Autos Across Mackinac: Pere Marquette Becomes City of Petoskey
Part 28: BUILDING THE CAUSEWAY BEGINS
Les Bagley

The City of Petoskey could most easily be distinguished from the similar looking City of Munising by her single side-loading ramp. The earlier-modified Munising had two, left over from the days when all the ferries loaded that way. By the time the Petoskey joined the fleet, end-loading ramps had been constructed. The Petoskey was also the first ship in the fleet to have sewerage treatment tanks onboard. The others just pumped raw wastes overboard. (Tourist's 1941 snapshot, author's collection)

This year Michigan celebrates the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Mackinac Bridge. But for 34 years before that, the State of Michigan ran the nation's first highway ferry. As part of the celebration, the St. Ignace News is serializing Les Bagley's unpublished manuscript on the history of the ferries. In 1940, the state purchased the Pere Marquette 17 to replace two smaller ferries sold back to the federal government in the buildup for WWII. But after running the ship for hunting season, they sent her off to a Detroit area shipyard for more work. As the 1941 season got underway, few suspected the changes coming with war clouds on the horizon.

The Pere Marquette 17 was rechristened City of Petoskey on the Petoskey waterfront May 25, 1941. Since she had to tie up at the breakwall, the ceremony actually took place at the city bandstand. Afterwards, she sailed across Little Traverse Bay for a reception at Harbor Springs, where people were invited to come aboard for ship tours. This heavily retouched postcard was made from a photograph taken that day. An enlargement of the original is on display at the Northern Michigan Hospital in Petoskey. (Author's collection)

On April 12, 1941, Michigan State Ferries added the City of Cheboygan to join the Chief Wawatam on the cross-Straits auto ferry run. Ice in Moran Bay went out Easter Sunday morning, allowing the ferry to make a trial run Wednesday and pick up the run and start the Highway Department's early spring schedule on Thursday, two days earlier than in 1940. A ferry left each side every 90 minutes between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., with the last trip held an hour from the normal 9 p.m. departure time on the Mackinaw City side.

After the reception guests were invited to cruise back to the Straits. Highway Department personnel drove guests' cars to Mackinaw City so they would have a way home. The only snag was that too many people took advantage of the invitation, and planners had to quickly "uninvited" some guests. The local Boy Scout color guard had to give up the ride, but later got a private trip aboard when the Petoskey sailed to the River Rouge shipyard. (Author's collection)

While service got underway at the Straits, modifications to the Pere Marquette 17, at anchor in a shipyard slip, came to a temporary halt in River Rouge. A watchman discovered a fire, of undetermined origin, in the hold of the ferry where an oil drum and lumber had been stored. Two fire engines, one each from River Rouge and Ecorse, responded to the call and brought the blaze under control, after it smoldered for more than an hour. Despite the fire, officials still hoped the ship could make its first run of 1941, scheduled for May 15. Captain George Loughlin traveled to Detroit to inspect the damage and reported the ship "looked fine." He said the damage, amounting to "several thousand dollars," would soon be repaired.

Seventeen-year-old Shirley Lou Walker was chosen as "Sweetheart of Michigan State Ferries" and photographed by a photographer from the Saturday Evening Post, before representing the ferries at the "Great Lakes Sailors' Sweetheart" competition. She would later marry a state ferry engineer. Shirley Walker Bentgen still lives in St. Ignace today. (Photograph courtesy of Shirley Bentgen)

Ecorse Fire Chief Albert Jaeger blamed the blaze on sabotage, because the fire erupted when the vessel was unoccupied. John S. Bugas, head of the FBI's Detroit office, later discounted that theory. He said a preliminary investigation showed no indication of foul play and that the fire probably was started by spontaneous combustion. Bugas said the ship would 'be a poor target for saboteurs, inasmuch, as it has no connection with national defense. He also said his office had not been officially asked to investigate.

The hot topic, however, was the vessel's new name. By May 1, despite all the suggestions and proposals in local papers, the State Administrative Board decided to designate the ferry as the "City of Petoskey."

In May, to make landings safer for the all the boats, the Highway Department solicited bids from contractors to dredge the area around the St. Ignace piers. The work was expected to cost in the range of $15,000. Bids were opened almost immediately, on May 7, with the work to begin quickly thereafter.

