The Railroad
In every early article written about Boyne Falls, the writer always acknowledges that the village owes its existence to the railroad. In fact, the early development of Michigan, Northern Michigan, the Upper Peninsula, and a great deal of the United States, is a direct result of railroad construction. The history of railroads in Michigan is probably of primary interest to historians and railroad enthusiast, however, because of it’s instrumental role in the development of the Village of Boyne Falls, we have include information collected from a number of publications about it’s beginnings in Michigan.
The Boyne Falls Depot
The Village of Boyne Falls was the eastern terminus of the Boyne City Railroad and its predecessors in the first few years and again since 1935. The original, in 1893, was extended between Boyne City and Boyne Falls primarily for the purposes of connecting the Great Lakes shipping at the docks in Boyne City to the Grand Rapids and Indiana main line going south through the center of the State. From the beginning, the Boyne City Railroad inter-changed with this larger railroad at Boyne Falls. The Grand Rapids and Indiana line became the Pennsylvania and then the Penn Central as it is today, and the Boyne City and Southeastern Railroad became the Boyne City, Gaylord and Alpena - and then the Boyne City Railroad, with out interruption to its service with the larger railroad at Boyne Falls.
The original depot at Boyne Falls consisted of a combination passenger and freight depot and was still in existence up until about 1965 when it was torn down.
Boyne Falls Train Depot, circa 1910
Besides the original depot, there was a large water tank whose location can still be traced. In the early days, there was also a large mill operated by waterpower on the west side of Boyne Falls. There were several railroad sidings to serve this mill, and the millpond is still in evidence to the west if US Highway 131 in what was the Kline property just north of the old entrance into the Boyne Mountain (just north of Cherry Hill Road).
The depot, which was built in 1970, and the water tank to the south of it, were approximately one-half scale of typical 1900 railroad structures. The depot itself was used as the ticket office for passengers boarding at Boyne Falls.
Freight traffic for Boyne City continues to be inter-changed on the sidings here, as in the past, although, at present, the Penn Central Railroad only runs two freight trains a week, so that the customers, usually on Tuesdays and Fridays, after they have been dropped off by the Penn Central.
Reprinted from, “A Brief History and Description of the Boyne City Railroad Company, formerly the Boyne City,
Gaylord and Alpena R.R. formerly the Boyne City and Southeastern R.R.”Boyne Falls was Region’s Early Rail Center
This community rates the honor of figuring in Northwestern Michigan’s early rail history as being a “focal point” for rail travel.
Another view of the Boyne Falls Train Depot.
The steeple of the Methodist Church can be seen in the
far background. The roof of the Galster Hotel,
located on Railroad Street, can be seen over the trees.
The Galster Hotel burned on March 16, 1922.
In 1883 when the old Grand Rapids and Indian Railroad was pushing northward, northwestern Michigan’s first home - grown rail line, the S.H. & B.F. (Spring Harbor and Boyne Falls) was being pushed from what is now Boyne City toward Boyne Falls.
Spring Harbor was the name of a village platted by John and Harriet Miller, first permanent settlers of the Boyne area, who came to the head of Pine Lake (now Lake Charlevoix) from Oswegotchie, N.Y. in 1857.
Wm. T. Addis, of Grand Rapids, was the promoter of the S.H. & B.F., which was capitalized at $35,000. Addis financed the project by putting up $3,000 and various stockholders put up the balance.
The wood-railed, narrow gauge line, started at the eastern terminus of Glenwood Beach Rd., in Boyne City, and ran along the north side of Boyne Valley to a point about one mile north of the Boyne Falls depot to a freight terminal--where cargo was transferred to the G.R. & I (the northeast corner of the intersection of US 131 and Thumb Lake Road).
It was never a financial success and was superseded by the Boyne City and Southwestern in 1893.
Reprinted from the Boyne City Express Vol. 1 No. 1 Thursday, June 28, 1973.
