 as part of Roosevelt’s Civil Works Administration. The building was
It’s hard to miss this big old green house near downtown Hastings. It was constructed by Daniel Striker in the 1880s. He lived there until his death in 1898 and his wife Sarah lived in the house until her death in 1915. After that, the house was used as the second home for Hastings’ first
March 13th, is K9 Veteran’s Day. It was on March 13, 1942, that the Army began training for its new War Dog Program, also known as the “K-9 Corps,” It was the first time that dogs were officially a part of the U.S. Armed Forces. Thank you to all the working dogs and their handlers
The small town of Hickory Corners sits north of Kalamazoo and Battle Creek. In 1837 the settlement got its name after surveyors found a large hickory while doing their survey. A schoolhouse along with the first house was built shortly after. In 1844 it officially got a post office. It has always remained a small
Point Iroquois and its light near Brimley On Lake Superior mark the division line between Whitefish Bay and the western end of the St. Marys River. It was named for the Iroquois warriors massacred there by the Ojibwein 1662. Native Algonkians called the point “Nadouenigoning”, composed of the words “Nadone” (Iroquois) and “Akron” (bone). In 1620, French explorers Étienne Brûlé and Grenoble became the first
The town of Bessemer is in the southwest part of the Upper Peninsula. As mining production increased so did the population of the town. In 1887, Bessemer became the Gogebic County Seat and this sandstone courthouse constructed that year at a cost of $50,000. The Upper Peninsula had several sandstone quarries and in the late