Ferry, Michigan
FERRY ........A GHOST TOWN?
The village of Ferry rests quietly a mile and a half north of M-20, near
the North Branch of the White River. It was platted in 1868 as the village
of Reed. In 1871 both the town and the township were renamed Ferry to
honor Thomas W. Ferry, a U.S. Senator.
Over the years the area grew from the first settler, Elnathan Reed and his
family, to a town that supported three hotels, three stores, a drug store,
grist mill, meat market, hardware, and barber shop according to the
“Olde Tyme Plat and History of Oceana County.”
During the hey-day of Ferry, when the population topped 300 people, big
trees were being hauled out to build the locks at Sault Ste. Marie. This
was part of the federal land grant that financed the locks.
IN THE EARLY 1970's, when state road M-20 was finished (passing a mile
south of the village), so too, was Ferry. The last store and gas station
closed, the post office packed up, and the village seemed to fall into a
Rip Van Winkle doze. But as in many so-called “ghost towns” - and
Ferry is listed as an official ghost town - a still surface hides a lively
community. In the heart of the village, the fire barn and town hall stand
across the street from the community school, as they have since the turn
of the century.
Men who gather for fire meetings remember the rivalries between the
one-room schoolhouses that were consolidated into the Ferry Community
School in the 1950's. Not many years ago, those rivalries would still
flare up at school board meetings. School buses brought Ferry’s students
in from three townships every morning and collected the high school
students for Shelby and Hart. In 2007, Shelby school board decided to
close Ferry Elementary School.
|
