BIG Thumb BIG Change

**Lowell** · August-22-10, 11:21 PM

Today I prowled the back roads of Michigan's thumb in the fullness of summer. It is a place of giant changing landscapes and structures. Disappearing are the immense gambrel-roofed barns and their silos. Today they stand as obsolete reminders of when dairy farming was common.

Gone is the family farm with the "back forty" and a Ford tractor, replaced by thousand acre fields, factory farms and mega machines. Below, a massive sugar beet piling machine sits in a sugar beet staging station outside Kinde awaiting the coming harvest.

A corner store fades away in Pinebog. Giant retail outlets long ago devastated small retail.

Outside Elkton a massive 21st Century windmill dwarfs a 19th Century farm.

Now the largest structures in the thumb, displacing the long reign of the grain elevators, windmills flip peacefully in the summer breeze.

'Our Lady of the Cornfields', the distant towers St. Agatha's of Gagetown rises above the landscape.

Many small towns are suffering the same fate as our inner cities, declining population, high unemployment, abandoned downtowns and blight.

St. Agatha's School is long closed, so is this meeting hall with overgrown sidewalk, behind the church.

A nearby attraction is the immense octagon barn with its soaring cathedral-like interior vault. A masterpiece of balloon construction these barns were thought to be future of agriculture. Ironically they may be the only barns to survive due their majesty.

Magnificent within and without, the 1924-built barn towers 70 feet above the prairie.

Silos with the roofs gone are common. Often they are seen alone in the corn, their barns long gone, plowed under for more corn. I speculate that the cost of their removal and lack of salvage value preserves them. And so this summer day's tour ends with this iconic red with white trim barn.

**Magnatomicflux** · August-22-10, 11:59 PM

Very nice, thanks Lowell. I think we're all so lucky to have Michigan and Ontario as our backyards. I think my favorite in this series is the collapsed store. I've been wanting to explore ghost towns in Ontario but I just never seem to get the time

My step brother lives out in Roseville, and his grandfather owns an incredibly old farm somewhere not far from Roseville. I wish I knew the name of the farm, which as far as I know isn't a functional farm anymore. It's from the 1800's I know that much, and they tell me that people are found on the property all the time taking photos of the ruins. I'm gonna try and find out the name of the place, I'm sure some of you would enjoy shooting it.

**pieter+dieter** · August-23-10, 01:25 AM

Dear Lowell,

Your "Thumb", while glum, is a plum.

Pieter

**Meddle** · August-23-10, 03:42 AM

Mag, I used to go to a place up around Strathroy. Don't remember much about it now though. Distant relatives of some sort.

**Whitehouse** · August-23-10, 04:46 AM

|My brother is maintenance operator for Vestas, one of the largest companies in windenergy. These windmills are very common here in the Nehtlernads. Place the Google streetview antwhere on this map. I'd be amazed if you find a place there without one of those windmills.

**DetroitPlanner** · August-23-10, 07:32 AM

Thanks for the Pidgeon pics. I've been wanting to see those for quite some time, but it is off the beaten path. The difference in perspective between the two are remarkable. I had always assumed these were way out in the fields, but it appears to be not the case in all instances.

**gazhekwe** · August-23-10, 07:42 AM

Beautiful, thanks for sharing this great little road trip.

**Eastburn** · August-23-10, 08:01 AM

"Today they stand as obsolete reminders of when dairy farming was common."

Dairy farming is still big business in the Thumb. They're called CAFOs [[combined animal feeding operations). Often thousands of dairy cows in pole building sheds. They never get outside and live an average of 4 - 5 years. The resulting manure is spread on the fields which are tiled, carrying it into the drains, streams & rivers thence into Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron. Take a look at Willow Creek [[Huron City) on Google Earth as it empties into Lake Huron. Looks like a toilet flushing.

**fryar** · August-23-10, 08:21 AM

Is that what that is? That certainly is pretty brown.
Link

Nice pics!

