BIG Thumb BIG Change

[izzyindetroit]

"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.

And yet people think that bringing the farm to the city is a great idea.

http://modeldmedia.com/features/hantzfarm082410.aspx

[atl_runner]

I don't think every town needs to be a success, and it's hard to call the towns that are not successes failures. Evolution happens and it always will. Some towns will eventually be wiped off the map. That's not really sad, it's just shifting winds. I ride my bike through countless country landscapes here in Georgia, and the same thing exists, everywhere. These towns have never really thrived over the last 50 years or so, and maybe they have never thrived at all, but we all want to think they once did.

I like this picture set for it's reality, but I don't see it reflecting back to a 'better' day. One day down the road, someone might be taking a picture of a rusted out, broken down wind mill, wondering what it was like to have such primitive means of energy gathering. We see what we want to see.

[stipes]

Wonderfull and beautiful pics. Lowell.. Always give me so much enjoyment..Thank you..

[szla]

About 35 years ago I did a paper on the relationship between clay deposits [[and brick making) and the building of these bicolor homes in the thumb. I have visited occasionally and watched these homes disappear. You can drive along any mile road or half mile road and every quarter mile you will find a driveway crossing a ditch and maybe a barn repaired and standing without any home next to it. The 40 acre plots were gobbled up into 200-800 acre farms and the houses were left to rot or torn down. I came across this house, which was also vacant a couple summers ago. A blue clay produced the buff colored brick and a red clay produced the red brick. Over most of the thumb the deposits are on top of each other close to the surface. Which ever deposit dominated became the dominant color with the other color used for ornamentation. There were lots of these homes some very modest, some quite large. Here's the pics. I hope they come out OK.

[edgar_rhode]

great photo essay. nice work!

[bartock]

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.

We just got back from our first visit to Caseville and made the trip East on M-25 to find the the Grindstone General Store. Amazing! Vernors, Better Made chips, Stroh's ice cream, like three of the biggest scoops I've ever seen for $3. I asked the clerk where we could actually walk "in town" in Grindstone, and she looked at me strange, and said, "you're in it." Your description is right on, and that urban storefront is something to see. It is for sale...I'll try to post the pictures I took of it.

We ate at a restaurant in Port Austin called The Bank 1884. Beautiful building and cool atmosphere. Very "urban" for a small town.

I knew there was a Scoth/Irish history there, but was struck by the Catholic churches and names of the towns, roads, rivers, up that way. So relatively close to Detroit, also.

[Zimm]

[/b]

We just got back from our first visit to Caseville and made the trip East on M-25 to find the the Grindstone General Store. Amazing! Vernors, Better Made chips, Stroh's ice cream, like three of the biggest scoops I've ever seen for $3. I asked the clerk where we could actually walk "in town" in Grindstone, and she looked at me strange, and said, "you're in it." Your description is right on, and that urban storefront is something to see. It is for sale...I'll try to post the pictures I took of it.

We ate at a restaurant in Port Austin called The Bank 1884. Beautiful building and cool atmosphere. Very "urban" for a small town.

I knew there was a Scoth/Irish history there, but was struck by the Catholic churches and names of the towns, roads, rivers, up that way. So relatively close to Detroit, also.

best ice cream cones in the state!

i'd love to see your pics of the old storefront. last i saw, the upper floor looked to be occupied by low-end renters. i'd love to pick that building up and move it somewhere great [[but then i suppose it would lose some of the oddness that makes it so great in my mind. the location seems at best a bit of land speculation failure and at worst an architect/builder's failure to properly address location in the design process.

i remember when The Bank first opened-noteworthy because it was by reputation an excellent restaurant and intriguing atmosphere in a region completely devoid of even decent restaurants and more importantly, of people who could cook worth a dam. i remember locals turning us on to great new "restaurants" that were little more than someone who could cook a bit setting up tables in their own home on some sparsely populated side road.

[bartock]

Attachment 7292

Attachment 7293

Attachment 7294

Attachment 7295

best ice cream cones in the state!

I'd love to see your pics of the old storefront. Last i saw, the upper floor looked to be occupied by low-end renters. I'd love to pick that building up and move it somewhere great [[but then i suppose it would lose some of the oddness that makes it so great in my mind. The location seems at best a bit of land speculation failure and at worst an architect/builder's failure to properly address location in the design process.

I remember when the bank first opened-noteworthy because it was by reputation an excellent restaurant and intriguing atmosphere in a region completely devoid of even decent restaurants and more importantly, of people who could cook worth a dam. I remember locals turning us on to great new "restaurants" that were little more than someone who could cook a bit setting up tables in their own home on some sparsely populated side road.

I've lost my attachment virginity.

First and third pictures are obviously the general store, and the second picture is that building...wish I would have taken more pictures of it, and of that bank place.

The fourth is the for sale sign regarding that building. I think you can see the number.

[Lowell]

Just found this on my iPhone... The above mentioned The Bank in Port Austin.

Attachment 7311

[Zimm]

Attachment 7292

Attachment 7293

Attachment 7294

Attachment 7295

I've lost my attachment virginity.

First and third pictures are obviously the general store, and the second picture is that building...wish I would have taken more pictures of it, and of that bank place.

The fourth is the for sale sign regarding that building. I think you can see the number.

great pics bartock! glad to see things are as i left them.

[beachboy]

Great pix and essay, Lowell! Thank you for sharing...

Also enjoyed poop-in-creeks [["kriks" in Thumbese) subthread... old memories... swimmin' in da krik...neighbors' farms drained into it, we dint care ... peesa manure [[cowsh*t + straw) float by...jus' push it outa da way...good clean livin, down by da krik.

K-4 at neighborhood one-room schoolhouse - stove in da corner, two privies [[2-holers) pulled up against the building so we had "indoor bathrooms". Every month, we painted new pix on the windows - took half a day to get it right...gawd whatta lotta love we had ... Attended the funeral of my K-4 teacher in June at da famly church, looked down from da balkeny - seven heads in a row - they turned round afterward and hollered "Hiiiiii!!" So good to catch up on de old daze over "funeral lunch"...still lotta love there...

Thumb has nice beaches, great people, and...yes...good food if you know where to find it. Visited family, attended school reunion ...did the M-25 drive thru the beachside towns [[PH, Lakeport, Lexington, Port Sanilac, Forester, Forestville, HB, Port Hope, Gstone, Port Austin, Caseville, Bay Port...) ... sweet memories... years ago some of those towns were shabby...now tarted up, ready for tourists... I hope they survive.

Learned to swim at Lighthouse Park - Mom & I would drive up there in the afternoon - Mom sat in the shadow of the bluff and read, I piddled in the lake... sand gone now, washed out when the water was high. Was nice to walk the old wharf... sigh...

[mtburb]

Not to mention Detroit's longest named street goes all the way up to the Thumb. 117 miles from East Jefferson to Port Austin; Detroit River to Lake Huron.

[reddog289]

I'm glad I saw this thread. I drove around the thumb this week. Next time I will visit the middle of the thumb as the wife wants to see the octagon barn and the wind towers. Thanks for the thread Lowell.