A History of Northern Michigan and Its People, Volume I, Part 55

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


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Tawas City was incorporated as a village in 1885 and as a city in 1895. It is at the mouth of the Tawas river on Tawas bay and has one of the best natural harbors on the shore. The leading industry of the place is the plant, or the car shops, of the Detroit & Mackinac rail- way which really stand on the boundary line between East Tawas and Tawas City. The latter is also a shipping point of some importance for potatoes and sugar beets; but its mainstay is the fact that it is the county seat. Its bank is one of the chain controlled by Ealy, Mckay & Company. Tawas City has a good union school and one ward school attended by over four hundred pupils, and Baptist, Methodist, Ger- man Lutheran and Evangelical churches.


EAST TAWAS


East Tawas was founded in 1864 by the lumber firm of Smith, Van Valkenburg & Company. At that time the timber extended to the ridge, and from that line to the bay shore, the ground was swampy, filled with water courses and covered with brush and jack pines.


The firm of Smith, Van Valkenburg & Company, having failed to acquire title to a site selected at Sand Point, purchased land on Tawas bay and floated timber for a mile from Sand Point to their new site.


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Messrs. Bobst, Locke, Mathers and Lawler were the first to arrive, Mr. Locke appearing with a yoke of oxen that he had driven from Alabas- ter, a little settlement on the shore five miles south which had been growing around the plaster beds opened in that vicinity three years before.


In June C. F. Adams came up from Alabaster and built a little shanty where the Walker foundry afterward stood. On July 3d a shanty for the mill boarding house was completed, and July 4th Mr. and Mrs. Adams moved into their domicile. Work was begun on a more commodious boarding house for the mill. Mr. Adams went at work on timber for the mill, and S. W. Chilson drove piles for the mill founda- tion. Thus the village of East Tawas had its birth.


In September, 1868, Mr. James O. Whittemore outlined the progress of the first two years as follows: "The first ground was broken in July, 1864, by Messrs. Newman and Bobst, of the firm of Smith, Van Valkenburg & Co., who then commenced the construction of their mill. At that time the feasibility of building saw mills on the open shore of Tawas bay was a question subject to doubt. The success of this firm, however, demonstrated that point completely. Their mill was 50x124 feet, with additions for engine room, etc., and contained two gangs, a large circular, lath, mill, etc., and had a capacity of 70,000 feet of lum- ber a day. In 1866 two run of stone were added for grinding feed. In 1865 they commenced, and finally completed, a very extensive dock, which serves both for piling lumber and as a boom for rafts and logs behind it. The dock has front of 1,200 feet with a width of forty- five feet. and is five hundred feet from the shore, with a pier to connect with the mill. The logs for the supply of this mill come from the Au Sable and Rifle rivers, principally. This firm, then known as the East Tawas Mill Company, had also a large store twenty-six by fifty-nine feet, which was quite handsomely fitted up with new shelving and counters, and which also contained the postoffice. Above the store was located an office and a public hall, about twenty-six by thirty-four feet, which was used for religious meetings and for the meetings of the East Tawas Lodge of Good Templars No. 535, containing about sixty mem- bers. The business of this company is superintended by George P. Smith, who is conducting its varied details very successfully.


"The second mill erected was that of Messrs. Adams, Swaney & Company, from Ohio, in 1867. This mill is of large size and contains one large circular, edger, etc. This firm have a dock front of about five hundred feet and obtain their supply of logs principally from the Au Sable river."


The salt industries of East Tawas, as have already been noted, followed the establishment of her fisheries, her sawmills and lumber trade, and they, in turn, gave way to more diversified manufactories which sprung up in response to the demands of a growing, large and more complex community. Her fishing interests are still large and a remnant is left of the important lumber manufacture and trade of the period from 1870 to 1890.


But East Tawas is no longer on the simple plane of a lumber town and fishing station. The city is a modern, well built and attractive


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DETROIT & MACKINAC RAILWAY CAR AND MACHINE SHOPS


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place, and, next to Bay City and Alpena, the most important point on the Detroit & Mackinac railway. The general offices of that com- pany are divided between Bay City and East Tawas and her extensive car shops, which employ over one hundred and twenty-five men, stand on the line which divides the two cities-Tawas and East Tawas. The superintendent of the shops is C. W. Luce, road master and master me- chanic, H. T. Thomas, and assistant to the latter, A. G. Jackson.


East Tawas has a substantial trade with the "back country" and is one of the leading shipping points on the Detroit & Mackinac line. A branch of the Ealy, Mckay & Company syndicate of banks, of which John M. Ealy of Caro, Michigan, is president, provides the chief bank- ing facilities of the city.


When East Tawas reached the advanced age of eighteen months, the people felt that their letters, papers and valentines should receive the consideration of the postoffice department, to the extent of provid- ing a postoffice. In January, 1866, a petition with one hundred signa- tures was forwarded to the department, asking for a postoffice. There were in the village at that time one hundred and fourteen persons, by a careful and conscientious count. The prayer of the petitioners was granted and a postoffice established. The first postmaster was Chris- topher C. Parker, who operated a portable office. He carried the mail around in his hat or pockets, as happened to be most convenient, and by so doing was always about the office when the anxious patron inquired for his mail. It was so to speak, a kind of free delivery system.


A few months after the postoffice was established at East Tawas the Methodists of the place organized its first religious services under Rev. Jared Copeland. They were held in a little board shanty near where the drill house of the East Tawas Salt and Lumber Company was built a few years later-this tiny building having also been used as the first school in the spring, that of 1866. St. Joseph's Catholic church origi- nated in 1869; the Evangelical Lutherans organized in 1872; the Con- gregationalists in 1876 and the Baptists in 1880.


During this period of religious activity and establishment, the pub- lic schools of the village were also advancing to meet the demands of its increasing populace. A Union school was completed in 1869 at a cost of $5,000. When the first school was opened three years before there were one hundred and fourteen persons entitled to attend; in 1883, three hundred and seventy-five pupils were enrolled and in 1911 about five hundred.


East Tawas was incorporated as a village in 1887 and adopted a city charter in 1895. It has modern systems of electric lighting and water supply, is well paved and presents a general aspect of substantial ad- vancement which is not belied by the facts. Methodist, Roman Cath- olic, Presbyterian, Episcopal and Baptist churches are well established for the edification of the permanent populace. and strangers who seek rest or diversion readily find both, especially in the summer months, at the beautiful beaches and summer resorts on the shores of Tawas bay.


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WHITTEMORE


Seventeen mills southwest of Tawas City, the county seat, is a small community of about two hundred people which was incorporated as a city in 1907; it was never a village. This is Whittemore, a station on the Prescott division of the Detroit & Mackinac line; the center of a promising agricultural section in the southwestern part of Iosco county and the trading place for quite a large district. A saw and planing mill, creamery and store for the sale of agricultural implements, with several good general stores and a sprinkling of residences, are features which may give a general picture of the embryo city.


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CHAPTER XXV


OGEMAW AND OSCODA COUNTIES


OGEMAW'S POPULATION -- EARLY SETTLEMENTS OF THE COUNTY-OGE- MAW SPRINGS-WEST BRANCH REALLY FOUNDED-INCORPORATED AS A VILLAGE-BANKS, TRADE AND INDUSTRIES-WEST BRANCH A CITY -ROSE CITY-PRESCOTT AND LUPTON-OSCODA COUNTY.


Ogemaw county adjoins Iosco on the west and owes its settlement to its primal forests of pine which crowded along the headwaters of the Rifle and Tittabawassee rivers. The streams of the former constituted a network of waterways which covered its central and northern sec- tions and extended to what is now West Branch, while the waters of the Tittabawassee commenced their long and continuous journey to Saginaw bay in the present Edwards township, southwestern part of the county. Ogemaw county has fully fifty charming little lakes within her limits, but, although of late, they have been attracting not a few sportsmen and tourists to that region, it was the presence of these forest-clad streams which flowed toward the older and more settled region along the Huron shore that brought the first settlers to what is now Ogemaw county. Today the pine has almost disappeared, as well as the original forests of maple, beech, basswood, hemlock, ash, elm, oak, cedar and birch. Lumber mills and hardwood manufactories have largely consumed the timber, both soft and hard, but during the years that these industries have been declining others more diversified, and therefore more permanent, have been taking their place.


