Waters, Michigan - Otsego Community Connection

Three-peat: The Story of
Waters, Michigan
Compiled by Phil Alexander
Artwork on front and back covers by Carlene Lagrou
Proceeds from this publication will go into the
Otsego County Historical Society’s Endowment Fund
© 2012 Otsego County Historical Society
7/8/2012
Waters,
1
Michigan

Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Early history and settlement
2. The town’s 3 names: Bradford, Wrights Lake, Waters
3. Lumbering and Railroad history
4. Henry Stephens – all three of them: Sr., Jr., and III (Tom)
5. Baseball team
6. The big barn and later Water’s Inn
7. The famous bottle fence
8. School (Otsego Lake Twp. District No. 2)
9. Did you know? 1 st US Patent for snow machine (predecessor of today’s snowmobile)
10. Remi and Edna Schotte
11. Township Hall
12. Fire Department
13. Post Office
14. Airport
15. Ski Village
16. Bradford Lake Association
17. Water’s Business Group
18. Weather Station
19. Thunder Over Waters
Conclusion
20. Timeline
21. Bibliography
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Three-peat: The Story of Waters, Michigan
Introduction
Three-peat explores the fascinating history of Waters, Michigan and reveals how the town evolved
through three boom and bust cycles. A drive through downtown Waters with its newly enhanced
streetscape doesn’t immediately reveal its colorful past. You might not notice the former ski hill,
airport, or site of the world famous bottle fence. The lumber mill is gone but remnants of the train
trestle can be seen on Big Bradford Lake. Deep in the water lie sunken logs that for a while in the
1950s were reclaimed and harvested for their unparallel size and beauty.
The sounds from the town’s coronet band and the crowds cheering at a Sunday afternoon baseball
game have long ago been silenced. The twice-a-day trains with their blasts of steam and earth
shaking tremors announcing their arrival have been reduced to an occasional train now pulling only
a few cars.
One way to tell the story about Waters is to first find out what has already been said and written
about the community. Authors Larry Wakefield and Roy Dodge featured Waters in their books
about ghost towns in Michigan. Gene Scott included Waters in his book “Michigan Shadow Towns:
A study of vanishing and vibrant villages.” Apparently he didn’t think Waters qualified as a ghost
town. Local historian, Bill Granlund, has done an admirable job of writing articles about Waters in
his newspaper column
and subsequent book “A
Step Back In Time”.
These sources of
background information
plus many others which
are listed in the
bibliography combined
with documents and
photos from the Otsego
County Historical Society,
Otsego County Library,
and Otsego Lake
Township were used to
launch this publication.
Many impromptu
conversations and follow
up interviews enriched the
collection of reference
materials. A treasure
trove of information was found in the archived issues of the Gaylord Herald Times which recently
were digitized and made available on-line with a searchable index.
Sometimes discrepancies of dates or other facts were discovered. Some were simply typos and have
been corrected. Others remain unresolved and are presented either in general terms such as the
early 1870s instead of a specific date or the questionable information has been clearly noted.
7/8/2012 3

Before we get to the history of Waters, let’s
first discuss the geography. The community
of Waters, Michigan is located in section 29
of Otsego Lake Township in Otsego
County.
Lat: 44.9° N
Elev: 1263 ft
Lon: 84.7° W
Its main street is Old 27 which runs north
and south. The road going east is Marlette
and the road going west is Passenheim.
Nearby towns include Frederic in Crawford
County 8 miles to the south, and Gaylord
17 miles to the north. Otsego Lake Village
is 3 miles north of Waters.
The town of Waters is surrounded by water:
Little and Big Lakes as well as nearby Lake
Marjory and Heart Lake. It is believed for
this reason that the community received its
name.
How the town got its name
General consensus is Waters was so named because it was surrounded by
water. It is located between the following four lakes in southern Otsego
County near the Crawford County line.
Little Bradford Lake is 21 acres in size with a maximum depth of 40 feet
Big Bradford Lake is 244 acres in size with 225 acres in Otsego County and
19 acres in Crawford County. At a maximum depth is 102 feet, Big Bradford Lake is
among the deepest lakes in Otsego County.
Lake Marjory is 40 acres in size with a maximum depth of 79 feet
Heart Lake is 65 acres in size with a maximum depth of 117 feet.
7/8/2012 4

Early history and settlement
Waters is similar to many other small towns in northern Michigan. Its sole purpose was to support a
lumber mill. The adage “Location, Location, Location” holds true. Waters was surrounded by a
huge tract of highly desired white pine and was located on a lake that would supply water power
necessary to run the steam engines that powered 19 th century lumber mills. In addition, the town was
in line for a soon to be completed railroad that would transport the lumber to southern Michigan for
further processing and distribution. Being a one company town was fine until the supply of trees
was depleted. Once the lumber mill ceased operation, most residents had to move on to find
employment elsewhere. Typical boom and bust cycle that created ghost towns throughout the
region.
However, Waters wasn’t destined to disappear from the map like many other former mill towns. It
had a lot more living to do – thanks in part to Henry Stephens and later the Schotte family. Then
there was the location factor again. This town was nestled between Big and Little Bradford Lakes
which provided the natural resource that attracted resorters and tourists. U.S. 27 and later I-75
would provide convenient transportation routes.
7/8/2012 5