Railroads in Michigan
Cheap, flexible, and dependable transportation was essential for the rapid development of the United States in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. This was particularly true in the Midwest. Michigan was no exception. To be sure, the Great Lakes siphoned off much of the produce of the area, particularly after the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 and the Sault Canal in 1855. However, the Great Lakes are icebound for approximately a quarter of the year. Furthermore, the benefits of the Great Lakes were largely limited to the coastal regions. Michigan’s streams and rivers were better suited for short-lived fur and lumbering operations than they were for the development of an extensive system of internal communications. Good highways were virtually unheard of in the state until after 1900. Even the plank road, which flourished in the 1850’s, offered no satisfactory solution.
Michigan’s first constitution, drafted in 1835, provided a legal basis for what had to be done. Article 12, section 3 specified that internal improvements shall be encouraged by the government of this state, and it shall also be their duty to provide by law for an equal, systematic, and economical application of the funds which may be appropriated to these objects.
In 1835, a majority of Michigan’s citizens agreed that only the state had the resources to complete a transportation network quickly. Federal funds had been out of the questions, since President Andrew Jackson’s veto of the Maysville Road Bill in 1830, which made it impossible for the central government to aid internal improvement projects of a local nature.
The Public Improvements Act of 1837 provided for borrowing up to $5,000,000 at 5 1/4 per cent interest to finance the construction of three railroads and two canals. This was an impressive venture for a state whose population numbered less than two hundred thousand.
Michigan had difficulty in constructing this network from the beginning. The year 1837 was a bad one to be raising money. The United States was in the depths of a major depression. Michigan’s internal improvements program was probably too ambitious. It soon became evident that it was beyond the financial resources of the state. Technologically, the railroad was such a recent development that there was little experience on which to base sound judgments.
The shortage of trained railroad engineers, or even experienced civil engineers was a professionally trained civil engineers. As a result, many of the Midwest’s “engineers” were merely particularly serious problem. In 1837, West Point was still a major American producer of men who picked up some know -how while working in a subordinate capacity on some eastern railroads.
Further complicating the picture was the fact that the state’s limited available funds were dissipated through a combination of dishonesty, and miss-management. Contractors and sub-contractors were not closely supervised with the result that accounts were padded.
Construction, which had been intermittent at best, was proceeding spasmodically. By 1840, when the banks failed, only 104 miles of railroad had been constructed.
Instead of improving, the financial situation got worse. By 1845, the state’s resources seemed exhausted. Interest charges on the debt were three times greater than the highest tax that had ever been collected in the state. By 1846, most Michiganians agreed that the state network should be sold. The acts authorizing the sale of the southern routes to two private concerns, the Michigan Southern and the Michigan Central railroad companies respectively, passed with little opposition.
The acts providing for the sale of the state system set forth the rights and obligation of the newly created corporations in tedious detail. For twenty-eight pages the state Legislature describe how the Michigan Central should set it rates, pay its taxes, and even collect stock payments from delinquent subscribers. Michigan, like the federal government, was now out of the railroad and canal business. Yet the need for a better transportation network persisted.
Although many predicted that railroads were a final solution to the transportation problem, neither the public nor the managers really knew the limits to what the railroads could or should be.
Boyne Falls Train Depot employees
Again and again promoters assured a sometimes hesitant or skeptical public that the mere presence of the railroad in the near vicinity must inevitably inflate the value of adjacent property. Lands which has been by-passed previously because they were inaccessible to settlement or could be only marginally profitable until such a time as a cheap means of transportation was available would abruptly rise in value as a result of the settlement and development that would follow as soon as the railroad had been built. Even in 1856, there was compelling evidence in Michigan that railroad construction might trigger a similar development. Calhoun County got its first railroad in 1844 and was a railroad center by 1870. Its population jumped from ten thousand in 1840, to nineteen thousand in 1850, to thirty-six thousand in 1870.
Twenty years later, more complete census data revealed that between 1870 and 1880, Antrim County, which got its first railroad in 1874, almost quadrupled its population and improved acreage while doubling its cash value of its farms. Newspaper editors were not oblivious to these developments. The promoter could usually count on loyal support from the local press.
