Vines on the Wall
Vines on the Wall
Ford
A Bit of Color
A Peach of a House
Hints of Autumn
Refuge from the Storm
Maple
Blue Jay at Sunflower
A Little Tree
Stowell and Sons
A Striking Sky
Lutheran Church of the Savior
We are One in Christ
Color Along Cochran
After the Storm
I Keep Seeing Sandhill Cranes
A Road Into the Woods
Dahlias in the Circle
Nexus
Framed
Fall Color
Blue Jay at Feeder
Big Marsh Lake
Formation
Big Marsh Lake
Platform Feeder
Farmyard
Debra Jean
Reflect
Trees in Field, Charlotte Highway
Verlen Kruger
Keep it Moving
Verlen Kruger
Portland
Any Color You Want
On the Fence
Let's Climb a Tree
We've Moved
Sidewalk
The Usual Place
Dew on the Mornin' Glory
Bales, with Color
The Tree Next Door
Mornin'
Past Prime
Bronson Park Color
Walk the Dogs
First Reformed
Still Some Color Out There...
Where the McCargar Barn Was
No Barn, but Still Cattle
The Other Missing Barn
The Other Missing Barn
Still Standing
In a Fog
Mulliken Road
The Sunflower in Sunlight
Whee! That Was Fun. Now How Do I Get Down?
A Tree in the Fog
Morning Fog
Cherry Tree
Spooky Foggy Morning
Farm Pano
Two Men Fishin'
Nice Sunset Tonight
Web
Hazy Morning
Juvenile Cormorant
Broken Tree
Shadow Telephone Pole
Track and Poles
Cherries on Sidewalk
Benches
Escape
Worse for Wear
A Dispatch from a Dreary Day
Breaking Through!
View of the Pond
View of the Pond
Swans!
View of the Pond
A Red Tree and a Bunch of Other Trees
Fall Color, with Joan
That Old Tree
Along the Trail
A Dead Tree or Two
Down the Trail
Tall Grasses
Shoes. In the Sky.
Saginaw Highway
If I Hide Here You Can't See Me
A View from St Joe Highway
Farm, Shaytown Road
Room 358 @ Borgess
Patient Care Assistant
Thornapple Lake
Field & Sky
The Endless Sky
Reds and Whites
Black-Eyed Susans
Coneflowers, fading
Sunflowers
Stonecrop
Finch on Pedestal Feeder
Kittens
Column
The Return of the Sunflower
Barn, with Sky
Kalamazoo's Building a Courthouse
Nine Sandhill Cranes
The Professor
Wonder Wood
Three Figures
Sculpture
Location
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Michigan Peat Company Complex
I've known this complex for years, and have long wondered why someone built these large buildings pretty much in the middle of nowhere. So here's a long explanation from The Only Eaton Rapids on Earth, by W. Scott Munn, written in 1952:
The Peat Company bought and had options on several hundred acres of muck land north of the city, and the plan was to process it and sell it for fuel.
Two large concrete buildings were erected, a siding was run to the plant from the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad, and all arrangements were made for shipping the output. The machinery was installed, a miniature track laid, and small cars put into service to transport the "bog" from the muck fields to the plant. Here it went through a process of extracting the water from the muck and forcing it into molds with tiny compartments about the size of No. 4 coal. The molds were then placed in an oven where the muck was thoroughly baked, and when the molds were opened the muck was transported to storage bins. Before shipping, a sufficient amount of time was supposed to have elapsed to have the material solidify, but such was not the case; the longer the nuggets lay in the bin, the softer they became, and when handled returned to their original state.
Everything possible was done to overcome this one failure in the processing, but because of this the whole proposition was a complete failure. It was later discovered that the muck was not of the right texture to adhere.
[snip]
During the past twenty-five years this acreage has been cleared and developed into one of the finest vegetable gardens in Michigan. Thousands of bushels of onions, carrots and potatoes are raised annually and have a ready market in the United States, yielding a nice profit to the owners.
In 1928 Fred B. Todd and son, Charles B. Todd, purchased the entire acreage and buildings of the Michigan Peat Company, which they operated as a vegetable garden until they sold to Paul E. Huston in 1945, who continues in the same line.
The buildings date from 1904 or thereabouts, and it looks like the company failed in 1908. Munn believed the entire project was deliberate fraud, but it's not clear to me that his characterization of the business is fair to the original operators--nor that it's not.
When I first discovered the complex it seemed mostly abandoned, but for a time it was occupied by the Kunkel Brothers Produce Company, which seems to be still in business but at another location. Except forsome lots of equipment on the grounds the buildings appear again to be abandoned.
The Peat Company bought and had options on several hundred acres of muck land north of the city, and the plan was to process it and sell it for fuel.
Two large concrete buildings were erected, a siding was run to the plant from the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad, and all arrangements were made for shipping the output. The machinery was installed, a miniature track laid, and small cars put into service to transport the "bog" from the muck fields to the plant. Here it went through a process of extracting the water from the muck and forcing it into molds with tiny compartments about the size of No. 4 coal. The molds were then placed in an oven where the muck was thoroughly baked, and when the molds were opened the muck was transported to storage bins. Before shipping, a sufficient amount of time was supposed to have elapsed to have the material solidify, but such was not the case; the longer the nuggets lay in the bin, the softer they became, and when handled returned to their original state.
Everything possible was done to overcome this one failure in the processing, but because of this the whole proposition was a complete failure. It was later discovered that the muck was not of the right texture to adhere.
[snip]
During the past twenty-five years this acreage has been cleared and developed into one of the finest vegetable gardens in Michigan. Thousands of bushels of onions, carrots and potatoes are raised annually and have a ready market in the United States, yielding a nice profit to the owners.
In 1928 Fred B. Todd and son, Charles B. Todd, purchased the entire acreage and buildings of the Michigan Peat Company, which they operated as a vegetable garden until they sold to Paul E. Huston in 1945, who continues in the same line.
The buildings date from 1904 or thereabouts, and it looks like the company failed in 1908. Munn believed the entire project was deliberate fraud, but it's not clear to me that his characterization of the business is fair to the original operators--nor that it's not.
When I first discovered the complex it seemed mostly abandoned, but for a time it was occupied by the Kunkel Brothers Produce Company, which seems to be still in business but at another location. Except for
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