Railroad: Manistee & Luther Railroad Company, The

The Manistee & Luther railroad was built in 1886 and used as a logging road for the R. G. Peters Salt  Lumber Co. It was built between Eastlake (on Manistee Lake) to the vicinity of Luther. The road had a number of branches into the forest. These lines were removed by 1915. [MRL] This was a 3-foot gauge track in 1903.

Built → Manistee & Luther railroad → Abandoned

Chartered: 1886.

Built: 1886

Operated for 28 years.

Operations Ended: 1914 - Abandoned.

Reference: [MRRC]

Photo Info: A Manistee & Luther crew stop for a photo with their caboose, date unknown. [Wexford Historical Society]

Notes

Time Line

1886. May 26. A train loaded with railroad iron was being backed up the grade of the Manistee & Luther Narrow Gauge railroad near East Lake today. The load was too heavy for the engine. The hind car was on the top of the grade when the weight of the cars overcame the power of the engine. Thereupon the train started down the grade at a rapid rate, ever increasing, the futile efforts of the locomotive notwithstanding. As the train went rushing across the culvert at the foot of the grade the structure gave way and three cars fell through. A number of Polack workmen of the railroad company were riding on the cars. They fell headlong and were buried beneath the iron rails. It was some time before the men were taken out. It was discovered that nine men were injured and none killed. One man had his leg crushed up to the knee and another lost two fingers. The attending physician described the wounds received as a lot of miscellaneous contusions, but nothing serious. It was a miraculous escape. The wounded were placed on cots in Pierce's boarding house at East Lake, and every attention was paid to them. [DFP-1886-0527]

1898. The road was opened from Eastlake to Section 3-19-10, 55 miles. It had five other branches totaling 20 miles, and 4 miles of sidings and spurs. [MCR-1904]

1902. The M&L has 75 miles of track, three foot gauge. [MCR-1902]

1903. SNAPSHOT. The railroad owned 7 locomotives, 8 box cars, 3 stock cars, 57 platform cars for bark, 6 gondolas, 4 conductor's way cars, and 240 skeleton logging cars. The road owned 51 miles of their own telephone line.

1910. August 13. Frank Kulka, single, of Filer City, was killed last night by a logging train on the Manistee & Luther railroad. Kulka was going east on a railroad velocipede and fell asleep as a result of heavy drinking. About midnight the incoming train struck him, and his body was horribly mangled. [DFP-1910-0814]

1914. Logging Road to Tear Up Rails. Lansing, Mich., October 29. The railroad commission issued an order allowing the Manistee & Luther railroad to tear up its tracks. The road is a logging one, twenty-three miles long, and has been abandoned. [DD-1914-1031]