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Images of America: Michigan
The Inland Water Route
From its humble beginnings as a trading route for Native Americans, Northern Michigan's Inland Route has become one of the most scenic and memorable voyages anywhere in America. As a series of interconnected lakes and rivers from Cheboygan to Conway, the Inland Route touches several Northern Michigan communities and links them through her winding rivers and vast lakes. After improvements to the waterway in the 1870s, bigger boats and log booms started drifting down the route; but what once was a necessity for fur traders and lumbermen, the meandering waterway soon blossomed with dozens of tourist boats, hotels, resorts, and cottages. The result was a memorable voyage filled with natural beauty, recreation, and socialization.
- GenresHistory
130 pages, Hardcover
First published May 12, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 24, 2019
This is the third book I have read in the Images of America series, a great collection of locality specific primary source material photographs and varying amounts of text to read (sometimes a number of pages to read, sometimes only the captions of the many photographs contained within). So far I have really liked the series and learned quite a bit. So far most I have seen can be read in 2 or 3 hours.
This particular book is on the Inland Water Route or Inland Waterway, a series of interconnected rivers and lakes crossing northern Lower Michigan, from the city of Cheboygan in the north south to the village of Conway, connecting Lakes Huron and Michigan. About 43 miles in length, the Inland Water Route served and continues to serve a number of communities, some sizable towns, others basically just a few buildings. The route existed before the arrival of European settlers, serving the area’s Chippewa (Ojibwa) and Ottawa (Adawe) Indians, as the route was very accessible to those on canoes and served well for large Native American encampments on the Cheboygan River, Mullett Lake, Burt Lake, and Crooked Lake.
The water route was important in the fur trade, as it allowed travelers to avoid Waugoshance Point (apparently treacherous to those in a canoe). Interestingly the name Cheboygan comes from the Annishinaabe word zhiibaa’onan, meaning “a channel or passage,” referring to canoe travel (not later European origin ships). After the fur trade vanished around the mid-19th century the water route continued to be important in trade and missionary work with the Native Americans and for the timber trade (especially for white pine). The first improvements on the route began in 1846 when a dam was constructed at the Cheboygan rapids to utilize the rushing water for a sawmill, followed in 1869 by a canal and lock to enable ships to bypass the rapids, followed later in the 1870s by a number of dredging projects to remove sandbars and construction of piers to prevent sandbar formation.
After railroads reduced and then eliminated the importance of the Inland Route to the timber trade starting in the 1880s, the waterway began to take on importance for tourism and relaxation, as new communities like Topinabee and Aloha sprang up to service the tourist trade, with rail lines taking away the timber trade but bringing in tourists in the 1880s to stay at the newly constructed cottages, hotels, and resorts (with many tourists also arriving by lake steamers). The Inland Route was home to many vessels there just for the tourist trade, owned either by companies centered on that purpose or owned by some of the larger hotels along the Inland Route.
The Inland Route started to decline as a major resort destination in the mid-1920s, declining along with the timber trade and the general migration of people from the north, though many hotels stayed open for the next several decades and some are open to this day. Ships did not disappear from the Inland Route, though they switched from steamers to privately owned small boats, with overall ships increasing in numbers with such events as the Top-O-Michigan outboard races and then as now for fishing and pleasure boating.
The bulk of the book, after just a few pages of text, is dedicated to photographs, beginning with images of the Cheboygan Crib Light, often thought of as the beginning of the Inland Route (though many others thought the village of Oden was the start of the Inland Route), then moving on to the various ways tourists could reach Cheboygan (be it the Detroit & Cleveland Line or the Arnold Transit Company if by ship or the Michigan Central Railroad or the Detroit and Mackinaw Railway if by train, with later in the text mention of the importance of the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad, which among other thing heavily promoted an outdoor dramatization of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem _Hiawatha_, presented daily just outside Petoskey from the end of June to the end of August from 1905 to 1916, with all the performers Native Americans; two photos of this are included in the book). I liked the photo of a log boom, a huge mass of floating logs at Cheboygan on the Cheboygan River, showing why usually further upstream was the starting point for Inland Route boats and of the Cheboygan Swing Bridge (constructed in 1877 for the now amazing cost of $6,500, “[p]assing children were often happy to offer their assistance in turning the center-mounted windlass to swing the bridge”).