Local funds were seldom adequate, however. Sooner or later most Michigan railroads turned for cash to the eastern or European financial centers. Promoters generally preferred to finance to their concerns through the sales of stock, but investors usually showed a distinct preference for bonds. Stock might increase considerably in value and pay handsome dividends, but it was a risky investment.
1836, the federal government Michigan and other recently established states 5 per cent of the proceeds from the sale of public lands within those states for use on internal improvements projects. That aid was supplemented in 1841 by another act in which the federal government deeded five-hundred-thousand acres of public lands that were located within the state to Michigan, plus an additional 10 per cent of the proceeds of public lands sold within the state, to help finance public improvements.
In 1850, Congress granted lands to speed the construction of the Illinois Central Railroad. This act set the pattern for many future grants. The prevailing price for the public domain was $1.25 an acre, and this land, since it was inaccessible, was not selling anyway. The government did not give solid blocks of land to the railroads. Instead it gave alternate sections (a square mile consisting of 640 acres)-- rather like giving the black squares on a giant checkerboard. By doubling the price on the sections that the government retained to $2.50 an acre, a fair price since the land was now adjacent to a railroad, the government would break even, or so the theory went.
Michigan received its first railroad land grant in 1856. The Lower peninsula roads would be frosted by a land grant from Amboy, through Hillsdale and Lansing and also from Grand Rapids to some point on or near Grand Traverse Bay. Michigan waited until 1857 to dispose of its land grant despite demands that the Legislature hold a special session to allocate it immediately.
Michigan’s first railroads were a far cry from what they are today. The first rail on at least one road were simply wood, and on several of the roads were wood with a slim piece of iron strapped on the top--hence strap rail. The chief virtue of strap rails was that they were cheap. Timber was plentiful and the thin strip of iron retarded rapid wear of the wooden rails. Unfortunately, strap rails did not wear well, particularly as equipment got heavier and faster.
Locomotives and rolling stock are much less colorful today than they were a century ago. The first locomotives were wood burners with huge smokestacks and shields over the stacks to minimize sparks and danger of fire. These locomotives were often brightly painted, liberally equipped with brass hardware, and named rather than numbered. Average operating speeds for freights were about ten miles an hour but passenger trains moved slowly also. Since rights of way were often inadequately fenced, the large cowcatcher protruding from the front of the locomotive was often just that--a safety device that would keep livestock from falling between the tracks and derailing the locomotives or cars.
Rapid advances where made in the science of constructing roadbeds and equipment. Engineers discovered that rails had to be heavier and tracks better ballast and drained to handle equipment that was increasingly heavy and traveling at greater rates of speed. Steel replaced iron rails, and iron and steel bridges replaced wood and some masonry bridges.
Accidents were caused by an indiscretion as well as by faulty equipment. It took a while for people to realize that the railroad track was not just another road. Improved equipment and operating technique diminished the probability of accidents.
Many trainmen were crushed as they stepped between cars to join the old link-and-pin coupler (essentially a link of chain that was held in socket by a spike that was dropped down through two fixed eyes) before the parent of the modern coupler was adopted in the late 1880’s. Dozens of two-line obituaries testified to the danger the brakemen encountered while scrambling from roof to roof on a fast-moving freight train to set the hand brakes that were located on each car. In 1873, the Michigan Legislature dictated that after October 31 of that year, no regular passenger trains were to be run without airbrakes or equally effective devices approved by the railroad commissioner.
Even so, the accident rates remained high. In 1873, the commissioner of railroads reported that 257 people had been killed in railroad accidents during the preceding year. The majority of them were employees who had been crushed while coupling trains. Michigan’s railroad system developed slowly prior to the Civil War. Only 279 miles of track had been constructed when the state government abandoned the railroad business in 1846.
Construction lagged during the Civil War, but almost two-thousand miles were added between 1869 and 1873. The 559 miles built 1871 were the most were ever completed in Michigan during any single year. Most of the construction took place in the Lower Peninsula. By 1881, when the Michigan Central reached Mackinaw City, the lower peninsula below a line connecting Saginaw and Ludington was liberally crisscrossed with trunk and connecting lines.