Traffic on the ferries was already building at a rate of 29% greater than in 1940. More than 6,700 vehicles had been carried in the first four months of 1941 than had been moved in the same period the year before. Each month had shown an increase of more than 1,000 cars, with 3,500 more in April, alone. Greater business activity and an increase in domestic tourist travel were expected to set new records for ferry travel through 1941.

The tourist season almost got off to a bad start. Owing to a mix-up which had clerks in the new Civil Service Commission checking and counter-checking wage records, checks for ferry dock workers at the Straits were delayed, some by as much as three weeks. The dockmen at Mackinaw City announced they planned to strike Monday night, May 19, if they hadn't been paid. Dozens of men, particularly those newly hired for the 1941 season, were affected. To avert the strike, the Highway Department flew a plane in from Lansing, bearing a man authorized to write checks on the department's First National Bank of St. Ignace account. Those checks were written and given to the men, the strike was averted, and once the Civil Service Commission checks came through, they were redeposited at First National. Ferry traffic continued, without interruption.

With so much growth, the Highway Department was eager to get the newly named City of Petoskey in service as soon as possible. The ferry missed the May 15 target, but was sailed north from River Rouge, arriving at the Straits on the weekend of May 24. She rested in St. Ignace all day Saturday for preview by St. Ignace citizens. But before she could go into service, there was the small matter of a christening ceremony. That was held on Sunday, May 25, in the ship's namesake city, Petoskey, on Little Traverse Bay.

On Saturday night, the ship made the trip down the Lake Michigan shore, arriving at the Petoskey breakwater about dawn.

City Mayor Arthur Hinkley was in charge of the program, which featured speeches by Governor Murray Van Wagoner and Highway Commissioner Donald Kennedy. Hundreds of people crowded around the bandstand on the Petoskey waterfront, appropriately decorated with flags and bunting. A colorful group of Boy Scouts, Sea Scouts, city officials, and leaders of Petoskey Indian tribes graced the grandstand and watched as Governor Van Wagoner's daughter Joan, christened the ship with the traditional bottle of champagne.

Apparently, a witness later recalled, either she was weak or the ship was rocking, but after almost half a dozen tries, the ship's bow and the bottle had still not connected. Finally, Commissioner G. Donald Kennedy took Miss Van Wagoner's hand, and with his help, the bottle was broken to christen the new City of Petoskey into the fleet. Mayor Hinkley presented the ship with a Petoskey city pennant, which was run up the mast, and everyone left for Harbor Springs, across the bay. The ship went by water, and the crowd went by land.

There, the ship welcomed aboard a huge crowd of dignitaries for the five-hour cruise back to the Straits. But the departure was not without incident, and, once again, Highway Department public affairs flak Larry Rubin was involved. Rubin had made up the guest list for the return trip, and more than 150 VIPs and dignitaries had been invited. At the last minute, the invitation had been also extended to anyone in the audience who wanted to go along. No one paid any attention to the number of people onboard, except for the Coast Guardsman with the counter at the gangplank, who realized the people onboard had by now exceeded the ferry's licensed capacity.

"You have too many people onboard." He told Rubin. "You can't hoist anchor and sail until at least so many people have been told to leave." Rubin later couldn't remember the exact amount, but he suddenly found himself faced with the perplexing problem of disinviting a number of people, many of whom were his bosses, or guests of his bosses, from riding back to Mackinaw City.

While he pondered this dilemma, another problem arose. Seaman Milo L'Amiotte suffered some kind back to the Straits. Coming up the lake, the galley crew kept busy serving hot dogs and coffee to the passengers, who bided their time tramping across the decks, singing to an orchestra in the lounge, and relaxing in the passenger cabins, which were modernisticly decorated with chrome framed furniture upholstered in varied colors.

The passengers didn't know it, but they would be using a new innovation in the ferry fleet. Below decks for the first time, sewage was alternately pumped into a pair of 3,000-gallon treatment tanks. As one tank filled, the other was closed and hot steam was injected for an hour, then the sanitized sludge was pumped overboard. Raw sewage would no longer be dumped directly into the water.

The ferry landed at Mackinaw City first, for the convenience of Petoskey area guests. The highway department provided drivers for those guest's cars, which were driven overland to meet their owners when they arrived. She then sailed on to St. Ignace, and entered the ferry rotation the next day.

The Petoskey's arrival came none too soon. Memorial Day weekend, which started on May 29, slammed the ferries to an extent no one imagined. Traffic increased a year's figures. For the five months ending May 31, the annual increase was an impressive 33%.

