Henry Ford Killed a Michigan Highway So a Fishing Club With 50 Members Would Finally Let Him In

There is a road in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that leaves an iron town, runs twenty-five miles into the forest, and stops. Not at a town. Not at a lake. In the trees, on a grade cut for a state highway, with concrete culverts two lanes wide, and nothing in front of it but the Huron Mountains. For twelve years Michigan printed that road on its own official map with one word across the missing section. Impassable. The state had bought a steel bridge in Pennsylvania, taken it apart, shipped it six hundred miles and rebuilt it to carry this road across a river. And the man who stopped it was the man who had put the country on wheels. IF YOU ARE GOING UP THERE As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Michigan Atlas and Gazetteer (DeLorme) - County Road 510, Blind 35 and the Triple A Road are all on it, and none of them are on your phone: https://amzn.to/4rborMa WHERE IT IS The Steel Bridge over the Dead River: from Marquette take US 41 west, turn right on Midway Drive, follow it 0.6 miles, turn right on County Road 510. After 2 miles there is a small parking area on the right at the new bridge. The old bridge is visible below it and open on foot. Blind 35: continue north-west on County Road 510 for about 23 miles. Where 510 turns east toward Big Bay, just past the Triple A Road junction, the old highway grade continues straight ahead. That is Blind 35. Passenger car in dry weather for the first stretch, high clearance after that. It ends at private land. The Huron Mountain Club is private property with a patrolled boundary. Do not go past the end of the road. Negaunee is pronounced nuh-GAW-nee. Baraga is BAIR-uh-guh. L'Anse is LAHNSS. Keweenaw is KEE-wuh-naw. A NOTE ON THE IMAGES The research and the script are mine, from primary records and archives, and the sources are listed below. Where no photograph of a place survives, and for this channel that is often, the images are period material from elsewhere rather than the place itself. SOURCES Michigan Highways, Christopher J. Bessert, "M-35: The Highway Henry Ford Stopped" C. Fred Rydholm, Superior Heartland: A Backwoods History, vol. 1, 1989, pp. 508 to 515 Archer Mayor, Huron Mountain Club: The First Hundred Years, 1988, pp. 88 to 89 Charles K. Hyde, Historic Highway Bridges of Michigan, 1993, pp. 70 to 72 Michigan Department of Transportation, Michigan's Historic Bridges: County Road 510, Dead River Official Michigan Highway Maps, 1932, April 15 1939 and July 15 1939 editions The Mining Journal, Marquette: May 16 2003, June 7 2010, October 4 2010 IF YOU WERE THERE If your family worked the grading crews on this road in 1926 or 1927, if you have driven Blind 35 to the end, if you crossed the Steel Bridge before it closed in 2010, or if you have ever been inside the club, I would like to hear it. Comment or write to [email protected]. Old Alignment. Abandoned American roads, railroads and infrastructure. New video every other day. #upperpeninsula #henryford #abandonedroad