Station: Tower, MI

Tower was a station on the Detroit & Mackinac railway in southeast Cheboygan County. It was settled about 1889.

Several logging branches radiated south and west from Tower in 1900 and early maps suggested that the railroad at one time considered extending the D&M road west to the Petoskey area. But around 1904, the railroad decided to build northwest from here to Cheboygan, via the east shore of Mullet Lake.

The sign on this depot has been preserved by the nearby Onaway Historical Society museum. Because this was an early railroad town, one might think it is named after a water tower. But it was actually named for a daughter of Judge Samuel S. Tower. She served as an army nurse in the Spanish-American war and died of typhoid fever. [MPN]

Photo info: Top, the Tower depot. [Alan Loftis Collection]. 2nd image is from the dam spill at Tower. Note the water tower above the dam. 

Notes

Time Line

1901. Tower has two sawmills, two shingle mills and a butter bowl factory. The town was named for "Nurse Tower", who died in Cuba and whose father was an old soldier and was a resident of this place. The population is about 300. The railroad penetrates a fine belt of hardwood country. [DFP-1901-1027]

1902. A new station is built in Tower by the D&M. [MCFR-1903]

1908. Forest fires are reported on the northern division of the D&M. The water tank, pump house and hand-car house burned at Tower Friday afternoon. The fire was caused from a spark from the mill. [DET-1908-0622]

1911. July 11. The D&M depot, freight house, shingle mill, 25 cars and a few buildings were destroyed by fire in Tower. The town is safe. [LSJ-1911-0712]

1915. The Forest Lumber Co. sells its sawmill and it is relocated in Raco, MI in Chippewa County. [DSSS-2023-2]

1922. August 11. Town of Tower Does Everything to Prevent Loss of Property and Life - All Men Aid Work. High water caused by heavy rains has caused heavy damage and threatened today to inundate the town of Tower on the D&M railroad. Nearly every man in the village of 799 inhabitants was aiding today in the efforts to prevent the waters of Black river breaking over a dam that protected the town. An Onaway man dies falling into the stream while working on the dam. [BCE-1922-0411]

1922. Sweeping away thousands of tons of earth, the Black River has forced a new channel in the vicinity of Tower and threatened to destroy the D&M railway bridge. Hundreds of cars of rock are being hurled in its path in a desperate effort to stop its rampage. Black Lake, five miles below Onaway (on the river) is rapidly rising to the highest mark in its history, endangering many homes on the beach and immediate vicinity. At Cheboygan, several families are marooned by the overflowing of small streams, but the Black and Cheboygan rivers are being held in check and the danger is diminishing.

More than 160 men were battling to save a 12-foot ledge, the only link between two D&M railway track terminals, from destruction by the Black river, which has turned out of the course, and was pounding at the narrow embankment. Five hundred feet of track have been swept away and a river rages 25 feet below, where a day age stood a high embankment. If the last ledge is broken the river will remain permanently in its changed course.

In the very path of the violent waters, a temporary track is being laid and cars of rock are being hurled on each side of the narrow strip to hold the river at bay. Electric power will be cut off entirely if the current breaks through and retains its changed course after receding, as the power dam is situated on the main stream, below the new course. The power dam is still holding as its water lowers slightly but the ridge and rail bridge remain in danger. [EFP-1922-0413]

1922. A passenger train Thursday, on the D&M railway was hurled from its track by flood-weakened roadbed, down a 20 foot embankment. Scores of passengers were imperiled but only two, the fireman and the 2-year-old boy were injured severely. Blocking of the track by the wreck hindered the fight to save the 12-foot embankment of the railway from destruction by the Black River at Tower, as it shut off the supply of rick. [DFP-1922-0414]

1924. In the Matter of the Application of the Detroit & Mackinac Railway Company for Authority to Make Its Stations Aloha, Tower, Saganing, Long Lake and Lupton Non-Agency Stations. D-1955. September 15, 1924.