The return trips on Sunday, June 1, were less hectic. To help with the anticipated lines, the Chief Wawatam made four trips, and the backup was kept at a manageable level all day.

Unlicensed ferry crews felt their wages had fallen below a manageable level, however. As the holiday rush wound down, Noel Vallier placed petitions aboard each boat, seeking signatures of crewmembers wanting a raise in pay. According to Vallier, the Highway Department had, in the past, paid the same wages to unlicensed ferry workers as other lake carriers paid their crews. The shippers had raised wages April 1, but the Highway Department hadn't followed suit. The discrepancy was again blamed on the new Civil Service Commission.

Captain Loughlin, trying to avoid having his ferries tied up, went to Lansing to discuss the matter, and the commission agreed to match the other wages. Vallier asked that the raise be retroactive to April 1, and the men threatened to form some sort of a "local union" in their efforts to increase their wages. The dispute did not affect licensed of attack and collapsed, requiring hospitalization. Aid was called, and he was rushed to the Petoskey Hospital, where he was diagnosed with high blood pressure. After treatment, he recovered nicely and soon returned to the Straits, although not aboard the Petoskey.

The Boy Scout Troop invited as the official color guard didn't return aboard the Petoskey, either. Rubin abruptly recalled that the troop size was just about the same as the excess he'd been quoted by the Coast Guard. He asked them to go ashore.

"It was a bum decision," he later recalled, "but under the circumstances, any other decision I made would have been even worse."

Rubin later made amends by inviting the troop to travel on an exclusive overnight sailing of the City of Petoskey the next time she left the Straits for servicing at the River Rouge shipyard.

Meanwhile, minus one sailor and a troop of Boy Scouts, the Petoskey carried her invited guests whopping 184%, with 22,000 more people carried in four days than ever before. Between May 29 and June 1, the ferries moved nearly 7,000 more cars than they had the previous year. The real rush began Friday morning at 2 a.m. when people trying to "beat the rush" showed up at the Mackinaw City dock. Capt. Loughlin sent the schedule running wild then and there, but still the wait extended at times up to three or four hours, and up to 500 cars spilled beyond the large holding area out onto the highway.

Every hotel, rooming house, and accommodation was booked to overflowing throughout the area. Restaurants ran out of food and turned diners away. Because no one had anticipated the crowds, a number of resorts had yet to open for the season. Those that were open compared Memorial Day 1941 with larger seasonal holidays like the 4th of July the year before.

Boosted by the huge end-ofmonth crowds, May's ferry traffic increased substantially over the previous officers, such as captains, mates, and engineers, and while the talks continued, the ferries kept running.

At least they tried. On June 9, at about 6:30 p.m., the City of Cheboygan took on a load of 30 cars and nearly 100 passengers. As Captain James Gallagher maneuvered his ship into the turn toward Mackinaw City, the stern failed to clear the dock soon enough for a short swing, and the ferry went somewhat further northwest into Moran Bay than her normal course. Despite the dredging carried on earlier, her bow ran aground while making her turn.

There she sat for about 45 minutes, until Captain Ben Houle brought the City of Munising over and put a line aboard. One good tug and the Cheboygan came free, none the worse for wear. She then continued her trip across the Straits.

The next day, the U. S. Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation's inspectors Gellick and Kelke conducted an inquiry aboard the ship as she sailed back and forth from about noon to 3 p.m. In front of Captain Loughlin, they interviewed crewmembers and officers and conducted a thorough inspection of the hull, finding no apparent damage. They also used one of the Cheboygan's lifeboats to conduct soundings of the area, and discovered the bay had filled perceptibly with edgings and other moveable bottom matter. More dredging was ordered, to be undertaken as soon as possible, and equipment from W. J. Meagher & Sons Construction was brought in to begin the work by early July.

Not everything was such serious business that June. A committee of the local Lions club selected a 17- year-old high school student as "Sweetheart of the Michigan State Ferries." Shirley Lou Walker, a 5- foot, 4-inch, 110-pound blonde, and her chaperone, won a trip to compete for the title "Great Lakes Sailors' Sweetheart" at the Gladstone Roleo and Forest Festival held July 4 at that community's yacht basin. She was professionally outfitted for the contest, and photographed by Saturday Evening Post photographer Ivan Dmitri, along with girls from a number of other Great Lakes communities, including Cleveland, Chicago, Escanaba, and Milwaukee. Other lensmen represented Life and Colliers at the event.

