70 in 70 - Now up to #47: Bear River Valley Heritage Center

 Since 2010-ish, there has been quite a project at the Bear River Valley Heritage Center: train enthusiasts have been building model railroads with settings depicting Petoskey as it was in 1913, as well as a section of Bay View that faced the tracks with models of cottages that are still standing today just as they did then, and a model of what a lumbering operation might have looked like in the hills near Harbor Springs.

My high school buddy Connie Doherty had told us about the Center but I had not been able to find it in my runs through that neighborhood. However, one lucky day in July, Kendall and I were walking to a restaurant for lunch and our route took us right by the Center. We poked our heads in the door, curious about the model railroads that Connie had mentioned, and the train master (and President of the Historic Railroads of Northern Michigan), sucked us right in. So glad he did! The models are amazing and, bonus!, one of the volunteers working on the tracks while we were there was a Petoskey High School class of ’70 classmate!  

  

Model of the railroad as it went through Pennsylvania Park in downtown Petoskey. Many of the buildings that line the park are still there as is the Perry Hotel – the large furthest north light colored building (which, by the way, is where my mom's 90^th birthday party was held in 2010).  Today, a statue of Hemingway stands where  the tracks cross the road to the depot in the model. Hemingway would take the train up to Petoskey when he came north to stay at his family’s property at Walloon Lake.

The model of the cottages in Bay View that faced the tracks (and Bay). The depot in the model looks a lot like the depot that is the Little Traverse History Museum at the Petoskey Waterfront today.

The model depicting a lumbering operation in the hills above town.

All Aboard!