This cache is near the grade crossings of Pere Marquette Railroad with both 110th Avenue and 19 Mile road as the line approached the Chippewa Lake station. The container is a soda preform. The coordinates were refined after the label on the cache was created. Please don't try to rehide it using the label.
Plat Book of Mecosta County, Michigan, P.A. Myers, Consolidated Publishing Co., 1900, UofM Digital Library.
1900 Plat Map of the Chippewa Lake area.
Chippewa Lake:
Chippewa Lake was built as a small lumber town and survived as a farming community and resort town once the timber was harvested. According to the Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory, Chippewa Lake had a population of 400 in 1897, with two or more hotels/boarding houses, Congregational and Methodist churches, twice daily stage to Rodney, livery, telephone connection (at the Depot?), grocery store, shoe store, barber, blacksmith, shingle mill, saw mill, feed mill, blacksmith and wagon maker, meat market, millinery, and general stores. In 1907, the population was down to 300 but the village had added a hardware and farm implements, a bakery, and a creamery. The Chippewa House advertised “Good accommodations and home fare for pleasure seekers” at $1.00 per day and the Lakeside Hotel advertised “Everything First Class, all new and modern, pleasant place for resorters, good fishing” for $1.50 per day.
Map sketched by A.G. Hudley, 2017, using Google Earth and Google Maps Engine.
Partial track layout at Chippewa Lake
Detroit, Lansing and Northern Railroad:
The roots of the rail line through Chippewa Lake began when the Ionia, Stanton & Northern Railroad was built from Stanton Junction, just north of Ionia, through Fenwick, Sheridan and Stanton in 1872. In 1876, The IS&N and two other lines were reorganized as the Detroit, Lansing and Northern Railroad. In 1878, the DL&N, extended the line from Stanton, through McBride to Edmore, where it connected with an east west line, the Chicago, Saginaw and Canada Railroad, (Saginaw to Howard City) In 1880, the DL&N line was extended north and west through Wyman, Blanchard, Millbrook, Remus, Mecosta, Rodney and on to Big Rapids, where it crossed with the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad and connected with the Chicago & West Michigan Railroad. In 1883, a branch line from Rodney to Chippewa Lake was built. The line crossed 110th Avenue from south-east to north-west just south of the cache site, and lead to a station on the south-west end of the lake. The 1900 plat of a portion of Chippewa Township shows the approximate location of the station. Photos of the station have not been yet been discovered.
The DL&N, and other lines were reorganized as the Detroit, Grand Rapids and Western Railroad in 1897. In 1899-1900, the DGR&W, C&WM and Flint & Pere Marquette Railroad were reorganized as the Pere Marquette. The branch from Rodney to Chippewa Lake was abandoned in 1906. The line between Big Rapids and Remus, including the Blanchard and Weidman branches, was abandoned in 1943-44. The PM became part of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad in 1947. The line between Remus and Edmore was removed in 1981.
Sources:
Detroit, Lansing and Northern Railroad
Pere Marquette Railroad
Railroads for Michigan, Graydon Meints, MSU Press, (c) 2005
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