Looking Back: A stuck bridge and a train station robbery
CHARLEVOIX — This week, Looking Back will zero in on what happened in Charlevoix between mid-June and mid-September 1923.
Charlevoix Courier, June 13 edition: “HENRY NEVER PLANNED FOR SUCH LIKE. Florida People Take Liberties With Lizzie. A curiosity blew into our little burg Tuesday in the shape of a six wheel automobile. This craft came to anchor out in front of the Bartlett House (hotel on Park Avenue), but before the Courier representative could get close enough to inspect the freak, it coughed two or three times and moved up the street.
“Inquiry, however, elicited the facts that ... the pilots (a couple from Florida) are looking for a good location to start a bus line business with their six wheel centipede. The body of the machine is a bus type, mounted on a Ford chassis. The extra wheels are mounted amidships and the total length of the car adds up to about twenty-five feet. It will seat eighteen passengers.
“It is certain the Henry Ford never dreamed that his well known product could be converted into anything like this.”
Charlevoix Sentinel, June 28: “HEAT CAUSES THE BRIDGE TO STICK” (This was the 1901-1947 swing bridge.) During an unprecedented heat wave, “ ... the bridge, expanded by the sun’s burning rays, became fast at both ends on turning to allow the ‘Esperanza’ to pass. Volunteers immediately came to the rescue with crow bars and physical strength, and after ten minutes of good hard work succeeded in prying the bridge loose. Florida has nothing on us.”
Sentinel, Aug. 2: The new Douglas Fairbanks “Robin Hood” was scheduled for a two-night run at the Palace movie theater, preceded by the usual Hollywood publicity spin and over-the-top claptrap. “That Robin Hood was a great lover, every version of his meteoric career indicates. He was noted for the manner in which he rigidly enforced the highest respect for all women. He was gallant to a maximum degree and he never failed to resent any show of masculine conduct toward the gentler sex. His manner of resentment was always most unpleasant for the offender. This character becomes the very king of romance in all that the term implies, and his manner of impressing his commendable traits of standing unabashed as the bold fighter in behalf of frail women is one which will not fail to remain fixed in the mind of every person who sees the reincarnation of his spirit by Mr. Fairbanks, foremost of romantic stars.” Whew.
Sentinel, Aug. 16: “CHANGED TO BELVEDERE CLUB. For years and years, the Charlevoix Summer Home Association has, as an organization, been a familiar name to a multitude of people scattered throughout the entire United States. The members and citizens (of Charlevoix) generally allude to this place as the ‘Belvedere.’ As a result of this common practice, the corporate name has been largely overlooked and forgotten. At the annual meeting, members of the association considered the advisability of changing the name of the organization. This proposition met with hearty approval.”
As a matter of fact, when the railroad arrived in Charlevoix in 1892, the first schedule designated the stop at the resort as the one-word “Belvedere” after the large hotel that was once on the grounds, at the turn from Belvedere Avenue onto Ferry Avenue. There would have been no room to print “Charlevoix Resort Association” as the train stop.
That same issue mentioned the impact being felt by the rising popularity of the automobile plus the improvement of the state roads that were both having a noticeable effect on the travel scene. More and more people were taking to the highway, and the noticeable result was reflected by slowly decreasing ridership on the railroads and Lake Michigan passenger vessels out of Chicago. The times they were definitely achangin.’
The following week, the Aug. 22 Charlevoix Courier reported on a shocking discovery of the fishing situation here, the probable result of decades of overfishing that went largely unheeded until it was too late. “QUEER RESULTS FROM A SURVEY. Bureau of Fisheries Experts Find Few Fish. Seven Miles of Nets Set in Pine Lake (Lake Charlevoix) Yield Less Than 70 Lbs. of Big Ones.” The three survey nets were placed in Oyster Bay, near Horton Bay, and in the South Arm. Survey experts were at a loss to explain this very worrisome situation.
Aug. 30 Sentinel: “THE WORK OF YEGGMEN. Pere Marquette Station Robbed Last Sunday Night” (This refers to the train station still at Depot Beach.) “Yeggmen, wise ones, forced a window, jimmied a door or two, carried the safe from the office at the Pere Marquette. Charlevoix station, loaded it on a ‘Lorry’ (or arm-pumped push-car) several hundred feet north of the station, dumped the safe and dynamited (the door off), and made their get away at some time after 7:30 p.m. last Sunday night and before daylight the following morning.” They nabbed over $1,100 in cash, the lucrative weekend receipts, “said to be the largest amount ever lost by the Pere Marquette Railroad Company in this manner.” Yegg is the slang term for “safecracker.”
Everything had been planned for maximum result, including having someone familiar with dynamite on the team, making sure a push-car was at hand, the day the end of the peak weekend of the season with a big stash of undeposited ticket money at hand, plus the added advantage of a dark, overcast night.
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September was relatively quiet in comparison. The elite Colonial Club gambling and gourmet restaurant on Meech Street near Dixon Avenue that catered to the summer crowd, established toward the final years of World War I, suffered a major late Saturday morning kitchen, probably grease fire that spread to the dining hall and its entire upper wing. Had the fire broken out late at night, the whole building might have been destroyed. The restaurant had been totally booked for farewell dinners every night until closing for the season. To add insult to injury, the entire place had been entirely redecorated the previous spring, and would now have to be totally redone again.
Finally, on Sept. 12, the hospital reported that it “STILL HOLDS ITS OWN” and had “performed in a highly satisfactory manner its important function in our community” during August. After the monthly audit, it had $1737.89 in the bank.
Next week — 1973.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Looking Back: A stuck bridge and a train station robbery
