Lakeshore High School - Driftwood Yearbook (Stevensville, MI)

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 The Lakeshore Driftwood for 1976 is a blend which includes a past, a today, and a future. Bits of our past may be discovered in stories and pictures here in this book. Most of the book deals with this year, but a future may also be glimpsed in these pages. This future relies on the graduates of Lake- shore High School. Two hundred years ago the school district was covered by marshes and huge pine forests, inhabited only by Indians and a few fur traders. The villages and roads were nearly a hundred years away. But after America won her Independ- ence, people began moving west and by 1836 our district began to attract settlers. Lincoln Township was one of the first townships to be settled. In 1836, Major Timothy Smith platted several lots at the mouth of the Grand Marais (Grand Mere) and called the new town Liverpool. His dream was to improve the existing water power and to use the power to cut lumber from large pine forests that lined the lake shore. Major Smith's town of Liverpool never materialized and even though the town was later renamed Blooming Grove, the second attempt also failed. In 1867, T.W. Dunham started a large mill in the Grand Marais and erected a pier on Lake Michigan to load schooners. In the same area an ice house was operated and large quantities of cranberries were harvested and shipped from the marshes. As the first settlers were moving into Lincoln Township, they found it necessary to plank the roads with wooden boards and all of them agreed that Lincoln Avenue would be impossible to build. Until 1863, the soil in Lincoln and surrounding townships was regarded as unfit for orchards. However, the wastelands of the town- ships were transformed into productive orchards and fields. TABLE OF CONTENTS ATHLETICS 19 ORGANIZATIONS 59 ADVERTISING 81 FACULTY 97 ACTIVITIES 113 UNDERCLASSMEN 133 SENIORS 161 CLOSING 185

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During the year 1879, Lincoln Township con- tained 455 school age children of which 302 at- tended school. The value of the schoolhouses was $5000, and the total ex- penditures for the year of 1879 climbed to $2,185.98. Three small towns sprang up in Lincoln Town- ship: Glen Lord, Vineland, and Derby. Glen Lord was a station on the Pere Mar- quette Railroad and was named after the man who donated the land and right of way. The first Post Of- fice began operating in 1879 at Glen Lord and continued until 1905. Vineland was a station on the Michigan Central Rail- road and the Post Office was opened in 1891. Derby was also a station on the Michigan Central Railroad and the Post Office was opened in 1890. Two towns in the area grew and became prosper- ous. Stevensville and Bar- oda are the largest towns in our district and were both settled around the turn of the century. Stevensville was platted by Thomas Stevens, a prominent banker from Niles, who also lent his name to the town. He platted out one square mile which was quickly occupied by 117 settlers. The first Post Office began delivering mail in 1872 and Stevensville was incor- porated as a village in 1894. Baroda was platted by M.B. Houser who origi- nally named it Houser. The United States Post Office rejected this name so he renamed his town Baroda, after a city in India. The first Post Office was estab- lished at Baroda in 1890 and the village was in- corporated in 1907. For many years Baroda served as a station on the Vandalia Railroad Line, nicknamed the Pumpkin Vine. Today we know that our district is in the middle of a large fruit growing region and Lincoln Avenue was not impossible to build. Instead of cutting down the trees of Grand Mere. 393 acres were purchased in 1974, to be preserved as an Ecological Study Area. The present is clearly built on the past, but the future is built both on the past and on the graduates of Lakeshore High School. 4