A Brief Stop in Cadillac

After catching the three ships on that Saturday morning, I headed over to my dad's house to pick him up.  We then went up to Cadillac to see if there was anything we needed to do with his parents' graves.  Well before that, we went to a town called Jennings to look at his cousin's grave.  Jennings is a small town to the east of Cadillac.

 Cadillac is the county seat of Wexford County and is roughly in the center of the northern Lower Peninsula.  It is located at the intersection of M-55, M-115 and US-131.  The first sawmill was built in 1871.  In 1874, Cadillac was incorporated as a village.  The above railroad depot was built in 1915 by the Ann Arbor Railroad.  With the decline of passenger rail, the station fell into disrepair.  Recently it was renovated into a resaurant and Amvets building.

 At one time, Cadillac was home to the Michigan Iron Works which produced the Shay Locomotive pictured above.  The Shay was effective in its ability to climb steep grades, maneuver sharp turns and accommodate imperfections in railroad tracks.  This made it particular well suited to the lumber industry.

 This particular model was owned by the Cadillac-Soo Lumber Company and was restored to its current condition.

As Michigan was lumbered out, the fortunes of this railroad declined.