Looking Back
In the June 12, 1869 issue of the Charlevoix Sentinel, Charlevoix County had just been reorganized and the settlement of Charlevoix (in the text that follows surprisingly named that instead of the expected and usual Pine River, a full ten years before Charlevoix became the official name) had been selected as the county seat.
A quote from a professor Winchell, affiliation unspecified, accompanied the reporting of this event 150 years this week.
“The village of Charlevoix, which by virtue of authority vested in them by the act providing for the organization of the county, has recently been designated as the county seat by unanimous vote of the board of superiors, occupies as fine a site as any village in Northern Michigan. Had the grounds upon which the village is being built been mapped out and made to order, they could not have been better adapted to the purpose for which they are being used. One mile back from Lake Michigan, and separated from it by a tract of high, level farming land, lies Pine Lake (Lake Charlevoix), one of the finest sheets of water anywhere to be found.”
Of this Winchell says: “From the foot of Pine Lake a scene of surpassing loveliness presents itself. We emerge from a screen of forest trees and find ourselves standing on an elevated bluff overlooking as lovely a sheet of water as the sun ever shone upon. You feel almost a transport of delight in emerging so suddenly from the depths of habitual forest into a prospect so vast, so gentle in its features, so delicate in its tints, and so glowing in the bright sunshine of a fair October morning.’”
Winchell continues, “...rounded hill-tops bubble up in rapid succession across the retiring landscape till hill and vale and sky and green and purple and blue dissolve together in the blended hues of the distant horizon.”
Then he focuses on the settlement: “The village improved rapidly during the past season, and the prospect for the future is encouraging. We now have a good steam saw-mill, a printing office, several stores, public houses (hotels), blacksmith shop, shoe shop, etc. During the season of navigation, steamers touch at the (900-foot Lake Michigan) dock daily, thus affording first class facilities for travel and for receiving supplies and shipping the products of the country. The two arms of Pine Lake stretching so far back into the country afford excellent facilities for getting farm products, wood, lumber, etc., to market. Hence, as a point of supplying propellers (steam-powered boats) with fuel, and shipping wood to Chicago, Charlevoix can have no superior.”
Slowly but surely, it became better known as more and more people began to experience it and realize what it had to offer. Pine River/Charlevoix was now beginning to emerge and assert itself. At this point it was only six weeks away from the single event that would blow the doors wide open and set it on its pathway to worldwide recognition.
