The End of the Road in Michigan

The Fishing Village of Leland Michigan: One of the Last Commercial Fisheries on Lake Michigan tells the story of Fishtown, a rare working waterfront that grew from Native fishing grounds, sawmill power, iron smoke and Lake Michigan commercial fishing. This episode of End of the Road in Michigan follows Leland from the late 1800s through the mid-1900s, when fish tugs, smokehouses, net racks and wea...

For nearly 100 years, the Hotel Ojibway has stood as one of Michigan's most recognizable historic hotels. Overlooking the Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie, it welcomed tourists, business leaders, politicians, and Great Lakes travelers during the golden age of railroads and automobile tourism. In this episode of The End of the Road in Michigan Podcast, we trace the hotel's story from its grand opening...

Michigan is full of towns that once had mills, mines, hotels, post offices, rail depots, docks, stores and big plans. Then the timber ran out. The copper market fell. The railroad moved. The dunes shifted. The fires came. The ships stopped calling. And in many cases, the town simply faded from the map. In this episode of End of the Road in Michigan, we take a lively trip through some of Michigan’s...

The Pere Marquette docks in Arcadia, Michigan, once connected a small Lake Michigan village to a much larger world. In this episode of End of the Road in Michigan, we follow the story of the harbor, railroad and steamship network that helped shape Arcadia during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Through rare historic postcards and local history, we examine how the Pere Marquette Railroad, the Arcadi...

In 1863, a group of German Methodist families came to the edge of Wild Fowl Bay near Bay Port, Michigan, with a bold plan. They would build a Christian colony in the wilderness. They called it Ora Labora, meaning “Pray and Work.” Led by Emil Baur and backed by the Harmony Society of Pennsylvania, the settlers raised cabins, cleared land, built mills, opened a store, created a post office, and trie...

Hillman, Michigan , began as Brush Creek, a small settlement shaped by timber, water, farm trade and the Thunder Bay River. In this episode of Michigan Moments, we follow Hillman from its early days as a Montmorency County center to its years as a railroad stop, hotel town, farm market and Lake Avalon resort community. The story includes State Street, Louis Davidson’s Department Store, the Winona...

Michigan’s roadside tourism boom turned two-lane highways into stages for bear camps, tourist towers, novelty buildings, tiny chapels, diners and roadside oddities. This episode looks at how the automobile reshaped travel from the 1920s through the 1950s, using Spikehorn Meyers, Hedges Wigwam, Michigan tourist towers and other quirky stops as examples of the era when a good sign could make a famil...

During Prohibition, Detroit’s location across from Windsor helped turn the Detroit River into a major liquor-smuggling route. From that underworld came the Purple Gang, a violent criminal group tied to rum running, hijacking, extortion and murder. This episode follows the gang’s rise and decline through newspaper accounts, with the Collingwood Manor Massacre of 1931 as the turning point that helpe...

In October 1908, northern Michigan burned. The Metz Fire destroyed a village, killed dozens and left hundreds homeless. At the same time, fires threatened communities near Alpena, Traverse City and Sault Ste. Marie, where ashes fell on the water “as if from a volcano.” This episode follows the fire through newspaper reports and the firsthand escape account of Mildred Swan, a Bay City teacher who r...

Michigan once had a broad electric interurban rail network that linked Detroit, small towns, farms, factories and lake resorts. By the late 1920s and early 1930s, that system was collapsing under pressure from private automobiles, buses, rising costs and court-approved abandonments. This episode follows the decline through newspaper accounts from Saginaw, Monroe and Berrien Springs, showing how el...

During World War II, more than 6,000 German and Italian prisoners of war were held in Michigan. They cut pulpwood in the Upper Peninsula, worked in fruit orchards, harvested crops, and helped fill wartime labor shortages. This episode follows the final days of German POWs at Fort Custer and Camp Evelyn, using 1945–46 newspaper clippings and historical records to tell the story of enemy soldiers wh...

In the summer of 1889, wealthy tourists stepped off Milwaukee, Lake Shore & Western Railroad trains bound for the White House Inn on Lake Gogebic. What began as a peaceful journey through Michigan’s deep north woods quickly turned into one of the Upper Peninsula’s most shocking crimes. A horse-drawn resort stagecoach carrying bankers and vacationers rolled along a lonely wilderness road when a...

