A PEEK AT THE PAST
by Leonard DeFrain

I received the following letter from Bruce Shipley, whose father lived in Harbor Beach and worked for the Huron Milling Co. Bruce was raised here and graduated from the Harbor Beach High School. What interested me most was the fact he mentioned there was a dock at the end of Jenks Road, lakeside south of Harbor Beach. A picture he got off the internet clearly shows the dock. The Shipley's owned a house on the lake, just south of Harbor Beach. His letter reads:

Dear Pic,

Since you are the resident historian of Harbor Beach, I read your column every month in The Lakeshore Guardian. I ran across something on the Internet I thought was interesting and am sending it along to you.

Besides history, one of the things I have always enjoyed as a hobby has been geography and maps. I ran across this site http://terraserver.microsoft.com/ that can view anything from a satellite to any point in the country/world. What I thought was interesting is the sight of the old dock (submerged) at the end of Jenks Road. I had heard and read that they took the lumber from the saw mill by horse drawn rail to the dock at the end of Jenks Road. Sure enough the photo shows the outline, very straight, of the old dock.

I can always remember going up and down Rock Falls Creek; the Kramer's must have been the most tolerant people in the world to let all us "city" kids roam up and down this creek at will, and exploring every bit of this creek. As a kid it was the most "magical place" of my childhood as we kids spent most spring and fall Saturdays going up and down the creek from US25. The big thing was the falls in the spring when the water poured over the rock falls and into the lake. It was quite a sight.

Going back to lumbering, I also remember a big mound on each side of the creek about a half a mile or more west of #25 that I now realize was probably the dam for the mill pond. The area to the west of the mound, the former mill pond, was very large with no trees of any size that went up past the railroad trestle. Taking my kids along the railroad track about 40 years ago, I was amazed at the amount and the growth of trees that were then in this area and had come up since the early 1940s. It's probably completely wooded by now.

My best to you and keep making "History".

Sincerely, Bruce

Bruce may not know this, but my brothers used to go to that area which was often called "Indian Burial Grounds". As far as I know, no remains were found there, but they said that they quite often found arrowheads and Indian artifacts.

There were many docks along Lake Huron in the Thumb area. The little town of Forestville at one time had three of them. Most of these docks disappeared during the 1913 storm.

I have pictures of many of these docks. I also have a schedule of D&C boats that stopped at many docks along the Thumb. The boats carried passengers, freight and also animals.