A History of Northern Michigan and Its People, Volume I, Part 38

Author: Perry F. Powers
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 597


USA > Michigan > A History of Northern Michigan and Its People, Volume I > Part 38


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The excellent water power at Bellaire soon attracted various manu- facturing enterprises and by the early eighties Richardi & Bechtold had in operation a large sawmill and wooden ware factory and there were also two shingle mills, a planing mill and a rolling pin and desk fac- tory.


The firm of Richardi & Bechtold was composed of Robert Richardi, a practical and inventive German machinist who had served in the Civil war and settled at Bellaire in 1881; and Frederick W. Bechtold, a young Belgian and Union soldier, who had had experience as a sales- man and has ever since been active in the industrial and financial en-


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terprises of the village. Before coming to Michigan Mr. Richardi had invented a wooden scoop and various machinery for manufacturing wooden trays. As the practical man of the enterprise he joined Mr. Bechtold, who was especially adapted to pushing the sales of their products. Their partnership resulted in the establishment of a manu- factory for the making of trays, bowls and wooden ware in general, and the industry in a much extended form has been continued to this day. Henry Richardi, the son, has succeeded his father, the founder of the business, and Frederick W. Bechtold is still a partner. Mr. Bechtold has been continuously active in the industrial and financial interests of the village and is also associated with Henry Richardi in the ownership and management of the Bellaire Hydraulic Light and Power Company. The early operations of Richardi & Bechtold, with subsequent developments brought about by the firm whose presidency has passed to Henry Richardi have been of such concern to the well being of Bellaire that a reliable account is taken from a late publica- tion : "Robert Richardi continued to be actively identified with the industrial enterprises here until 1895. when he sold his interests to his son, having had charge of the mechanical and operative depart- ments of the business and being a man of distinctive talents and skill in a mechanical way. Upon closing out his interests here, he estab- lished an electric light and power plant in the village of Plainwell, Allegan county, whence he eventually moved to the city of Richmond, Virginia, to operate a fine electric plant there.


"Robert Richardi was associated with Mr. Bechtold in the develop- ment of the valuable water power at Bellaire, utilizing the same in the operation of the first wooden ware plant in which employment was given to about forty men. In 1900 a stock company was organized and incorporated, while the scope of operations has been greatly ex- panded under the present regime, that of the Bellaire Wooden Ware Company."


Since the above was written and mainly through the efforts, in- fluence and capital of Henry Richardi and Mr. Bechtold the water power has been utilized as a generator of electricity for lighting and power purposes. In 1906 the fine plant at Bellaire was completed at a cost, with the conveying system, of about $75,000. Mr. Richardi is president and Mr. Bechtold secretary of the controlling company. Through this plant electric light and power are sent to Charlevoix and thence distributed from a central plant and the planing and grist mills at Bellaire are supplied with power.


The village of Bellaire has its own municipal lighting plant for night service. It is located on the Cedar river about a mile from the village, having been established in 1901 and rebuilt in 1910.


Bellaire was incorporated as a village in 1891, and its first officers consisted of Frederick W. Bechtold as president; Fred B. Zoon, clerk; Alfred A. Hickox, assessor, and J. C. Abbott, treasurer.


It has a well organized Central Union school and a public library of some 1,500 volumes. The latter is a consolidation of the old Forest Home and Kearney township libraries, which occurred in 1905, and the


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collection is housed in the Kearney town hall. The leading churches are the Methodist, Catholic and Congregational.


The Bellaire State Bank, successor of a private institution, was established in 1906. It has a capital of $20,000; surplus and undivided profits amounting to $4,400, and the following officers: F. W. Bech- told, president ; Charles Weiffenbach, vice-president, and W. H. Rich- ards. cashier.


ELK RAPIDS OF TODAY


The pioneer times in the history of Elk Rapids have been traced in preceding pages of this chapter up to the period of the transfer of


MAIN STREET, ELK RAPIDS


the county seat to Bellaire. At that time the Dexter & Noble Lumber Company had branched out into many enterprises. It had built a fur- nace and was conducting it as the Elk Rapids Iron Company, and various stores were being conducted as the Elk Rapids Supply Com- pany. while the Elk Rapids Light Company was to be a later evolu- tion. A flour mill was started, which is still in operation, and the Elk Rapids Iron Company improved the water power so that it became the greatest asset in the prosperity of the place. In 1890 the Elk Rapids Cement & Lime Company was organized and built a large cement mill at the village, which was in operation until 1911. The Lake Superior Iron & Chemical Company was perhaps the latest outgrowth of the Dexter & Noble enterprises and the Elk Rapids Iron Company, in which were bound up so much of the industrial and business life of Elk Rapids. It was incorporated as a village in 1900.


