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Waters

The community known today as Waters, Michigan was established in the 1870s when a lumbering operation was built at Bradford Lake in Otsego County.  For a period of time, the post office which began in 1876 was named Bradford Lake and the railroad station was Wright's Lake.  The lumbering firm Wright, Wells and Company bought out the failed enterprise begun by a man whose last name was Bradford. 

The town Bradford Lake was renamed Waters in 1885.  It was about this same time that Wright, Wells and Company sold its lumber mill in Waters to Stephens Lumber Company located in Roscommon County.  Three generations of the Stephens family expanded the lumbering business as well as  the town of Waters.  By 1899, Waters consisted of about 100 homes, a depot for the Michigan Central Railroad, post office, church, school, a general store, company office, boarding house, two saw mills, a planing mill, and logging operations in the near vicinity connected by 18 miles of railroad track with two locomotives......     Read More

 


"Waters, Michigan
The Town With the Bottle Fence"
by
Phil Alexander
$15
Proceeds will benefit the
OCHS Endowment Fund

 Photos of Waters, Michigan

Self-Guided Walking Tour MAP

 

Otsego County Centennial Book
Pages  13  14


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Otsego County
Historical Society

320 W. Main St.
Gaylord, Michigan

Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 1223
Gaylord, MI  49734

(989) 732-4568
OCHSmuseum@gmail.com

 

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