CACHE: Placed in the road right of way per owner's request. Not my typical intersection cache. The cemetery is a bushwacking nightmare, please see photos in cache image gallery for the 4 remaining named graves on only 2 headstones.
TOWN HISTORY: Article dated 8 February 1879 "A correspondent of the Michigan Sun has the following to say about this little burg and the people who live in it: Five Lakes contains a depot, telegraph office, post office, grain elevator, one saw mill, one shingle mill, one plating mill, one blacksmith shop, one store and about forty houses all owned and controlled by the lumbering firm of Piper & Thompson. It is also the terminus of the northern branch of the Detroit and Bay City Railroad. The store is stocked with everything from cambrie needle to a hogshead of sugar, and is presided over by Mr. A.B. Mathews, formerly of Flint.
The saw mill contains one circular mill complete; also an upright saw, driven by an 18x24 engine, Mr. Michael O'Laughlin, engineer. The shingle mill contains one Hall machine, which at this writing is turning out an average of 35 M per day of eleven hours. The planing mill contains two large double-cylinder planing and matching machines of W.A. Woods' manufacture, siding saws, etc. Both shingle and planing mill are 400 feet from the saw mill, and are driven by an engine 16.24, located in the saw mill, power communicated by means of wire rope.
Mr. A. Gray has a charge of all saws; does his own hammering, grinding, etc., and a glance at the lumber and shingles is sufficient to convince any practical man that the has no superior in that line. Mr. Trumbull (not Lyman), but a man who thinks himself quite as well posted in his line, has charge of the planing mill. Mr. Hugh Jackson has charge of inspecting and shipping the manufactured lumber; and discharges the duties of his position with marked ability. Mr. F.M. Thompson has charge of the books of the firm, and a general supervision of the business in the absence of E.L. Thompson, the general manager. The general office of the firm is at Lapeer, eight miles from this place and is connected with this office by an Edison telephone, by means of which the general manager directs the details of his large business as easily when sitting in his cozy office in town as though he was there.
It would be impossible within the compass of a short letter to give you a detailed description of this model concern. Suffice it to say that under the able management of the junior partner, Mr. E.L. Thompson, everything works with clock-like precision. Trains arrive and depart twice each day, Sundays excepted, carrying lumber, shingles, staves, square timber and grain."
Five Lakes continued to grow since the letter was written and published in the paper. The town also had a hotel, dance hall, gained another store, two churches but only one confirmed on maps, a single saloon, many workers quarters which a few exist south of Kings Mill Road on the east side of the road, and of course a school and suspiciously small cemetery. It is named for the lakes in the area and the town straddled the township line in both Mayfield and Arcadia Townships. The location of the railbed has yet to be identified. Believe the tracks were pulled up in the late 1880's as that is the date given when they were pulled at Stephen's Mill to the south.
SCHOOL HISTORY: Five Lakes School had two different buildings. The first was built before 1874 and was said to have burned. The second and present was built in the mid-1920's and remains today in very neglected shape. After it closed to students it was used for storage for William's Gunsight out of Davison. It was never converted to a house. It has two rooms and two double restrooms, four toilets total.
CEMETERY HISTORY: For a town that got as large as it did, this cemetery is remarkably small and the other cemeteries are some distance away. Those who attended the school only remember no more than a dozen or so headstones, if that. Today there's only a civil war marker for Henry Nash, a monument for 3 Lynch children, a broken stone for someone who's name starts with "She---" and a base for a headstone, that may or may not be for the broken stone. It could be that the other graves had wooden markers, or transient and temporary employees of the mills were buried unmarked. We may never know. At some point someone chose to plant pines across the cemetery in rows with utter disregard for those buried there.