There were many great photos of the boats (and sailors) that serviced the Inland Route. A favorite was reading about the Ida L., a ship that was a boat kit purchased by mail and was run by the first boat company to take passengers the entire length of the Inland Route (its owners bold in founding the company just when Cheboygan was beginning its rapid decline with the collapse of the lumber boom). Owning to bridge heights and the size of locks, only relatively small ships could travel the entire length of the Inland Route. Other boats I liked reading about were the Obie Boats, made by hand by George Obenauf and sold throughout Northern Michigan (Obenauf passing away in 1958, until then renown for hiring the best craftsmen and using the best cedar, sometimes cypress wood), and the steamer Topinbee (the largest and most elaborate vessel to ply the Inland Route, was built in 1899, was 64.9 feet long, 14.5 feet wide, and had upholstered seats, brass trimmings, an onboard orchestra, could carry up to 250 passengers, and had a telescoping funnel and hinged pilothouse).
Many photographs are of the hotels and resorts along the Inland Route, such as Hack-Ma-Tack Inn (on Mullett Lake, which called guest to dinners by a bell run from the bell tower), the Pinehurst Inn (where boaters could basically dock feet from the hotel right on the bank), the Buckyeye House (which hosted as a regular guest former Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks, who served under Theodore Roosevelt, and was the center of a group of settlers from the state of Ohio, hence the name Buckeye, just as the community of Columbus Beach got its name from the many guests from Columbus, Ohio), and the Rawdon Hotel (once known as the Oden Hotel, “probably the most elaborate and luxurious hotel on the Inland Route,” the building, built in 1895, was “designed to look like one of the steamships that meandered through the Inland Route,” it had its own power plant and a stained glass skylight). Several burned down (and were often not replaced), such as Hotel Topinabee, which burned twice, itself a replacement for a hotel that also burned. The Colonial Hotel burned in 1909 (itself built on a Native American community that was burned out and evicted in October 1900 after a dispute over land ownership), a 1911 fire also destroyed much of the village of Indian River, the Alanson Shingle Mill burned in 1918 (built on a pond where cut logs were kept, the pond known as the Devil’s Hole due in part perhaps to “the strange green colors” that “could supposedly be seen emanating from its depths”), the Hasting Heights Hotel burned down in 1919 (replaced by the Sawkala Boys Camp, which operated until 1931), the Tuscarora Town Hall was consumed by fire in the early 1920s, the Buckeye House burned in 1924, (wood-frame hotels later were banned in some communities due to their tendency to burn), the Summer Home hotel caught fire in August 1955, and the old Alanon School building burned in 1964 (the school’s foundation laid in 1893). Several hotels, such as the Hiawatha Hotel and the Inland House are still in operation (the Inland House dating from 1879 and the Hiawatha Hotel having opened in 1900).
I really liked learning about the “camelback” bridge or concrete curved cord through girder bridge, one was constructed across the Indian River in 1924. “An extremely rare design, this type of bridge was only built in Michigan and Ontario and usually on in rural areas,” as the bridges were “designed for simplicity in construction as we as safety, with little maintenance required.”
Railroads and railroad related stops are also covered, such as the Aloha Railroad Station (constructed by the Detroit and Mackinac in 1904 for the enormous cost of $14,000, had a log-cabin themed interior, fieldstone fireplace, and was built primarily of bird’s-eye maple, sadly torn down in 1947, with a small portion remaining until the 1960s) and the Dummy Train or “Busted Valise and Clothes Line,” a very no frills train “not known for comfort” used to ferry passengers from Petoskey and Oden on wooden tracks.