As Shirley headed off to the competition, L. C. Sauers, Michigan's director of personnel, arrived at the Straits with more payroll checks flown in from the Civil Service Commission in Lansing. The trip was a last minute move to avert a strike by unlicensed personnel, who still hadn't gotten the Lake Carrier's wages they'd requested. At the Highway Department's request, the commission finally agreed, with Civil Service Director Thomas J. Wilson even conceding the commission might make the raise retroactive as suggested, but was awaiting the Highway Department's instructions in that regard. About 30 of the fleet's 260 employees were affected. Salaries under the newly approved schedule went to $96 a month for porters, $100 for ordinary seamen, $110 for cabin watch B, and $115 for dockman B. Stewards, able seamen, and wheelsmen would get $120 a month, while dockmaster A employees received $125 and foremen and oilers got $130 a month, the same as sailors elsewhere on the lakes.

The commission was pretty much forced to make the concessions. Commissioner Kennedy predicted traffic over the four-day Independence Day holiday might reach 20,000 cars. Figures were already ahead 28% for the year. Kennedy said all four state boats, and both rail ferries would be available for service, and that the Highway Department was scouring the lakes for another ferry to help ease the congestion. But with so little time, he doubted another ferry could be found.

To ease waits, the department placed drinking water canisters on the docks and arranged for extra highway department employees to help state police with traffic control. Kennedy's 20,000 estimate was off by less than 1,200 cars. By the time the fireworks ended, Michigan State Ferries had transported 18,810 vehicles, a 28% increase for the holiday period. July 4th set the new one-day mark, at 5,946 cars in a single day.

Even with everything open for the summer, there were no accommodations to be had. People slept in hotel lobbies or in cars in parking lots and on the docks. Both Mackinaw City and St. Ignace were jammed. While businesses liked the traffic, residents demanded something more be done.

Since the Petoskey had replaced the Mackinaw City and Sainte Ignace, the ferries had lost about six cars total capacity per cycle. But now they had one more end-loading boat in operation, instead of two side loaders, which used time-consuming elevators to place cars on their upper decks. The savings in time and expenses were enormous. The department continued a search for another boat, but with the defense buildup for the war in Europe, the railroads suddenly found they also had no excess capacity. The suitable used boat market had dried up almost overnight.

The shift from the end-loading dock, where the three largest boats landed, to the side-loading dock, where The Straits of Mackinac still loaded in St. Ignace, was inconvenient for motorists. The state took immediate steps to dump more gravel fill between the two piers, to create a driveway, and more parking for drivers waiting to board.

The department also stepped up efforts to start construction of the causeway/dock south of St. Ignace to shorten the ferry run, announcing that while it couldn't be done in time for Labor Day, the sooner the project was started, the sooner ferry capacity would be much more greatly expanded. The state hoped to start causeway construction as early as the end of July.

But some people began to wax nostalgic at the thought of losing the ferry ride that had been part of a trip to Upper Michigan for nearly two decades. After observing how smoothly the ferries handled the Independence Day crush, Al Weber, in the Cheboygan Observer wrote that the ferry operation, loading, riding, and unloading "was interesting to most people, and whether we ever get a bridge or not, the greatest bridge in the world will never be as interesting to the average tourist and resort traveler as that trip across the Straits by boat, and its attendant incidents leading up to it and away from it. The major part of those summer visitors are not as familiar with great bodies of water and boats and their operation as Michigan people are, and this crossing of the Straits is one of the highlights of a trip into the northland. To learn how safely and how orderly and good that trip is made is also an added contribution to a summer's outing."

The St. Ignace Republican-News re-ran part of the editorial under the headline, "Them's our Sentiments [Too.]"

A familiar face returned to the ferry fleet in August. Fletcher C. Davis, who had been chief clerk in the administrative office from 1934 to 1939, replaced A. E. DeLoriea as Assistant Superintendent. In the interim, Davis had been a clerk for the Highway Department in Alpena. He and his wife moved back to St. Ignace to accept the promotion.

He arrived just in time to tally up the biggest month in ferry history. July 1941 showed a 20% increase over July 1940, and traffic for the first seven months of the year was up over 25.7%. On August 2, the ferries carried nearly 4,500 cars, a record for a non-holiday weekend. With the increase in tourism, resort and cabin operators rushed new accommodations to completion and hurriedly modernized older facilities.