The town’s 3 names
Bradford Lake, Wright’s Lake, Waters
Bradford Lake
In the 1870s, what is now the town of Waters was named Bradford Lake. Resident historian, Fred
White, revealed that “At Waters, there were a number of (lumbering) operations. The first was a
fellow named Bradford … that’s why it was named Bradford Lake.” Who this Mr. Bradford was is a
mystery. There weren’t any people with that last name found in the list of original homesteaders nor
included in the 1880 census. Fred White further noted “they didn’t have any luck … so Wright
bought out the Bradford holding.”
Wright’s Lake
In 1871, one of Michigan’s lumber barons, Ammi Wright of
Saginaw, expanded his enterprise by establishing the firm of
Wright, Wells, & Company with operations at Wright’s Lake
in Otsego County. This wholly owned subsidiary was in
partnership with Charles Wells, Charles Davis, and Reuben
Kimball.
In addition to the mill, the town of 75 people also had a
general store and hotel. It is likely that the name Wrights or
Wright’s Lake was only used by the company and for the
railroad station. This would explain why the Post Office
established in 1876 was designated Bradford Lake.
The company operated on a large scale cutting white pine
timber from adjacent tracts and sawing it into stock for the
general trade. For 11 years this business operated with great
success. The sawmill burned in 1881 with a loss of $14,000.
In 1883, the firm reorganized and was named Wright & Davis.
It moved on and sold its interest to Henry Stephens and Son.
Ammi W. Wright
Waters
When Henry Stephens bought out Wright & Davis’s operation at Bradford Lake, he “laid out a new
town – Waters – at a distance from the mill” according to the August 27, 1886 Saginaw Daily Currier
as noted in David McMacken’s book Built on Pines: The story of Ammi Willard Wright. This bit of
information appears to show the origin of the town as we know it today. Waters is an
unincorporated community – sometimes called a hamlet or town center. Unlike a village or city, it
isn’t a separate unit of government and doesn’t have official city limits.
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Stephen’s Lumber Company
Stacks and stacks of
sawn lumber air
drying and waiting to
be shipped by train
to downstate
markets
One of the two mills
produced 75,000
board feet of pine
and hemlock per day.
Horses are used to haul logs
from the forests to the train
which will transport them to the
sawmills in Waters. July 5, 2012
The man to the far left with
folded arms is James White.
Stephens Lumber Company
owned 27,000 acres of prime
forests in southern Otsego
County.
7/8/2012 7

Waters as remembered by James F. Allen
One of the best and most quoted descriptions of Waters at the turn of the 20 th Century was told by
James Allen. Here are excerpts from an undated written account as well as a taped interview
conducted by Bill Granlund.
Mr. Allen worked for Stephens Lumber Company in Waters from
1899 to 1915. He was 18 years old and his brother also worked at
the mill. His first job was repairing the trams at $1.75 per day and he
worked 11hours per day from 6:00 a.m. to 6 p.m. with an hour off at
noon for lunch. The following spring, he worked in the mill as a
sawyer and was paid $4.00 per day which at the time was “good
wages”. The work day was reduced to 10 hours.
There were about 100 houses in Waters in the early 1900s and
sidewalks were made of wood. Allen paid $3.75 a month to rent a
small house. Two years later, when his daughter was born, the
company added a bedroom and increased the rent by 50 cents. The
house had a hand pump for indoor plumbing. There was a wood shed attached to the house that
held 30 cords of wood for the cold winters.
People made their own entertainment by holding events such as dances and card parities at the town
hall. A medicine show would come to town in the summer. At Christmas, the company gave each
family a turkey. Large families received two turkeys. For sports, there were baseball games and a
tennis court. The baseball team would play on Sundays and then get together on the steps of the
general store during the week to talk about the game. We had good time fishing for trout in the Au
Sable River and Bradford and Red Head Lakes. There was good hunting for deer and rabbits, too.
Mr. Allen recalls there were two doctors – Dr. O’Neil from Frederic and Dr. Ensly from Grayling –
who provided good medical care to the people of Waters. He recalls a time when typhoid fever hit
the community and when his daughter had pneumonia.
Stephens Lumber Company had three mills at Waters: band, gang and planning. The band saw
sawed pine in the summer and the gang saw sawed hemlock in the winter. Hardwood had to be
sawn in the winter when the sap wasn’t running.
The logs were brought in from the lake, sawed, edged, re-sawed, trimmed to length and sent up the
tram to be loaded on railroad cars until the planning mill needed the lumber.
Mr. Allen sawed most of the lumber for Tom Stephens barn (which later was the Waters Inn). He
noted that Tom’s father, Henry Stephens, Jr. was a wonderful man who could come up from
Detroit, spend a week in the summer, and would get out with the men, sit on the steps of the
company office and talk to the men. Mr. Allen concludes by saying, “Working at Stephens Lumber
Company was about the best part of my life.”
The next five pages are photos with written comments by James F. Allen
7/8/2012 8

Waters as remembered by James F. Allen - continued
This is Stephens Lumber Company office in about 1905 where tallies of lumber from the band mill,
planning mill, gang mill and lumber yard were kept track of, orders for shipment and all the payrolls
were made up. Back of this office you can see the planning mill and straight across the street facing
west there was a general store selling most everything one needed.
The
Company
issued $5
and $10
checks
with
markings
from 5
cents to
25 cents.
The store
would
punch out
what ever
your
purchase
amounted
to.
7/8/2012 9

Waters as remembered by James F. Allen - continued
This is a picture of the band mill consisting of the band and re-saw that I sawed on for 12 years. In
the summer, we cut white pine. 55 to 60,000 feet of white pine every 10 hours. In the winter we cut
all kinds of hardwood in the winter. Lots of sand and dirt required changing saws about 13 times a
day. We cut 30,000 feet of frozen hardwood logs every 10 hours. This mill was located farthest
south of town.
This is another view of the band mill taken from the east end of the mill level with tramway.
Picture of the crew foreman, sawyer, filer, log jacker, engineer, fireman, trimmerman, edgerman, slab
cutters, lath mill men, and lumber runners. To the right, you can see load of lath made of white
pine. At left you can see rail cars and track where lumber is loaded on these cars and run or pushed
into the yard at various points and piled for air drying.
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