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commented on how wide the river was, Pop spoke up and said it was the widest river in the country. At that time in my life I still believed the things he said. A few months later, in 4th grade, during a geography lesson, the question was asked of the class, what is the widest river in the United States? Putting my hand up, I responded: the Maumee River, much to the amuse- ment of many in the class and to the extreme dismay of the teacher, who didn’t find it as amusing. I never found out whether the old man actually believed what he had said or not, but my embarrassment was such that I was skeptical of anything he told me.
The trip is much easier and faster today on the Interstate Highway system. U.S. 23 and I-75 go straight north from Toledo to the Straits of Mackinac on a route parallel to U.S. 127/U.S. 27 but further east. Instead of the small towns in central Michigan with their mom- and-pop motor hotels, small town restaurants, and local attractions, the road north now goes past Ann Arbor, Flint, Saginaw, West Branch with its smiley-face water tower and outlet mall, and straight from Gaylord to Mackinaw City, bypassing Cheboygan. The large ferry boats are gone. Instead, small diesel-powered ferry boats generate rooster-tails as they take tourists back and forth to and from Mackinac Island, sans cars. The once huge parking lots have been replaced by tourist attractions. M-134 is paved. The grocery store and hardware store have moved from Hossack Street on waterfront up to the highway. The icehouse, which was on the dock behind the Hossack Store, from which we hauled 50 lbs cubes of ice with huge tongs for the ice box, is long gone.
Around 1980, after new laws were passed that prohibited the building of new, permanent docks on the shorelines, a prescient entrepreneur converted the former Hossack property into a manufacturing site for “flotation” (floating) docks. As the business grew, the manufacturing was moved to a larger plant elsewhere and the old Hossack store became a sales and service venue for boats and recreational vehicles. The site of the Cedar Inn across the street was acquired for boat storage sheds and parking. The Texaco site just down the street was developed into a marina. The only remaining of the Hossack family that once controlled the much of waterfront 100 years ago is the
street name.
The Bon-Air went out of business. Its building remained there, empty, boarded up, and deteriorating for many years. No one was quite sure how to rehabili- tate this waterfront location. Finally, around 2018, a local businessman bought the property, tore the building down, and turned the site into a small park with an historical marker declaring it the site of the legendary, beloved Bon Air.
To be continued. •
Volume 73 • Number 3 Washtenaw County Medical Society BULLETIN 19