The state, meanwhile, rushed to take bids for causeway construction. Governor Van Wagoner, Commissioner Kennedy and most Highway Department division heads met with the Straits Bridge Authority at St. Ignace in early August, and mapped out final specifications for the bidding. The first of two requests for bids was to be published August 20. Part one of the project would involve construction of the 44-foot-wide, 12-foot-high causeway, extending 4,000 feet out into the Straits between Graham Shoals and Green Island. Officials believed the causeway construction would cost in the range of $1.7 million. The second phase of construction, to be bid later, would be for construction of the actual ferry slips at the end of the causeway. That part of the project was projected as being still two years away. The conferees also discussed the possibility of building a bypass to route northbound traffic from the causeway around St. Ignace. That project was referred to engineers for further study.

The bypass proposal immediately raised red flags for St. Ignace business people. The Mackinac County Board of Supervisors met immediately and over the next two days discussed city plans to annex part of Moran Township, where the causeway would be built, into the city. Moran Township protested the plan and the supervisors tabled the matter until later in the year, when more information might be available.

As St. Ignace merchants contemplated what a bypass might do to their community, the community band, dressed smartly in their new uniforms, performed an exchange concert series with the band from Cedarville, which came to St. Ignace to appear at the Nicolet Hotel. Chester Wing looked into providing "feeder" airline service to Mackinac Island from existing airline routes, and the output of American aircraft factories in the first six months of 1941 eclipsed the entire 1940 output by over 1,000 planes.

The City of Munising's master, Ben Houle, got eclipsed as well. An avid cribbage player, Houle was leading a Friday night tournament by 10 points and going home when his opponent, Munising seaman Willard L'Amiotte, laid down a perfect hand and counted out on him. There was no word on what happened on their next watch together, but cribbage was apparently becoming an important pastime for many ferry workers.

The St. Ignace City Council had not tabled the causeway/by-pass dilemma. To protect their merchants' "vital economic interests," the council adopted a daring plan to purchase both the ferry docks in town and the site of the causeway from the State Highway Department. Councilmen admitted State Street had become too crowded, and that the bypass would relieve the congestion to the detriment of downtown businesses. To thwart the bypass, the council offered to widen State Street and pay to build the causeway and new docks from city funds. That money would be derived from revenue bonds sold on both old and new ferry docks and causeway, which would then be leased back to the Highway Department. The councilmen hoped the lease revenues would repay the initial investment for purchase and construction.

City businessmen enthusiastically endorsed the proposal, and in a Republican-News editorial entitled, "At the Crossroads," the editor also backed the plan, saying, "It is a good plan and a progressive means of solving our problem and securing our position as the northern terminal of all Straits traffic." Mayor Glashaw appointed a "traffic committee" of five local businessmen to confer with the state on the proposal, and state officials agreed to consider the matter. The officials also continued with their plans to open causeway construction bids August 20.

In the Cheboygan Observer, Al Weber wrote, "While this [bridge and causeway] development is taking place, it will throw into St. Ignace millions of dollars for supplies and labor, all of which will make our neighboring city a very busy center for at least a five year period. But after that work is all done, the causeway completed, and the bridge built and in use, what will happen to St. Ignace? Will it have grown out to meet the proposed new terminus or will it cling to its old environs and attempt to bring this new artery of travel into town instead of having them pass the town? ... The question persists: Will the proposed Straits bridge contribute to northern Michigan magnetism as does the ferries? ... To most summer visitors that hour on the boat is one of the shortest hours of their whole trip. It is a new, thrilling and lovely experience."

For some Michigan ferry riders, that experience ended that summer. The Blue Water Bridge at Port Huron had been completed for several years, and with bus service for pedestrians finally in place, Michigan discontinued the passenger ferry service it had provided. The ferries the Highway Department operated there were no longer needed, and in mid-August, two boats, the City of Sarnia and the former Straits ferry Ariel were sold at auction. The ships were both sold to the Refining Metal Company of Detroit, which intended to scrap them for their available metal. The Ariel was sold by Michigan for a final time, for a bid of $70,000.

