The location of this cache is the site of the Sidney Depot, on the former right of way of the Pere Marquette rail line. The right of way is now the Fred Meijer Heartland Trail. The cache is hidden at the Sidney trailhead. Bring your own pen.
Courtesy of the White Pine Library and Michigan Genealogy on the Web, Montcalm County, Ruth Elaine Burkey collection.
Sidney, Michigan, Pere Marquette depot, potato warehouse and elevator. The elevator burned in 1920.
Sidney:
Sidney was first settled by Phineas Swift, from New York, in 1854. A post office was established on September 29th, 1862, with Joshua V. Noah, postmaster. Sidney township and the post office were named for Sidney, Ohio, which was where other early settlers had arrived from. The 1877 State of Michigan Gazetteer and Business Directory listed the population at 100. By 1907, the population hadn't changed much but businesses included a saloon (still there), a barber (still there when I was a child, but no longer), two general stores, one of which is still there. There was also more than one blacksmith, carpenters, painters, a school teacher, potato buyers and shippers and a cheese manufacture. At some point, an elevator was built on the railroad, which did not survive a 1920 fire. Today, Sidney is home to one of the few banks in Michigan which did not shut its doors during the Depression of the early 1930s.
Pere Marquette Railroad
Sidney was one of the last places in Montcalm County to get railroad service. In 1900, the newly incorporated Pere Marquette Railroad purchased the Grand Rapids, Belding and Saginaw Railroad, which, in 1899, connected Lowell with Belding. Belding was already connected with Greenville, via a short spur from Kidd, off the line from Ionia, through Greenville to Howard City. In 1901,the PM built a connection between Greenville and Stanton through Sidney. This line became part of the Grand Rapids to Saginaw Main Line. Heavy trains regularly traveled this line, which shortened the distance substantially over traveling from Ionia to Howard City and then east.
The PM was merged into the C&O in 1947. The C&O operated the Saginaw Division until 1987. At that time, the line was sold to the Mid-Michigan Railroad. The portion between Greenville and Edmore was abandoned (and east to Alma was abandoned in and after 1988 and has become the Fred Meijer Heartland Trail. The portion from Elmdale (south of Lowell) to Greenville was operated by the Mid-Michigan which used the Greenville depot as its headquarters. With the closing of the Frigidaire plant in Greenville, the Mid-Michigan abandoned the line between Greenville and Elmdale in 2007. The Lowell to Greenville segment is in the process of being improved as the Fred Meijer Flat River Valley Trail.
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