I suspect this book would primarily be for local interest but I am glad I read it. The vast majority of the book focused on the tourist industry of the Inland Water Route, with only a few mentions in the introductory text about the fur trade and very little in the photographs and accompanying caption text on the timber industry (there were a few photos though of log booms and some associated industries). I would have liked a little more information on some of the more unusual things such as the dummy train, the State Fish Hatchery, and the Burt Lake Scenic Tower as well as photos of the interiors of the many hotels discussed and depicted in the book. There is a bibliography at the end.
This particular book is on the Inland Water Route or Inland Waterway, a series of interconnected rivers and lakes crossing northern Lower Michigan, from the city of Cheboygan in the north south to the village of Conway, connecting Lakes Huron and Michigan. About 43 miles in length, the Inland Water Route served and continues to serve a number of communities, some sizable towns, others basically just a few buildings. The route existed before the arrival of European settlers, serving the area’s Chippewa (Ojibwa) and Ottawa (Adawe) Indians, as the route was very accessible to those on canoes and served well for large Native American encampments on the Cheboygan River, Mullett Lake, Burt Lake, and Crooked Lake.
The water route was important in the fur trade, as it allowed travelers to avoid Waugoshance Point (apparently treacherous to those in a canoe). Interestingly the name Cheboygan comes from the Annishinaabe word zhiibaa’onan, meaning “a channel or passage,” referring to canoe travel (not later European origin ships). After the fur trade vanished around the mid-19th century the water route continued to be important in trade and missionary work with the Native Americans and for the timber trade (especially for white pine). The first improvements on the route began in 1846 when a dam was constructed at the Cheboygan rapids to utilize the rushing water for a sawmill, followed in 1869 by a canal and lock to enable ships to bypass the rapids, followed later in the 1870s by a number of dredging projects to remove sandbars and construction of piers to prevent sandbar formation.
After railroads reduced and then eliminated the importance of the Inland Route to the timber trade starting in the 1880s, the waterway began to take on importance for tourism and relaxation, as new communities like Topinabee and Aloha sprang up to service the tourist trade, with rail lines taking away the timber trade but bringing in tourists in the 1880s to stay at the newly constructed cottages, hotels, and resorts (with many tourists also arriving by lake steamers). The Inland Route was home to many vessels there just for the tourist trade, owned either by companies centered on that purpose or owned by some of the larger hotels along the Inland Route.
The Inland Route started to decline as a major resort destination in the mid-1920s, declining along with the timber trade and the general migration of people from the north, though many hotels stayed open for the next several decades and some are open to this day. Ships did not disappear from the Inland Route, though they switched from steamers to privately owned small boats, with overall ships increasing in numbers with such events as the Top-O-Michigan outboard races and then as now for fishing and pleasure boating.
The bulk of the book, after just a few pages of text, is dedicated to photographs, beginning with images of the Cheboygan Crib Light, often thought of as the beginning of the Inland Route (though many others thought the village of Oden was the start of the Inland Route), then moving on to the various ways tourists could reach Cheboygan (be it the Detroit & Cleveland Line or the Arnold Transit Company if by ship or the Michigan Central Railroad or the Detroit and Mackinaw Railway if by train, with later in the text mention of the importance of the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad, which among other thing heavily promoted an outdoor dramatization of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem _Hiawatha_, presented daily just outside Petoskey from the end of June to the end of August from 1905 to 1916, with all the performers Native Americans; two photos of this are included in the book). I liked the photo of a log boom, a huge mass of floating logs at Cheboygan on the Cheboygan River, showing why usually further upstream was the starting point for Inland Route boats and of the Cheboygan Swing Bridge (constructed in 1877 for the now amazing cost of $6,500, “[p]assing children were often happy to offer their assistance in turning the center-mounted windlass to swing the bridge”).