The bids for causeway construction came in below the state's estimates, at $616,000 for the rockwork and another $700,000 estimated for building the docks later. Johnson and Greene of Whitmore Lake beat out Alpine Excavating Company of St. Ignace, which bid in conjunction with the Meagher firm, already dredging near the ferry docks. The winning bid was $100,000 lower than the next lowest, and the Highway Department moved to award contracts and get the work started as quickly as possible, in the hope the causeway could be completed before the end of the 1942 tourist season. Right-of-way buyers had already begun contacting property owners at the site, and the department made plans to buy up to a square mile of land, giving the agency virtually all developmental control of the soon-to-be gateway to the Upper Peninsula.

There was one problem. More than 81,000 tons of giant 10-ton stones would be needed to face the sides of the causeway, in addition to 8,200 tons of 5-ton stones, and 144,000 tons more of rock in various sizes for fill and other uses. None of the regional quarries was cutting stone in the larger sizes the project needed, and some rock might have to be imported from Indiana. But most people felt that if someone ordered it, at least one of the quarries would probably try to provide the material.

Rock or not, the Army Corps of Engineers abruptly delayed the start of causeway construction, announcing public hearings would be held in late September. Nearly two dozen potentially "interested parties" and the public were invited to express views on the location and the suitability of the state's plans, as they might affect navigation. The Highway Department waited to start construction, but property acquisition continued anyway.

In late August, the St. Ignace traffic committee met with Highway Commissioner Kennedy and his department heads in Cadillac to outline the city's $2.4 million harbor and causeway purchase deal. The department didn't turn down the proposal, but it didn't accept it, either. Kennedy assured the committee he would consider their plan, and further said his department was not presently contemplating a bypass highway.

Ultimately, the Highway Department rejected St. Ignace's offer to buy the ferry docks and build the causeway. Deputy Commissioner L. B. Reid told the city council his preliminary investigations showed that plans for a revenue bond issue just weren't feasible.

"I really believe the 250 miles between historic St. Ignace and Lansing are responsible for the discussion which has developed over this causeway project," Reid said. "No one in the department has any intention of making a bypass - at least not until a large increase in traffic warrants such a move."

Reid repeated that Commissioner Kennedy suggested the city annex the entire area around the causeway from Moran Township, and the council voted unanimously to invite township officials to their next meeting. "If a bypass is built someday," Reid added, "such a bypass would go through the city, and you posses the authority to deal with that permission which is necessary if such a road is built through the city." The council agreed to submit a petition to the Board of Supervisors at their meeting October 13.

That, however, did nothing to alleviate ferry traffic. August showed the same growth trends as previous months. For the first eight months of 1941, volume was up 26.3%. The Labor Day holiday showed an increase of 23%, although arrivals were more spread out and traffic came nowhere near the one-day record set on the Fourth of July. Both the Sainte Marie (II) and the Chief Wawatam helped with the crowds, but backups were small and the longest waits were about one hour and ten minutes.

Congressman Fred Bradley returned home from Washington with happy news. Three years after he initially submitted a bill for a Coast Guard icebreaker to be stationed at the Straits, the guard had reversed its initial rejection and approved the plan to build a heavyduty ship to keep the ferries running all year and extend the northern lakes navigation season. With the long-sought approval in hand, Bradley said, "I feel this important legislation now has a very considerable chance of passage, which should be of considerable benefit to our entire district."

Within a week, the National Defense Board summoned the Chief Wawatam's Captain Paddy Brown to Washington to discuss icebreaker designs. Whether his input was for Bradley's proposed boat or another project wasn't revealed, but he talked about the railway ferries, how they were built, and how they operated in the Great Lakes, and particularly in the Straits of Mackinac in winter.

With Labor Day over, the State Ferries reverted to a fall sailing schedule. With three ferries running, boats left Mackinaw City at 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., then hourly until 9 p.m., with the last sailing northbound at 11 p.m. From St. Ignace, boats left at 12:30 a.m., 3:30 a.m., and 5:30 a.m., and then every hour through 9:30 p.m. That plan was to remain in effect until the entire fleet ran wild for hunting season, November 10 through November 30.

No sooner had the fall schedule been implemented than it was interrupted on the City of Petoskey's 3 a.m. sailing the next Monday morning. A Cheboygan man had been fishing in a skiff on the Cheboygan River Sunday afternoon when his outboard motor failed. As he rowed frantically, his boat drifted into Lake Huron, where it was caught in a windstorm and blown from shore. Overnight he'd lost both pairs of emergency oars and was desperate for help. Early the next day, the big ferry was called to look for him, but spent seven fruitless hours crisscrossing Lake Huron near Spectacle Reef. The ferry finally gave up and returned to service at 10 a.m. Fortunately, the missing man was spotted about the same time and rescued by a Coast Guard amphibian plane.