Interlochen, Michigan was once a timber town on a narrow strip between two lakes. In 1917 the state bought a stand of white pines to create Michigan’s first state park, saving the forest and the town’s future. By 1928 conductor Joseph Maddy had brought the National Music Camp to Interlochen, and by 1962 the Interlochen Arts Academy opened as a boarding school for gifted artists. Interestingly, it...

Newberry, Michigan rose with the railroads and the timber economy, then learned how to survive the long shift that followed. In this episode, we trace how a small Luce County town became both an industrial workhorse and a starting point for North Country travel. From charcoal iron and logging payrolls to the steady presence of the state hospital and the early pull of Tahquamenon country, Newberry’...

Walled Lake, Michigan — just 25 miles from Detroit — was once one of the Midwest’s most electric summer destinations. In this episode of The End of the Road in Michigan, we step back to the early 20th century, when steam trains, Model Ts, and streetcars carried thousands to the first popular beach west of Detroit. What began as a quiet farming village transformed into a lakeside playground filled...

On a hill above the Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie, Fort Brady stood guard for more than a century. It never became a battlefield. It rarely made national headlines. Yet for decades, it shaped the lives of soldiers and the community around it. In this episode of The End of the Road in Michigan, we step into the years between wars — when Fort Brady functioned less like a combat outpost and more like...

The End of the Road in Michigan is a nostalgic journey to the far corners of the Great Lakes State—where highways thin, weather makes the rules, and history still feels close. Each episode tells a true Michigan story with the pace and detail of a classic historical documentary.  In Copper Harbor, Michigan, Lake Superior doesn’t just mark the edge of the map—it sets the terms. On November 30, 1926,...

In this episode of The End of the Road in Michigan, we tell the bizarre true story of the House of David — a celibate, vegetarian religious commune in Benton Harbor that ran one of the most successful amusement parks in the Midwest. With long beards, a world-famous baseball team, miniature trains, and half a million visitors a year, they built an empire on joy and faith. Then came scandal, a publi...

In the early 1900s, Romeo, Michigan, was a farm town with a surprisingly modern advantage: electric interurban rail service. It gave residents a way to reach jobs, shops, and neighboring communities on a timetable—years before most families owned reliable cars. This episode follows the interurban era as it shaped daily life in Romeo. We examine how scheduled public transportation affected downtown...

Long before Farmington became a suburb, it was a stopping point on one of Michigan’s most important roads. This episode traces Farmington’s story from the late 1800s through the early 20th century, when Grand River Avenue carried farmers, rail traffic, interurban cars, and travelers moving between Detroit and the interior of the state. Using historic descriptions and first-hand accounts, we look a...

Explore the captivating story of Fort Brady, Michigan, from 1900 to 1941. This video looks at the historic U.S. Army fort in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, where soldiers guarded the Soo Locks and endured brutal winters. You’ll see vintage photographs of troops clearing deep snow, playing baseball on the parade field, and marching to a military band. Fort Brady was built to protect American territory...

In 1763, the Great Lakes erupted in rebellion. The war between Britain and France had ended, but peace never reached the frontier. When British officers replaced French traders at forts like Detroit and Michilimackinac, Indigenous nations faced an empire that dismissed their alliances and restricted their trade. The result was a sweeping uprising led by an Odawa war chief named Pontiac — a conflic...

On September 8, 1860, the sidewheel steamer Lady Elgin collided with the schooner Augusta off Winnetka, Illinois, sending more than 300 passengers into the frigid waters of Lake Michigan. While the disaster became one of the deadliest shipwrecks in Great Lakes history, much of the blame focused on the Augusta. Branded reckless, cursed, and unlucky, the schooner soon earned a reputation as a pariah...

The Bear Man of Harrison, Michigan In the 1930s and 1940s, motorists driving through Harrison, Michigan, often stopped at a roadside attraction unlike any other: Spikehorn Meyers’ Bear Den. Here, an eccentric old woodsman dressed in buckskin invited families to feed, pet, and even shake hands with live black bears. For nearly three decades, John “Spikehorn” Meyer turned his rustic camp into a lege...

In this episode of End of the Road in Michigan, we journey to Beaver Island — the largest island in Lake Michigan and the only place in America that once had a king. From 1848 to 1856, James Jesse Strang ruled here as a self-proclaimed monarch, building roads, homes, and a newspaper before his dramatic assassination at the St. James docks. We explore the Irish fishing community that reclaimed the...