Looking Back: Pier work and suffrage in Charlevoix

CHARLEVOIX — After four weeks devoted to the 75th anniversary of the opening of Charlevoix’s current lower channel bridge, it’s time for a little catch-up from 150, 100 and 50 years ago.

On July 4, 1874, the Charlevoix Sentinel reported that the two south pier 40-foot construction cribs that had been laid on the Lake Michigan beach at the channel mouth two years prior had to be removed. Nothing had ever been done with them, for some odd and unexplained reason. A full-length north pier, built to the extent that it still enjoys today, had been completed in good time in 1872.

“THE MOUTH. — A vain effort was made this week, to secure voluntary labor enough to remove the cribs at the mouth of the river. It has been but partially done, and the channel yet remains in a very exposed condition. It strikes us that after the village people have expended over $500 this spring, in cash, the upper lake (Charlevoix) people should be willing to expend one day’s labor in securing what has been done, when it is their interests that are at stake in the matter.”

Apparently the decision had been made to replace the intended pier with wood slab revetments instead.

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“Take notice! — A bee has been appointed for Thursday next, to remove the cribs and put in slabs. This is a matter of vital importance, and if there is not a general turnout on the day mentioned, the people deserve to live on leeks and slippery-elm bark for the rest of their natural existence. Turn out, every man!”

The same edition also reported the beginnings of a foundation for the first church in Charlevoix, the former Methodist structure on State Street. But the congregation went ahead only as funds allowed, and the finishing touch, the stately steeple still there, was not completed until 1878.

Two weeks later, Sentinel editor Willard A. Smith wrote an article that today would get him run out of town. Judge Ramsdell of Traverse City had come north to lecture on Female Suffrage, of which voting right he was in favor, and with which the country was now grappling. Smith agreed with Ramsdell, sort of, whose “argument was the infallible moral sentiment of the female sex,” whatever that means. But after more convoluted reasoning based on the contradictory capabilities of the female mind, Smith modulated from major to minor key and concluded with “ ... (Ramsdell) is disposed to force women to accept the ballot when they do not even claim it; when the female advocates of the measure have by their deportment filled with disgust the hearts of the true and pure women of America. We always have believed, and must yet believe, that woman cannot depart from the sphere which she now occupies without detracting from her goodness. The unchaste (Victoria) Woodhull and the masculine (Elizabeth Cady) Stanton are in the van(guard), and honest women will not follow such leaders.” Surprising words coming from Smith, usually so supportive in his advocacy of liberal causes, staunch Republican that he was. Apparently the right to vote for women was still a step too far.

Fifty years later, the great 250-room The Inn hotel at the far end of East Dixon Avenue on Mercer Boulevard, owned by the Pere Marquette Railroad, had just gone through some major updates. Because it had been built for railroad travelers in 1898, the hotel had virtually no room for parking. A quarter of a century later, the PMRR had to purchase land to the west, near Meech Street and East Dixon, for a 30-car garage, later expanded to hold 50. That hardly alleviated The Inn’s chronic parking problem as automobiles became even more popular while railroad ridership decreased, but at least it helped a bit.

Also appeared a beautiful dock stretching out from Depot Beach below the hotel, at the tip of which was a wider covered pavilion in which dances with live orchestras and programs could be held. Small boats could tie up to the dock, hotel guests stroll on it, swimmers dive off it. Best of all, The Inn encouraged everyone in town, children included, to enjoy this new amenity for free. To even top all that, The Inn now also offered its clients a brand new polo field. Think of it. Charlevoix once enjoyed a polo field. Will wonders never cease?

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Looking Back: Pier work and suffrage in Charlevoix