There were many great photos of the boats (and sailors) that serviced the Inland Route. A favorite was reading about the Ida L., a ship that was a boat kit purchased by mail and was run by the first boat company to take passengers the entire length of the Inland Route (its owners bold in founding the company just when Cheboygan was beginning its rapid decline with the collapse of the lumber boom). Owning to bridge heights and the size of locks, only relatively small ships could travel the entire length of the Inland Route. Other boats I liked reading about were the Obie Boats, made by hand by George Obenauf and sold throughout Northern Michigan (Obenauf passing away in 1958, until then renown for hiring the best craftsmen and using the best cedar, sometimes cypress wood), and the steamer Topinbee (the largest and most elaborate vessel to ply the Inland Route, was built in 1899, was 64.9 feet long, 14.5 feet wide, and had upholstered seats, brass trimmings, an onboard orchestra, could carry up to 250 passengers, and had a telescoping funnel and hinged pilothouse).
Many photographs are of the hotels and resorts along the Inland Route, such as Hack-Ma-Tack Inn (on Mullett Lake, which called guest to dinners by a bell run from the bell tower), the Pinehurst Inn (where boaters could basically dock feet from the hotel right on the bank), the Buckyeye House (which hosted as a regular guest former Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks, who served under Theodore Roosevelt, and was the center of a group of settlers from the state of Ohio, hence the name Buckeye, just as the community of Columbus Beach got its name from the many guests from Columbus, Ohio), and the Rawdon Hotel (once known as the Oden Hotel, “probably the most elaborate and luxurious hotel on the Inland Route,” the building, built in 1895, was “designed to look like one of the steamships that meandered through the Inland Route,” it had its own power plant and a stained glass skylight). Several burned down (and were often not replaced), such as Hotel Topinabee, which burned twice, itself a replacement for a hotel that also burned. The Colonial Hotel burned in 1909 (itself built on a Native American community that was burned out and evicted in October 1900 after a dispute over land ownership), a 1911 fire also destroyed much of the village of Indian River, the Alanson Shingle Mill burned in 1918 (built on a pond where cut logs were kept, the pond known as the Devil’s Hole due in part perhaps to “the strange green colors” that “could supposedly be seen emanating from its depths”), the Hasting Heights Hotel burned down in 1919 (replaced by the Sawkala Boys Camp, which operated until 1931), the Tuscarora Town Hall was consumed by fire in the early 1920s, the Buckeye House burned in 1924, (wood-frame hotels later were banned in some communities due to their tendency to burn), the Summer Home hotel caught fire in August 1955, and the old Alanon School building burned in 1964 (the school’s foundation laid in 1893). Several hotels, such as the Hiawatha Hotel and the Inland House are still in operation (the Inland House dating from 1879 and the Hiawatha Hotel having opened in 1900).
I really liked learning about the “camelback” bridge or concrete curved cord through girder bridge, one was constructed across the Indian River in 1924. “An extremely rare design, this type of bridge was only built in Michigan and Ontario and usually on in rural areas,” as the bridges were “designed for simplicity in construction as we as safety, with little maintenance required.”
Railroads and railroad related stops are also covered, such as the Aloha Railroad Station (constructed by the Detroit and Mackinac in 1904 for the enormous cost of $14,000, had a log-cabin themed interior, fieldstone fireplace, and was built primarily of bird’s-eye maple, sadly torn down in 1947, with a small portion remaining until the 1960s) and the Dummy Train or “Busted Valise and Clothes Line,” a very no frills train “not known for comfort” used to ferry passengers from Petoskey and Oden on wooden tracks.
I suspect this book would primarily be for local interest but I am glad I read it. The vast majority of the book focused on the tourist industry of the Inland Water Route, with only a few mentions in the introductory text about the fur trade and very little in the photographs and accompanying caption text on the timber industry (there were a few photos though of log booms and some associated industries). I would have liked a little more information on some of the more unusual things such as the dummy train, the State Fish Hatchery, and the Burt Lake Scenic Tower as well as photos of the interiors of the many hotels discussed and depicted in the book. There is a bibliography at the end.
September 19, 2011
This book would have limited appeal, but for those of us who like hisotry and the Inland Water Route, it is a must read. I read it very carefully and then gave it away to my neighbor for her 90th birthday. She loved it.
February 23, 2026
I love these old photographs. This is a wonderful historical record for northern Michigan.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews