Peacock, First and Last

 
The very first place I went today had a handsome peacock.



The sunlight really caught his feathers in this shot.



The (next to) last place I went was on Peacock Trail. Yes it passes through the village of Peacock where I've taken you before.



A nice set of bookends for the day's assignments.

	See Renewed Spirits Ranch See A Tour of Peacock
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Back to Peacock, by Rail

 
I'm what's known as a "railfan." I like railroad history, trains and all the associated paraphernalia. So, I have to take you back to Peacock.

Here's a map from the Comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. You can find Peacock at the crossing of two dashed lines. Dashed lines are railroads that are no longer in business that were standard gauge (the distance between the two rails).



The north-south line began as part of the Pere Marquette system, and ended its life under Chesapeake and Ohio's flag. I think its route can be seen on the road map I showed a couple of days ago as the power line road. Peacock was 85.0 miles north of Grand Rapids.

The east-west line was the Michigan East & West Railway which ran from Manistee to Marion (south of Cadillac). There it connected with the Ann Arbor Railroad. A timetable places Peacock at milepost 31.2 from Manistee. The entire line was only 71.9 miles long. I haven't noticed an obvious railbed for this line, but it was abandoned in 1917, so it might require more than a casual search to find. (The next station west was at Sauble, a town even more "gone" than Peacock. I blogged about it last year. See Sauble.)

The crossing was interlocked. What that means is the signals and switches were mechanically linked so that two trains could not enter the crossing at the same time. I've found a wonderful picture of the Peacock station at Railroad History of Michigan.



Guess I'll have to search Peacock more carefully for this location.

	See A Tour of Peacock
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A Tour of Peacock

 
There is a no-longer-a village in Lake Country called Peacock.



It's intriguing just because of the name. But it's mysterious in other ways.

Here's the map. I'm not even going to speculate on whether a drunk or a cow laid out those streets.

Notice Main Street off there out of the main part of town?



Did you like Main St? How about Market St? (yes, I played with this one to get the sign in the picture) Of course Google has it labeled Maple Rd. Just one more bit of evidence as to how useful Google is in the boonies. (And consider whether my job manager mentally pictures streets like this when I'm sent to something like 267 Market St.)



Here's Verberg St. There's not a single commercial building left in town.



The Peacock post office opened in 1897 and closed in 1943- it's been that long since the village was viable. It had a brief flicker of importance as a crossroads of the Chicago and West Michigan RR (which became the more famous Pere Marquette RR). Their N-S and The Michigan East & West lines crossed at Peacock.

There was also a small industry which made Peacock wood stoves, which are small, efficient stoves, still in demand when they can be found.

It was significant enough that the township also bears the name. Apparently, it has nothing to do with an exotic bird. The first postmaster's name was David Peacock.

There may be more about Peacock another day. It's fun to puzzle out the tidbits I know or can find.

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