Perhaps no county in the state has so many small lakes and streams and flowing wells of purest water as Ogemaw which, together with its great variety and abundance of both wild and cultivated grasses, com- bine to form an ideal dairy region. Ogemaw Springs, the oldest settle- ment in the county, derives its name from the prevalence of these spark- ling and bubbling springs in that locality; in West Branch alone are located two hundred flowing wells, while nearly every farm in the county is, or may be provided with one of these blessings of nature.


Hay and potatoes have been staple crops in Ogemaw county for years. More recently peas, beans and all kinds of seeds, as well as gar- den produce for the market, have been added to the wealth of her soil and the body of her trade. All the cereals and small fruits have also been cultivated with success. West Branch has been largely bene- fitted by this progress in all that concerns the farm, garden or orchard. and the great bulk of all the shipments in the county now consists of


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agricultural and live-stock products-whether over the Michigan Cen- tral line, which traverses the southwestern and western sections, or the Rose City division of the Detroit & Mackinac, which is the outlet of the northeastern townships to the Huron shore.


OGEMAW'S POPULATION


If anything the census figures indicate that the farming communi- ties are growing faster than the city centers.


Civil Divisions


1910


1900


1890


Churchill township


573


594


318


Cumming township


556


673


197


Edwards township


651


591


217


Foster township


127


115


167


Goodar township


497


*331


97


Hill township


408


358


47


Horton township


338


287


224


Klacking township


380


383


291


Logan township


372


236


59


Richland township


903


111


382


Rose City


542


Ward 1


175


Ward 2


157


Ward 3


210


Rose township


960


1,000


211


West Branch city


1,276


1,412


1,302


Ward 1


443


Ward 2


456


Ward 3


377


West Branch township


1,324


913


474


Totals


8,907


7,765


5,583


EARLY SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTY


The building of the Jackson, Lansing & Saginaw railroad into Oge- maw county was the initial act of its real birth. But the main facts con- stituting the pioneer period of its history were well recorded in the columns of the West Branch Times over twenty years ago; to the in- dustrial edition of that paper for 1889 the author is indebted for much which follows relating to the early settlement of the county and the founding of West Branch.


Up to 1871 Ogemaw county was a virtual wilderness. From the visit of the government surveyors in 1856, until the incoming of the railroad, the only tenants of her forests were deer, bear and other game, and an occasional stray hunter or land-seeker. Some tracts of pine were located, but were too far distant from the base of supplies to permit of much lumbering until the railroad was built.


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In 1871 the Jackson, Lansing & Saginaw Railroad Company com- pleted its line as far as Wells, about fourteen miles south of West Branch. Four years before, W. H. Edwards had worked his way north- west from the mouth of the Pine river on Saginaw bay, over about forty miles of road, to the bank of the Tittabawassee. Here he built a log house and made a small clearing in connection with his lumbering operations. This house long stood as the oldest in the county.


Along in the sixties Alfred Wright and R. H. Weidman, composing the firm of Wright & Weidman, took up a large tract of land in Ogemaw county. In 1871 they commenced lumbering operations, and made some clearing at what is now the Forest Home Farm. The old log house was built that year, and it was headquarters for their lumbering busi- ness there until Mr. Wright's death in 1873. Mr. Weidman was in Nor- way, his native land, at that time, and remained there about six years during which time little progress was made at the farm. In 1880 D. Wright & Company bought the half interest of the heirs of Alfred Wright, and the firm was then known as R. H. Weidman & Company. Mr. Weidman died very suddenly in 1882 and his interest was sold at auction, Nelson Holland being the purchaser. Mr. Holland sold shortly after to D. Wright & Company, who developed the property into one of the finest pieces of agricultural property in the state. Under their vigorous and wise management, both as farmers and business men, they founded what, in older countries, would be called a great estate. Forest Home Farm, as it was popularly called, comprised four hundred acres of clearing; large and convenient residence and farm buildings, and accommodations for live stock, poultry and dairy operations, and an orchard of about one thousand acres, comprising apple, plum, pear and cherry trees, grape vines and berry patches.


The entire property of the firm, in the eighties, amounted to about 20,000 acres, which comprised some of the most valuable hardwood land in the county. More than any other firm they pushed the sale of farm lands in this section. Mr. Hauptman himself was foremost in the for- mation of a county agricultural society. In their lumbering operations they furnished employment to many who resided in West Branch, and more than half the platted village was their property. Finally, they reserved a considerable strip along the river for manufacturing pur- poses and donated several sites to induce industrial plants to locate. Too much credit cannot be given to D. Wright & Company in connec- tion with both the agricultural and industrial development of Ogemaw county.