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The village still supports various wooden manufactories, such as ยท lumber and lath mills, has a good flour mill and one of the best natural water powers in its section of the state. It is located in a fine fruit and farming country, and is in the midst of the great potato-producing section of Northern Michigan. During one season of the past six years about 75,000 bushels were shipped from the township, the bulk from Elk Rapids. The shipping facilities of the place are excellent, as it is situated on the Pere Marquette road and has deep water communica- tion with all the ports of the Great Lakes. The local trade and busi- ness are transacted through the Elk Rapids Savings Bank with a cap- ital of $35,000.


Elk Rapids has an excellent graded school housed in a $24,000 building, a public library, and churches organized by Methodists, Presby- terians, Catholics, and Episcopalians. There is also a strong German Reformed Society. It was here, at the mouth of Elk river, that the relig- ious activities first began on the eastern shores of Grand Traverse bay, or to give the details in Dr. Leach's words: "Until 1857 there had been no stated religious service anywhere on the east side of the bay. On the second day of August in that year, Rev. D. R. Latham crossed from Old Mission and preached at Elk Rapids. He attempted to include that point in his round of regular appointments, but often found it difficult to cross the bay. When, in the fall of 1858, the Michigan Methodist Conference detached Elk Rapids from Old Mission and Traverse City and erected it, with the adjacent territory, into what was known as the Whitewater circuit, Mr. Latham was assigned to it as preacher in charge and moved from Old Mission to his new work."


In the fall of 1862 the Congregationalists sent Rev. Leroy Warren up into Northern Michigan to see what chance there was for a mission in that benighted part of the country, and he located at Elk Rapids as the first preacher of that denomination. A society was organized in February of the following year.


The Church of the Covenant, Protestant Episcopal, was formed at the old courthouse in Elk Rapids, August 29, 1867. These were the earliest foundations of religious life laid in the village.


MANCELONA


Mancelona, thirteen miles southeast of Bellaire, is a flourishing vil- lage on the Grand Trunk & Indiana Railroad and is but a few years younger than the county seat.


The first movements at this point having any connection with a village were in the spring of 1872 by Leander C. Handy and A. D. Car- penter, who opened a store and established the nucleus of a business center. Prior to that time section 20, upon a portion of which the village is located, had been occupied a short time.


Perry Andress, after residing several years in Lapeer and St. Joseph counties, Benton Harbor and Allegan, came with his family in 1869 to where Mancelona now is, before the township was organized. He took the site of the Mancelona Hotel and vicinity as a homestead.


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Mr. Andress erected the hotel building and opened a place of public entertainment when the railroad was just being surveyed, and also gave some attention to lumbering. In 1880 he removed to Petoskey, purchased the Occidental Hotel and retained it until his death, March 11, 1881. The town and village of Mancelona were named from Mr. Andress' youngest daughter, Mancelona Andress, afterward well known in Petoskey society.


Leander C. Handy and A. D. Carpenter opened the first store at Mancelona in 1872. Mr. Handy bought the first village lot, erected the first frame building, sold the first merchandise, bought the first load of wheat and the first load of apples, shipped the first carload of wheat and assisted in securing the location of the blast furnace operated by J. Otis & Company, the Mancelona handle factory and the butter dish and sash, door and blind factories. He may be put down in local history as the real founder of the village.


The second store was started by Marshall Emery, and soon after the arrival of Perry Andress, the proprietor of the village plat, a post- office was established with Mr. Andress as postmaster. He kept the of- fice in his hotel for about a year, when Mr. Handy succeeded him and continued in office for many years.


A Congregational church was organized at Mancelona in 1874. The Methodists supplied the villagers with occasional preaching in 1873-5, and the Mancelona and Kalkaska circuit was organized in 1877.


In 1875 a schoolhouse was built which answered the needs of the district for several years, but in 1882 a Union building was erected, the pupils being regularly graded during that year.


In 1877 Mr. Andress, the original proprietor of Mancelona, platted about fifteen acres on the north half of section 20, thus adding to the area of the village.


