Station: Black River, MI

Black River was a settlement on Lake Huron in Alcona County, named from the stream which flows through it. It was a fishing settlement in 1849, and then became the seat of lumbering operations for the Alger, Smith & Company., which between 1876 and 1880 was the largest pine timber producer in the world. [MPN]

Image info: Top, an early view of the Black River depot. 2nd image, a D&M freight proceeds across the Black River. DM 468 leads with DM 467 MU'ed behind in their original paint scheme. 1962. [Besser Museum Fred Trelfa Collection]

Black River was a station on the Detroit, Bay City & Alpena railroad (later D&M). Originally the mainline turned inland at this location through the forests, but was eventually straightened along the Lake Huron coast.

Notes

Time Line

1881. Last week the barge Howard landed a new locomotive at Black River for R.A. Alger & Co.'s railway. [AAN-1881-0511]

1881. August. A locomotive arrived at Alpena port on board of a lighter from Black River. This iron horse - or rather, pony - has been for some time used at Black River in the lumber business by R.A. Alger & Co. running on a lumber railroad back into the woods for several miles, and bringing to the mills the logs for manufacture. Through constant and we may say hard usage, the "machine" has become old enough to need considerable repairing, and hence the removal of the locomotive, a section of the track and all, to the port of Alpena, to be thoroughly overhauled and rebuilt at the machine shop of Warren & Macdonald. [AAN-1881-0824]

1881. December. The firm R.A. Alger & Co. extensive long timber operators at Black River has been reorganized and reincorporated under the firm name Alger, Smith & Co. The capital stock has also been increased from $1 million to $1.5 million of which stock R.A. Alger owns a little more than one half, we believe. The officers and members of the new firm are: R.A. Alger, President; R.K. Hawley, Vice President; M.S. Smith, Treasurer; J.C. McCaul, Secretary; John Millen, Superintendent at Black River. The firm has recently added largely to their pine land tracts and with increased facilities will get out and market much more timber the coming year than any year previous. [AAB-1881-1214]

1900. September. Grading on the D&M main line route through Harrisville has begun. They are working towards Harrisville. [DFP-1900-0924]

1901. October. A news article notes that Black River has ex-Governor Alger's old mill, which had formally rafted from 45,000,000 to 90,000,000 cedar logs per year. [DFP-1901-1027]

1902. June 8. The tender of the engine on an excursion train from Alpena to Bay City was derailed on a straight track near Black River, resulting in derailing four coaches. One passenger was killed and about sixty people injured. [DMAR-1902]

1906. January. Alger, Smith & Co. Closes Operations. Bay City parties have purchased the buildings owned by Alger, Smith & Co. at Black River. The deal included the saw mill, boarding house, barns, tenement houses and sheds. They have been torn down and the lumber shipped to Bay City. The foundation piles are white pine and as sound as when driver, thirty years ago. They will be lifted from the water and manufactured into lumber. It is expected the purchasers will get more than 1,000,000 feet of lumber from this source. This is practically all that is left of a once busy lumber town. It was the headquarters of the Lake Huron lumbering operations of Alger, Smith & Co. for more than twenty years and and aside from operating a saw mill, the firm rafted from 70 million to 110 million feet of long logs annually from Black River down the lakes every season for more than a score of years. Now the town is dead; the stores are closed, so are the churches and the school. It is a deserted village. [AML- 1/20/1906]

1919. The depot here is moved from the old line to the new cutoff. [DMAR-1919]

1927. This station was staffed with an operator during the day shift. [ETT-1927]