**Corn.Bot** · August-23-10, 08:57 AM

Seems like the 'abandonment' thing has been going on for decades. I remember as a teenager summering in Lexington... it was the early 1970s, before gas conservation was even a blip on our radar. We would pile into whoever's car and drive west down whatever road, deep into the Sanilac County farmlands just to ...drive.

Now and then, we'd spy an obviously-long-vacant farm house, and trespass. There was almost never furniture or decor left inside even though windows were usually intact [[doors were invariably unlocked or the lock was gone). Sometimes old faded wallpaper still clung in a bedroom, or a hand-pump for water was still poised over the kitchen sink, and we'd speculate about what sort of family and life used to be there.

Every place had collapsed or nearly-collapsed outbuildings and rusted farm implements in the surrounding pastures. We guessed - back then - that some depression-era farmer couldn't make the farm work, or perhaps lost it all to the bank due to the economy of the times.

Some things never change, and it seems like we never learn...

**Lowell** · August-23-10, 09:00 AM

Originally Posted by Eastburn

Dairy farming is still big business in the Thumb. They're called CAFOs [[combined animal feeding operations). Often thousands of dairy cows in pole building sheds. They never get outside and live an average of 4 - 5 years. The resulting manure is spread on the fields which are tiled, carrying it into the drains, streams & rivers thence into Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron. Take a look at Willow Creek [[Huron City) on Google Earth as it empties into Lake Huron. Looks like a toilet flushing.

You are quite right. What I meant was the family farm style dairy operation where every farm had cows and often pigs, sheep and other livestock. These required large barns to store baled hay and silos for storage feed silage. Manure was saved and spread on the fields for fertilizer. Everywhere you drove you would see herds and pastures.

Today's giant rolled bales, wrapped in plastic, no longer require costly barns and silos for storage. Nor are large pastures. Consequently the operations are managed in assembly-line style polebarn and feed lot operations. With their large herd concentration and low-lying profiles they are a rare sight. Amazingly I didn't see one cow yesterday, although I did see some buffalo and alpacas.

**Eastburn** · August-23-10, 09:12 AM

Originally Posted by fryar

Is that what that is? That certainly is pretty brown.
Link

Nice pics!

That's Willow Creek. A lot of that crap ends up right on our shoreline.

**Eastburn** · August-23-10, 09:25 AM

Originally Posted by Lowell

You are quite right. What I meant was the family farm style dairy operation where every farm had cows and often pigs, sheep and other livestock. These required large barns to store baled hay and silos for storage feed silage. Manure was saved and spread on the fields for fertilizer. Everywhere you drove you would see herds and pastures.

Today's giant rolled bales, wrapped in plastic, no longer require costly barns and silos for storage. Nor are large pastures. Consequently the operations are managed in assembly-line style polebarn and feed lot operations. With their large herd concentration and low-lying profiles they are a rare sight. Amazingly I didn't see one cow yesterday, although I did see some buffalo and alpacas.

I live in Huron County and have been observing the changes you noted, Lowell.

An interesting thing is that the population of Huron County has been constant [[30,000 - 35,000) for over 100 years. Still a pretty good place to live if you can deal with a 50 mile round trip [[to Bad Axe) for groceries like we do.

**jcole** · August-23-10, 09:49 AM

Originally Posted by Eastburn

I live in Huron County and have been observing the changes you noted, Lowell.

An interesting thing is that the population of Huron County has been constant [[30,000 - 35,000) for over 100 years. Still a pretty good place to live if you can deal with a 50 mile round trip [[to Bad Axe) for groceries like we do.

Yeah, but you can get Chinese at China King when you go, and cinnamon rolls at Murphy's

**Eastburn** · August-23-10, 09:56 AM

Originally Posted by jcole

Yeah, but you can get Chinese at China King when you go, and cinnamon rolls at Murphy's

True dat. I'm not really complaining. We just have to get down to "The City" [[that's anything south of I69) to do any real shopping.

**jcole** · August-23-10, 10:08 AM

You mean there's more that just WAL-MART??

