The other fun thing I did on Saturday was drive a bit more of the road called Railroad Avenue in Oceana County. This is the dirt road on which the Pentwater Pathway trailhead is located.
The Chicago and West Michigan Railroad owned various lines at various times. One of them angled northeast from near Muskegon, and that is the part shown in the link below.
But one of their lines ran from New Buffalo (southwest corner of Michigan) to Pentwater. Now portions of that rail bed are roads, including a 5.3-mile stretch between Mears (where I was Saturday) and "sort of" Pentwater. The railroad ran to a settlement on the west side of Pentwater Lake called Frenchtown.
The parts I drove Saturday are roughly inside the red circle.
The access to Pentwater Pathway is almost at the north end of the line. There the road is dirt.
A little south of there the rail bed has been paved and is a road.
Right beside that section is this house. Can't you just imagine that when the rail line was operating (about 1869-1881) this was quite the beautiful place?
And this brings me to mention a category of blog posts that I never really started, but have thought about. Title: "Houses I'd Like to Save." The problem is that often I just see them driving by and don't have the opportunity to stop and get a picture. I've only done one other post with this tag so far, but I see a lot of houses that would fit the category.
And this is frustrating. I have been in the house that was the station in Frenchtown. I've taken pictures of the railroad berm, and I was really sure I blogged about it. But I sure can't find the post-- on this blog or any other blog of mine! If I ever find the pictures, I'll have to do one.
A good day in terms of getting things done, although I did get off to a slow start.
 | See Chicago and West Michigan Railway |
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