Furnaceville, or Antrim, which adjoins Mancelona on the south, is practically a part of the village. It was founded by John Otis, a New York man who located there in 1882 and, with R. M. Cherrie, erected and started a blast furnace for the manufacture of charcoal pig iron. In May, 1883, the furnace and all the main buildings of the plant were consumed by fire at a loss of about $40,000, but in September Mr. Otis resumed the enterprise alone and developed it finally into a large iron manufactory employing about one hundred and fifty men. He also started a broom factory, built large kilns for the manufacture of char- coal and made Furnaceville a busy industrial town. It is still an im- portant manufacturing center with a large plant for the making of wood alcohol and chemicals, an extensive charcoal pig iron furnace, and saw and planing mills.


Mancelona and Furnaceville combined present a picture of varied industrial life, for, besides the manufactories mentioned, they turn out flour, veneer, cheese box material, broom handles, butter and gasoline launch engines-certainly a conglomeration.


Mancelona township contains about twelve thousand acres of cut- over hardwood timber lands, the soil of which is of a heavy sandy loam and particularly favorable to heavy potato crops. Abundant


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crops have, in fact, been raised, as may be verified by the shipments of over one hundred and seventy-five carloads of potatoes in one of the recent seasons. Most of this trade gravitates to the village.


A village incorporation was secured in 1889; so that Mancelona is now a regular civil body with wide paved streets, electric light and power plant, an excellent system of water works, a good bank (An- trim County State Savings), two weekly newspapers, an up-to-date public school system and a fine county normal school, a township library, an opera house and a number of churches. The last named include Methodist, Catholic, Congregational, Episcopal and German Reformed organizations.


CENTRAL LAKE


Central Lake, which was incorporated as a village in 1895, is eight miles north of Bellaire on the Pere Marquette road. It is a substan- tial community of between eight and nine hundred people and is the center of a productive farming country of the Intermediate lake region. Sweet corn, beans, squash and all kinds of fruit are plentifully raised in the adjacent sections, and Central Lake has one of the largest can- ning factories in the Grand Traverse region, besides being a leading shipping station for these varieties of farm produce. Its industries also include flour, lumber, stave and shingle mills and the building of boats.


The trade and industries of the village require the facilities of two banks-a private institution and the First State Bank, the latter capitalized at $20,000.


The good points of Central Lake are spread abroad by a weekly news- paper and four religious organizations minister to its spiritual needs- the Congregational, Methodist, Free Methodist and Episcopalian.


STATIONS AND POSTOFFICES


Outside of its incorporated villages, there are several stations and postoffices which may now be mentioned. Eastport, at the head of Torch lake and about six miles northwest of the village of Central Lake, is a small settlement which was first known as Wilson. About 1869 a man named Phillips built a hotel here, but the place did not seem to prosper, although a survey was made for a village plat in 1873 and given the name of Wilson. A postoffice was established and several stores opened and the name was soon changed to Eastport. But this more imposing name did not greatly stimulate the village. It is still but a small col- lection of buildings depending upon Central Lake for its banking and shipping accommodations. A daily stage runs to that station and, in the open season, it is connected by steamer with Elk Rapids.


The village of Torch Lake is on the western shore of the body of water by that name, or, more strictly speaking, on a narrow strip of land between Torch lake and Grand Traverse bay. It is nine miles from Central Lake, which is also its nearest shipping and banking point.


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The settlement has stage communication with both Central Lake and Elk Rapids. But Torch Lake carries one back to as early as 1858, for in that year, Captain John W. Brown built a large log house and barn where Torch Village now is. He also built some shanties on the beach of Torch lake and cleared some thirty acres of land. The place was named Brownstown. Captain Brown was commander of the "Paine" and is said to have been a better sailor than farmer. He spent consid- erable time and money without reaping any benefit. In 1864 he sold to Wilcox & Newell, who moved on and erected a sawmill, which they had hardly gotten in running order before it was burned down. In the summer of 1866 a postoffice called Torch Lake was established with Major Cicero Newell postmaster, and from that time the name of Brownstown was dropped.


Alden is a pretty summer resort on the southeastern shores of Torch lake near its extremity, and was formerly known as Spencer Creek, as it is also at the mouth of that stream. . The stream received its name from John B. Spencer, a lumberman who operated in that vicinity. In 1870 F. J. Lewis built a store there, naming the settlement which clus- tered around it, Noble; but the village was afterwards called successively Spencer Creek and Alden, receiving its present name as a station of the Pere Marquette Railroad.


