Depot & Trains
The depot overlooks Lake Charlevoix at the far end of East Dixon Avenue. The first train puffed into Charlevoix in 1892, nineteen years after Petoskey, only 15.5 miles away, received its railroad. The reason that Charlevoix lagged for so long was that the port was so close to the Lake Michigan maritime lanes a railroad was long thought to be unnecessary. But finally the train arrived at an almost finished station, shown here, on June 26. It was one of the major events of Charlevoix’s history. The Charlevoix Historical Society owns the depot.
The railroad responsible for opening Charlevoix to the world was the Chicago & West Michigan Railway. The C. & W. M. was absorbed by the Pere Marquette Railroad in 1899. The Pere Marquette began a summertime “Resort Special” out of Chicago and Detroit in June of 1904. In 1911, it was reported that the Resort Special that arrived one day was so long—thirteen passenger cars plus baggage cars, coal car, and caboose—the engine had to pull up well past the depot so the front half could unload, then chugged ahead to pull the rear half up to the lengthy platform.
The railroad bridge watched over the entry to Lake Charlevoix for just over nine decades. The final passenger train left town on September 1, 1962, while the freight business lasted almost two decades longer until the last train departed on February 18, 1982. With all rail traffic now halted, much heated debate followed over whether the bridge could or even should be saved. It was decided that economic factors prevented renovation and maintenance. The bridge was removed in autumn of 1983, and the last of the tracks were torn out in 1990.
Two workers turn the railroad bridge with two “keys,” unlike their counterparts at the lower channel bridge who used only one. The Inn hotel’s swimming pool building, the “natatorium,” appears in the right distance.
In late May of 1891, the Charlevoix Resort Association (Belvedere Club) lobbied to have the station built near them because the tracks passed over their property. By June 10 the matter was settled. “The North Side Gets the Plum” declared the Sentinel. The association was appeased because it was promised it would be getting its own small station. This shows the stairs and platform that were used temporarily between the end of June and late summer, 1892 before the building was completed.
Without the Belvedere station, association members would have been inconvenienced by the nearly two-mile trip around Round Lake. Association husbands and fathers could board in Chicago in late afternoon and get off at the Belvedere around seven in the morning to enjoy a weekend, reboard late Sunday, and arrive back in time for work on Monday. The Belvedere station remained in service until 1931 when it burned. The origin of the fire was thought to be sparks from a passing train, but was never satisfactorily determined. The structure was not rebuilt.