The Cheboygan Observer continued to rail against causeway and bridge construction, despite assurances that no bypass around St. Ignace was being planned.

"Any kind of detour around or away from a city or community, especially those that must depend on the summer visitors to keep healthy and alive, tends to wreck that city or community," Al Weber wrote. "Northern Michigan does not want to see St. Ignace or Mackinaw City wrecked."

His writings and those of others brought a crowd of about 50 people to the Mackinac County Courthouse for the Department of Engineers hearing at 1:30 p.m. on October 24. After reviewing plans for the bridge, the highway department engineers turned the floor over to speakers who questioned property acquisition procedures. Letters were read charging that the railroad ferries carried a billion pounds of payload annually, and by comparison, the auto ferries carried very little. The author charged the amount needed to build the causeway would more than pay to dredge the entire Graham Shoals out of existence, thereby shortening both the railway and auto ferry routes.

Others complained that the proposed landfall would cause the removal of up to 20 buildings, while moving the site 2,000 feet west would give the causeway a perfect north-south alignment and cause the loss of only one building. An attorney asked how the proposed site was chosen, but was told the hearing was solely concerned with navigation problems. Another speaker asked if the causeway/bridge/ferry dock would divert traffic from St. Ignace and was told that the war department was not concerned with that.

There were no objections from marine interests at the hearing, so the war department gave the go-ahead for causeway construction.

Getting the land to build the causeway was another matter. A number of property owners objected to the highway department's offers for property acquisition, so Commissioner Kennedy scheduled another public hearing on property easements to be held the next day in front of a circuit court judge. In total, the state had offered $71,882, for the property adjacent to the causeway site, but property owners felt the offer was not generous enough and tried to hold up construction until the Highway Department made them a more acceptable offer.

At that hearing, the department outlined the entire causeway plan, including construction of a new administration building for the ferries, a pair of large parking areas, a tourist park, and maintenance buildings. The development would take about a square mile of waterfront, with a direct connection to St. Ignace by extending Marley Street through a cut, across Rt. 2, and into town. All in all, the Highway Department proposed to make a large, park-like entrance for travelers arriving in the Upper Peninsula.

The department also hoped to avoid the mistake made in Mackinaw City, where, already, additional parking for ferry traffic was being planned outside of town, at the intersection of Routes 23 and 27. There was, apparently, no place closer available, owing to commercial development all around the Mackinaw City ferry dock, which had taken on an almost carnival-like atmosphere.

The judge agreed that causeway construction could still begin, even though not all of the adjacent property had been acquired. He said the state should pursue condemnation procedures, which would probably take between 60 and 90 days to begin. By following the procedures, fair valuation could be put on the properties in question, without delaying the start of construction.

With that obstacle out of the way, causeway construction began October 10 with brush clearing on the Densmore property. A crew of about a dozen men began the work, with more to be hired within a week or so, until a full compliment of 25 to 30 workers was employed. Two graders and tractors also were brought in to ease the initial workload.

Meanwhile, there was no letup in sight for the ferry workload. In the first nine months of 1941, the fleet had smashed all previous traffic records, and already more than 300,000 cars had been carried that year, more than all of 1940, with three more months to go before the record books closed. September, alone, showed a gain of more than 4,300 cars.

Next week: Michigan State Ferries go to war.

Copyright 2007 by Les Bagley. All rights reserved.

Editor's Note: A newly published photograph collection of the Michigan State ferries by author and historian Les Bagley will be the subject of a free program at the St. Ignace Public Library Wednesday, July 25, at 6:30 p.m. "Michigan State Ferries," a collection of vintage photographs, has been published by Arcadia Publishing in its "Images of America" series. More than 225 photographs will be presented about the history of the ferry fleet, including rare images of what became of the ships after they were no longer needed at the Straits of Mackinac. Mr. Bagley will sign copies of his photograph book at the library, and copies will be available for sale.

The pictorial history volume does not include Mr. Bagley's historical articles about the ferry service. Installments of this manuscript will continue to be printed in The St. Ignace News weekly through 2007.