Charlevoix Train Depot
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The Railroad Bridge, The Trains, and The Natatorium

Charlevoix Train Depot, also, The Railroad Bridge, The Trains, and The Natatorium. . , Built 1892, donated to the Charlevoix Historical Society 1992. It is a designated Charlevoix Local Historic District. , ca. 1900. The Charlevoix Train Depot was designed by Charles Pelton and Company of Grand Rapids, MI for the Chicago and West Michigan Railway Construction began in late May of 1892, but it was not quite finished by the time the first train arrived on June 26. At the right of the depot, this view shows the saleway up to The lnn around 1900. , ca. 1900-1910. The area in which you are standing was, when the train depot opened in 1892, nothing more that a dirt lot. Here assembled the town’s horse-drawn taxi wagons plus luggage and freight carts for transport to the downtown hotels, homes and businesses. One lone pine tree circled by stones was left to provide shade. The image clearly shows the depot’s original, and different, tonalities of paint. , ca. 1900-1910. The luxurious Inn was built above the depot by the Chicago and West Michigan Railway in 1898. With 250 rooms it was the second largest hotel Michigan after the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. It lasted over four decades until the Great Depression and a lack of parking spaces caused it to come down in 1941. , ca. 1950. Pere Marquette Railroad absorbed C. and W. M. RR in 1899. In May of 1929 control of the Pere Marquette RR passed to Cheapeake and Ohio Railway. The two companies merged in 1947 to become the C. and O. Over time Michigan-produced Saginaw paving bricks, considered to be the finest of their kind at the time, were installed on the platforms and walkways. , 1992. The train depot was painted white in the 1930s and remained that way until 2018 when the Charlevoix Historical Society restored it to its original 1892 paint scheme. This is how it looked in 1992 when it was donated to the Charlevoix Historical Society before restoration. , ca. 2007. In the first few years of the 21st century, the Charlevoix Area Garden Club transformed a nondescript lawn into a formal garden using historic design principles and historic cuttings from area plants to create Depot Heritage Gardens. The crossbeams of the pergola were designed to emulate the curves above the depot’s portico support columns. , (side two) , View North from Railroad Bridge, ca. 1900. This was the view north from the railroad bridge, located in the middle of the upper channel leading to Lake Charlevoix. The Depot’s turret is barely visible directly down the tracks, on the left side of the girder opening. Passenger travel ceased in 1962; the last freight train crossed here in February of 1982. The bridge was removed in 1983 and the last of the tracks taken out in 1990. , The Inn hotel’s “Natatorium” or Swimming Pool, ca. 1900. At the same time The lan hotel was being built on the terrace above the Depot, an indoor heated swimming pool, called a “Natatorium,” was constructed across the tracks on Lake Charlevoix not only for hotel guests but for anyone else for nominal fee. The humidity-battered pool had to come down in 1926. , Train Heading North Past Belvedere Club, ca. 1905. A train approaches the bridge from the south, here raised on a trestle that extended away from the Belvedere Club resort. The porch arches of the Belvedere Hotel appear at far right. When the railroad bridge was removed in 1983, these trestle pilings were cut off, but their rounded stumps can still be seen a few inches underwater when the lake level falls. , Train heading South from the Deport, mid 1890s. A southbound train crossed the new railroad bridge several hundred feet south of the depot, here showing 1892 construction debris yet to be cleared from the site. The elevated track bed at left still exists.