**DetroitPlanner** · August-23-10, 10:09 AM

Originally Posted by Eastburn

I live in Huron County and have been observing the changes you noted, Lowell.

An interesting thing is that the population of Huron County has been constant [[30,000 - 35,000) for over 100 years. Still a pretty good place to live if you can deal with a 50 mile round trip [[to Bad Axe) for groceries like we do.

How bout when you get a nice nor' Easterner come wintertime??

**Ray1936** · August-23-10, 10:17 AM

Great photos, Lowell. Many years have passed since I used to go pheasant hunting near Deckerville, in Sanilac county, but even then the flatness of the thumb was depressing to me. Sort of like Florida without palm trees. However, your eye sure picked some pretty shots.

**Wintersmommy** · August-23-10, 10:25 AM

Originally Posted by jcole

Yeah, but you can get Chinese at China King when you go, and cinnamon rolls at Murphy's

I enjoyed both of those places over the weekend

...except I always go with the nutty topped part cinnamon roll/part doughnut thingy at Murphy's

**jcole** · August-23-10, 10:43 AM

Originally Posted by Wintersmommy

I enjoyed both of those places over the weekend

...except I always go with the nutty topped part cinnamon roll/part doughnut thingy at Murphy's

I bought my car at Ordus Lincoln/Mercury and every time we need to do something with the car, we eat at China King. I used to like the clothing store on the corner, but it was closed last time I was there

**Zimm** · August-23-10, 11:40 AM

Lowell, if you'd continued north on Pinnebog road after you shot the pic of the general store ruins, you would have seen lots of cows-there's a large dairy farm on the right hand side about 1/4 mile north of the Pinnebog Road/Kinde Road intersection.

I used to love the general store ruins, but it seems they've finally begun to collapse in the 5 or so years since I stopped traveling that way as a cutoff to my family's former cottage up at Oak Beach.

the next time i find $20 in gas money burning a hole in my pocket, i should take a drive up there. 30 years of driving through the thumb always made me sad to see the pockets of poverty and decay. in the fall, i'd feel doubly wistful, although passing by a sugar beet factory at harvest time was always an incredible sight. i've never seen piles of anything so massive!

next time you're up there, you'd probably appreciate the old grindstone factory in Grindstone City, as well as a fantastically intact old storefront oddly placed [[a beautiful urban storefront in the middle of nowhere-as if there was a city around it that vanished) on the SW corner of Copeland and Rouse in Grindstone City. be sure to stop off for a giant yet amazingly cheap cone of Stroh's ice cream at the General Store on Copeland.

**1KielsonDrive** · August-23-10, 11:50 AM

Great tour and photos, Lowell.

**Tractor75** · August-23-10, 12:10 PM

I have noticed this as long as I can remember. My grandparents had a farm in Avoca. As a kid my dad worked on many farms in the area. When we would visit he would say "Look at that old farm falling into disrepair." Now they just tear down the fences and plant one crop in a hundred acres.

**econ expat** · August-23-10, 12:11 PM

Originally Posted by jcole

I bought my car at Ordus Lincoln/Mercury and every time we need to do something with the car, we eat at China King. I used to like the clothing store on the corner, but it was closed last time I was there

Long drive up Van Dyke, even from Almont, isn't it?
Bad Axe is somewhere near what would be 100 Mile Rd & Van Dyke,
Guess Almont would be 40 Mile Rd or so.

Worth the drive for a fair deal at a small town car dealer, though, isn't it?
That old dealership had Ford, Mercury, and Chrysler. Lost Chrysler when dealers were cut last year- glad they stayed in business.
I remember when Mickowski bought the GM dealer in Bad Axe as an 'annex' to their Detroit Dealership. Huron County folks wanted nothing to do with a 'mega dealer', acres of cars, etc.

**jcole** · August-23-10, 12:16 PM

It's a long drive, but a nice one, and you'll never meet a nicer family than the Ordus's. We have a mutual acquaintance who suggested them to me.
Yes, Almont is 40 Mile and Van Dyke, unofficially. It's about an hour and a half up to Bad Axe, but there's no traffic.