Alba is at the junction of the Grand Rapids & Indiana and Detroit & Charlevoix railroads, in the eastern part of the county, lying both in Chestonia and Star townships. The original plat of the village was made by William J. Barker in 1878, and two additions were platted in 1882 and 1883. It has a good graded school, a private bank, two churches, several stores, a flour mill, machine shop and saw planing and feed mill, and is altogether quite a brisk little place.


ORGANIZATION OF THE TOWNSHIPS


The town of Milton was organized by the board of supervisors of Grand Traverse county at a meeting held March 3, 1857.


In 1865, two years after the organization of Antrim county, the town of Milton was changed to Helena and a new township was created under the original name.


The legislative act of 1863 organizing the county created the town- ships of Banks and Elk Rapids-the latter being previously known as Megesee township.


The town of Torch Lake was organized by the county board in 1866; Forest Home and Mancelona in 1871, the former by the board of super- visors and the latter by the state legislature; Central Lake by the leg- islature in 1873; Chestonia by the county board in 1874; Kearney, Echo, Custer and Jordan by the board of supervisors in 1875; Star by the county board in 1881, and the town of Warner by the legislature of the state in 1883.


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CHAPTER XIII


LEELANAU COUNTY


NATURAL CHARACTERISTICS-THE CARP LAKE REGION-THE GLEN LAKE REGION-POPULATION AND PROPERTY-FIRST SETTLERS-FIRST YEARS OF GROWTH-COUNTY ORGANIZED-NORTHPORT, FIRST COUNTY SEAT -LELAND, PRESENT COUNTY SEAT-EMPIRE-SUTTON'S BAY- PROVEMONT-OMENA AND PESHABATOWN-GLEN ARBOR AND BUR- DICKVILLE.


Leelanau county with its 227,200 acres of area constitutes that sharply defined peninsula which juts out from the northwestern shoul- der of Northern Michigan between the deep waters of Lake Michigan on the west and those of Grand Traverse bay on the east. The great bodies of water which embrace the county on three sides affect the cli- mate to the great comfort and advantage of the people and the region of their residence; for the summers are not as warm in Leenanau or the winters as cold as in most places in the state of the same latitude.


Eighty-three per cent of this county was once covered with maple, beech, elm, birch, oak and other hardwoods, and ten per cent was swamp land, but most of the heavy timber has been cut away, and one-third of the county is now in cultivated farms and orchards. More than 138,000 acres have been set aside for agricultural purposes, and the rolling uplands of the northern sections are ideal for the raising of fruit. Apples and peaches flourish, as well as alfalfa and all forage crops, and the abundance of lakes and streams throughout the county, with the equable climate, make dairying a growing industry.


LEELANAU CHARACTERISTICS


Leelanau county is an aggregation of hills, valleys, plains, forests, lakes, headlands, inlets and islands, one of the most picturesque regions of Northern Michigan and warmly favored by the sportsman and sum- mer resorter. The county is an irregular triangle in shape, its greatest length being thirty-nine miles and its greatest width, along its south- ern boundary, twenty-two miles. It has a shore line of more than one hundred miles. The most striking interior features of the county center in the valleys of Carp and Glen Lakes. The late Professor Winchell thus speaks of the topography of Leelanau county: "Some parts of the county present hills of somewhat formidable magnitude. Most


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FRUIT FARM IN LEELANAU COUNTY, OWNED BY MRS. C. P. TAFT OF CINCINNATI, SISTER-IN-LAW OF PRESIDENT TAFT


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of the northern part of the triangle is decidedly rough. The ridge of land separating Carp lake from Sutton's bay attains an elevation of nearly four hundred feet above the bay. Carp lake is a beautiful sheet of pure water, resting in the bosom of hills, which with their rounded forest-covered forms furnish it a setting of surpassing loveliness. Ex- cept for a short space on the east side south of the narrows the shores of the lake are occupied by dry and arable land. The region between Glen Arbor and Traverse City is substantially an undulating plateau, lying at an elevation of about three hundred feet above the lake. Glen lake is surrounded by hills, which attain an elevation of two hundred and fifty to four hundred feet.


