Location: Harrison Junction, MI

Harrison Junction was located on the Pere Marquette rail line about 2 miles west of Clare. The PM Harrison branch left the line here and headed north, across the Ann Arbor railroad to Harrison. The line also had a number of forest branch lines to Dodgeville, Dodge, Meredith and Leota among others.

Notes

When the Flint & Pere Marquette Railroad first reached Clare in October 1870, construction of the railroad continued westward reaching the Village of Farwell in December, 1870. 

Construction of the F&PM continued as the lumber industry tapped into the rich green resources along the rail’s path until December 1, 1874, when it reached the Lake Michigan port of (the newly renamed) Ludington.

The F&PM looked northward and built a branch line in 1874 to tap into timber reserves in the center of the county. Railroad civil engineers chose a place in the Tobacco River Valley 2.45 miles west of Clare near the small settlement of Hinkleville.

The location was chosen because it offered the engineers a route of gentle grades and slight curves working its way into the northern reaches of the county. A 16.8-mile-long branch line reached the shores of Budd Lake in 1874, with several scheduled stops along the way. 

Hinkleville, just west of the Harrison junction, also grew. A church, a schoolhouse, post office, shops and homes all joined Henry Hinkle’s1868 sawmill. A large depot was built less than a mile away at the junction with agents and operators tending the needs of passengers and freight along the main line and the branch. That depot still stands as a private residence and is one of the few remaining structures from either Hinkleville or Harrison Junction.

In the 1880s with the coming of the Toledo Ann Arbor and North Michigan Railroad (TAANM) to Clare and Farwell, Harrison Junction became obsolete. The TAANM actually built a line to connect the Harrison Branch with the Pere Marquette’s main line back in Clare, therefore avoiding having to cross the branch line itself. ”No more Harrison Junction “ read an article in an 1887 Gladwin County Record. Hinkleville, however, was still being mentioned in the local papers as late as the mid-1950s.

Though little evidence exists today of the long-abandoned Harrison Branch, Hinkleville, or the Junction, a trip west from the Moose on the rail trail will take you through these forgotten locales just west of Clare.

Time Line