Daylight Only. This cache is hidden at Pratt Lake, on property owned by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Park at the public boat launch, NOT along the busy road. The cache was hidden in April without getting my feet wet. Please do NOT record the milepost (mp) value from the cache log sheet in your log or in an image attached to your log. This is for an upcoming challenge.
Pratt Lake:
Pratt Lake had a station on the Lowell and Hastings Railroad, later the Pere Marquette Railroad from 1898 to about 1907. The station was likely a only flag stop used for recreation at the lake. Pratt Lake is not listed in Michigan State Gazetteers for 1897 or 1907. The cache is hidden on what might be a rail spur at the lake, but no evidence for the need of a spur has been found. There is an abandoned foundation, most likely a house, between the boat launch and the cache, near Cascade Road (old U.S. 16).
Illustrated Historical Atlas of Kent County, Michigan, R.L. Polk & Co., 1894, UofM Digital Library
1894 Plat at Pratt Lake area.
Lowell and Hastings Railroad:
The L&H got its start in 1883 when the Kalamazoo, Lowell and North Michigan Railroad was incorporated as a 3' gauge line to build a 68 mile long line from Kalamazoo, via Hastings and Lowell to Smyrna. The line was never constructed. The rights to the proposed line were sold the Hastings, Lowell and Northern Michigan on August 29th, 1883 (north of Hastings), and on December 31st, 1884 to the Chicago, Kalamazoo and Saginaw (south of Hastings). The HL&NM was incorporated on May 18th, 1883 to build the 32 miles from Hastings to Smyrna, as a standard gauge line. The HL&NM was, in turn, sold to the Lowell and Hastings Railroad on May 31st, 1887.
The L&H had a more modest goal of connecting Hastings with Lowell. Construction was completed and the line opened in December, 1887, on the segment from Freeport to Lowell. The line was graded to the south edge of Freeport, but was never extended to Hastings. On May 1st, 1899, the L&H was sold to the Grand Rapids, Belding and Saginaw Railroad, which extended the line from Lowell to Belding, opening that line on January 1st, 1900, under control of the Pere Marquette Railroad. The PM purchased the GRB&S outright in 1903. The line north of Elmdale, to Belding, Greenville, Stanton, Edmore, and points east became part of the Pere Marquette main line between Grand Rapids and Saginaw, and saw heavy traffic for several decades. The portion of the original L&H between Elmdale and Freeport was abandoned by the Pere Marquette in 1935.
Sources:
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