It was not until 1872 that actual farmers began to arrive in the county. In the fall of 1871 John Klacking, Christopher Reetz and Horace Sherman located homesteads, and they came up and took posses- sion the following spring. William Rose, father of A. S. and Alcibiades Rose, Scott White, Sherman T. and Decater A. Neal, James Campbell and George Sherman, were other permanent settlers who came the same year. They all took up homesteads and most of them afterward became known as prosperous farmers of the county.


John Regan came to the county in 1872, as foreman of Weidman & Wright's property, and took up his farm the next year. A. L.


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Cumming and his sons, Louis and A. L., Jr., settled on their farms in 1873.


Captain S. V. Thomas and Dr. C. L. Nauman arrived in Ogemaw county in 1872, the former as proprietor of a mill business near Beaver lake, the latter as secretary of the Ogemaw Lumber Co., with head- quarters at Ogemaw Springs. After some experience in the mill busi- ness, they both became among the earliest citizens of West Branch.


OGEMAW SPRINGS


At this point a digression is advisable to say a word more particu- larly about Ogemaw Springs. Although never incorporated as a vil- lage, this is the oldest settlement in the county. In the year 1871 the Ogemaw Lumber Company was organized by a party of Ohio capitalists. Dr. C. L. Nauman was secretary. A mill was built and business hummed for a couple of years. The great panic of 1873, which drove so many firms to the wall, shattered the Ogemaw Lumber Company and the business was soon transferred to other hands. When the county was organized in 1876 Ogemaw Springs made an effort for the county seat, but failed, West Branch having the greater number of supporters. This decided the fate of the town.


On April 15, 1873, the county of Ogemaw was created by act of the state legislature, but it was not organized civilly until 1876. After a close fight between West Branch and Ogemaw Springs, the county seat was located at the former. At the first county election the fol- lowing were chosen county officers: Sheriff, W. H. Hosier; clerk, Dr. C. L. Nauman; treasurer, Edward Washington; register of deeds, Allan S. Rose; judge of probate, Z. H. Wright; prosecuting attorney, A. P. Lyon, Bay City ; coroners, A. L. Cumming and Zenas H. Wright. The first board of supervisors consisted of A. L. Cumming of Ogemaw, and A. E. Pinney of Edwards, the former chairman.


Those pioneer times witnessed some strange scenes in West Branch. Law and order were almost unknown, and a gang of fifty or a hundred woodsmen would frequently swoop down upon the place and run things for a time. But, though disorder prevailed and rows were frequent, there was a surprising lack of downright crime. Old settlers say that stealing was unknown. Money was plentiful, wages high and times prosperous.


The earliest business firms at West Branch were Washington Brothers, Wells, Stone & Co. and Gustin, Merrill & Co., who sold an immense quantity of general goods and hardly at starvation profits. A. S. Rose at Churchill, and Davison Brothers at Damon, early became rivals of the West Branch merchants, and worked up a large trade among the settlers and lumbermen.


Ogemaw county has had a steady, healthy growth every year since its first settlement. The nearest approach to a boom occurred in 1881, when a number of new stores were built at West Branch, but, though property advanced considerably in value, it never assumed the atti- tude of a boom, which is so disastrous to many new towns.


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WEST BRANCH REALLY FOUNDED


The village of West Branch dates its growth from the organization of the county in 1876. Up to that time the population consisted of employes of a hotel, and one small store.


When West Branch was made the county seat and the courthouse constructed, a steady growth began. The nearest approach to a boom was in 1881, when the town began to push eastward from the railroad. It was supposed, when the old courthouse was built, that it would be- come the center of the new town, but the peculiar condition in which the Weidman & Wright estate was placed by the absence of Mr. Weid- man in Norway, made it impossible to purchase lots on the west side. The town was bound to grow and when Mr. Ripley opened his lots for


COURT HOUSE AND SHERIFF'S RESIDENCE, WEST BRANCH


sale on the east side, he found ready purchasers. Nearly a dozen blocks were built in 1881, and the town assumed the appearance of a place of business.


