Today what was Beitner Station has a population of more horses than
people but in the 1880's it contained a school, a post office, a
railroad station, a boarding house, a chair factory and a lumber
mill. William Beitner immigrated from Germany in the 1870's and
found work as a lumberjack working for the Hannah and Lay company
of Traverse City. He purchased 80 acres next to the train tracks
and recruited some fellow German immigrants to dig ponds and build
a saw mill. As the white pines were exhausted, Mr. Beitner realized
that the remaining hardwoods would be good for manufacturing
furniture and so he built a chair factory and a boarding house to
house the workers and their families.
As the population of the area increased, the government set up a
post office in the boarding house and the railroad built a station.
Folks could take the train into Traverse for 13 cents. Mr. Beitner
donated a half acre at the corner of Hoosier Valley and Beitner
Roads for a school which was built in 1890.
Perhaps the prime cause for the decline of Beitner Station was
the invention of the automobile. The Model T made it much easier to
get into Traverse and there was less call for a train station. It
is reported that the station building was moved north to Alden and
replaced for a time by a boxcar. When the harvest of the oaks and
maples declined as the pines had earlier, Mr. Beitner closed the
mill and moved his factory to Traverse. Most of the workmen and
their families moved into town also. Because of the decline in
population, during WWII the school was merged with the Sleights and
Sabin schools and the building was torn down. Today, all that
remains of Beitner Station is the road which bears the name, the
ponds, and the barns at the farms to the north.
This cache is part of the Michigan's Lost
Towns cache series. Visit this link to see
the complete list and to submit your own!!