"North Unity is a bold bluff of clay and sand, formed by the wast- ing of the lakeward side of a prominent hill by the action of the waves. "Sleeping Bear Point is an enormous pile of gravel, sand and clay, which has been worn away on its exposed borders till the lakeward face presents a precipitous slope rising from the waters to an eleva- tion of five hundred feet, and forming with the horizon an angle of fifty degrees. Back from the face of the bluff is an undulating plateau of clay, pebbles and sand covering an area of six or eight square miles, over which the only signs of vegetation are a few tufts of brown, coarse grass with scattered clumps of dwarfed and gnarly specimens of the blam of Gilead, a miniature desert lying three hundred and eighty feet above the lake. Across this waste of sand and clay the wind sweeps almost incessantly,-sometimes with relentless fury-driving peb- bles and sand into the shelter of the neighboring forest, and causing the stunted poplars to shrink away in terror at its violence. The pelting sand has polished the exposed surface of the larger fragments of rocks to such an extent that they reflect the sunlight like a mirror. Their surfaces are sometimes worked into furrows, pits and grotesque inequalities in consequence of the unequal hardness of different por- tions of the stone. The 'Bear' proper is an isolated mound rising a hundred feet above this desolate plateau and singularly covered with evergreens and other trees, presenting from the lake the dark appear- ance which suggested to the early navigators the idea of a bear in repose. "


THE CARP LAKE REGION


Carp or Leelanau lake, a fine body of water twenty-five miles long and from a few rods to three miles wide, cuts longitudinally through the two eastern tiers of townships to Lake Michigan by way of the Leelanau river. The entire shore on both sides is indented with bays into which empty some fine trout streams. Cedar river, a cold spring brook, empties into Carp lake near Cedar and is one of the best of the trout streams. Carp lake itself supplies to the sportsman virtually every fish known to the waters of Northern Michigan-Mackinaw trout, black, green and speckled bass, white fish, pickerel, muskalonge, perch, sunfish and speckled trout. A special feature of the fishing on Carp lake is the deep water trolling for Mackinaw trout.


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Around Carp lake, or Lake Leelanau as it is becoming known, are springing up summer camps and cottages and its future as an attrac- tive and popular resort country is assured. The entire region well upholds the translation from the Indian name Leelanau, "Delight of Life." Leland, the county seat, is located between the head of Carp lake and Lake Michigan.


THE GLEN LAKE REGION


This includes the southwestern townships of the county, and some of the most picturesque, romantic, fertile and progressive sections of


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D. H. DAY HOMESTEAD, GLEN LAKE


its territory. An interested enthusiast speaks thus in 1911: "Glen lake, from one to three miles wide. seven miles long-is abundantly stocked with fish, bass. lake-trout, pickerel and perch. Yearly, since 1893, the spawn from the state fish hatcheries is planted in the lake and the brook-trout stream that empties into it after passing through Atkinson's pond at DeGrawville. For beauty scenery Glen lake is classed as the equal of Lake George and by some even of Lake Como. It is fast becoming a great resort lake. Many hotels and cottages are beginning to line its shores and it is destined to soon be one of the most popular resorts in Michigan, accessible by railroad to Empire and by the Northern Michigan Transportation Company's steamers to Glen Haven. The roads throughout the region surrounding the lake are good, thus making automobiling a delightful pastime.


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"On the north shore of the western end of the lake is one of the finest private forestry propositions in the state of Michigan. Four- teen hundred acres are covered with second growth birches, elms, maples, basswoods, oak and pines. These trees are now forty years old and be- neath their shade-giving branches are beautiful walks and drives. The forest is the property of D. H. Day. To the south of the lake are sev- eral pieces of virgin timber that are being preserved and that prove a fairy world to all lovers of the woodland. Elsewhere there is already all too little of the 'forest primeval.'


"Overtowering the inland lake on the west is the celebrated 'Sleeping Bear.' This is one of the points of greatest interest in the state. The stretch of sand dunes, reaching from Sleeping Bear Point to Empire, eight miles to the southward, with its wide expanse of ever changing hills and ravines and with a sandy surface that is so hard that it can be driven upon, is a glorious place for resorters and picnic parties to while away dreamy summer days. From the top of the Bear a beau- tiful view of Lake Michigan is to be had. At the northern extremity of the Bear is a United States life saving station, which furnishes much of interest to visitors. The north and south Manitou islands are places for the excursionist and explorer. They are admirably located for days' outings as they can be reached from Glen Haven by launches.




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