The fire of February, 1883, wiped out a row of business blocks on the south side of Houghton avenue, but they were replaced the next year with better ones. Since then West Branch has suffered from four or five large fires, those of 1898 and 1900 being especially destructive.


In 1881 the school population of West Branch was about twenty- five or thirty, and one small school room served to accommodate all the children who attended. In 1887 a brick and frame edifice was erected at a cost of $6,000, to accommodate the two hundred and fifty pupils of the village. This was replaced by the present central or high school


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in 1901, in which one hundred and forty-six scholars receive instruc- tion. There are also two branch schools, the total enrollment in the grammar grades being four hundred and ninety-four.


In 1880 the first courthouse was erected in West Branch, at a cost of $10,000. It was a neat wooden building with the jail and the sheriff's living rooms in the basement. This courthouse was destroyed by fire in 1887, and the brick structure now occupied was completed in the following year for $18,000. The jail and sheriff's residence are in a separate brick building on the Courthouse square. The county poor farm, consisting of one hundred and twenty acres, is just outside the city limits.


INCORPORATED AS A VILLAGE


West Branch was incorporated as a village in 1885, and that was also the year of the organization of the County Agricultural Society and of the establishment of the first bank at the county seat. M. H. French sold his interest in the Times during the spring of 1885, and, in partnership with J. J. Ellis of Ann Arbor, started a small banking business, under the firm name of Ellis & French. The business grew and the bank made lots of money. In 1886, Fremont F. French, who had been conducting musical conventions in different states for a year or two, grew tired of this kind of life, and settled at West Branch and obtained an interest in the bank.


BANKS, TRADE AND INDUSTRIES


The Commercial Bank, Tolfree, Livingston & Company, proprietors, is the oldest existing institution of the kind at West Branch, and was established by John Tolfree and J. W. Livingston in 1890. Thomas W Ballantine is still cashier. The capital of the Commercial is $10,- 000; responsibilities, $500,000.


The Ogemaw County Bank at West Branch is one of the many owned by Ealy, Mckay & Company in eastern and northeastern Michi- gan. The Mckays are managers of the branches at East Tawas, Tawas City and West Branch, as well as partners in the firm. Robert C. Mc- Kay is in charge of the Ogemaw County Bank, which was opened at West Branch in 1900. Its responsibility is placed at $1,000,000.


William Hisey came to West Branch in the fall of 1883, in response to a decided demand for a flouring mill. , A small mill, owned and operated by H. E. Rose, of Rosetown, fourteen miles from West Branch, could not handle the amount of wheat that was being raised and a citizens' meeting resolved that there must be a flouring mill in West Branch. D. Wright & Company donated the site and the mill was erected-the first one there, although only a partial success. Birdsall Brothers also put up a planing mill in 1883.


Among the first merchants to come to West Branch was B. Blumen- thal, who located in the spring of 1885. He is still there, and for years has been among its leading merchants.


The city has both a good local trade and is the industrial, financial


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and commercial center of a large interior district. Among her institu- tions in these fields may be mentioned the Batchelor Timber Company, whose headquarters are at Saginaw and which operates a saw and plan- ing mill; the West Branch Flour Manufacturing Company, with a mill on the Rifle river; Jacob Eck's brewery ; A. C. Neilson's creamery, and last, but perhaps most important of all, the elevators operated by the Ogemaw Grain and Seed Company and the Evan Seed Company.


WEST BRANCH A CITY


West Branch assumed the dignity of a city government in 1905, and is worthy of it. It is a neat place, with good prospects, and, as has been described in detail, has developed into a modern little city. To further illustrate, it may be stated that her streets and buildings are lighted by means of an electric plant, situated on the Rifle river about two miles east, and put in operation during 1901. The city has a public library, an opera house and Methodist, Catholic and Episcopal churches.


ROSE CITY


Rose City, formerly Churchill. was incorporated as a city of the fourth class in 1905. It is a place of over five hundred people, on a branch of the Rifle river, and is the terminus of a division of the Detroit & Mackinac Railway, which commences at Emery Junction, Iosco county. Rose City is fifteen miles northeast of West Branch, the county seat, is in the midst of a productive farming country. Its bank. elevator, creamery, flour mill and general stores; its good school, electric light plant and churches are a few of the strong points in its favor.




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