2004 ROAD and STREET DIRECTORY Roscommon County Road Commission $25.00 Per Copy DIRECTORY INTRODUCTION AND INSTRUCTIONS The Roscommon County Road and Street Directory contains a Roscommon County map, township maps by Town and Range, and section maps showing platted subdivisions approved by the Board of Road Commissioners. To find a particular road or street in Roscommon County: 1. An alphabetical listing of road names can be found on pages 1- 45. There are six columns per page as follows. 2. ROAD NAME - Find the road by name, listed alphabetically, that you wish to locate. We will use Norway for instruction purposes. Upon looking you will find there are three Norway Roads and one Norway Lane. 3. TOWNSHIP - Note that Norway Road can be found in Ausable, Lyon and Richfield Townships. Norway Lane can be found in Denton Township. 4. LOCATION - This column gives you a general location, such as Prudenville, S. Higgins Lake or St. Helen. 5. PLAT OR SECTION - Suppose you know that the Norway Road you want is in the S. Higgins Lake area. This column can help you if you know the plat name or township section number. 6. STATUS - A privately owned street will be listed as “Pvt”. The Roscommon County Road Commission does not maintain these roads or have any type of jurisdiction over them. Roads with a status of “NC” are not maintained by the road commission and are not certified to the Michigan Department of Transportation, however they are available for public use and under the jurisdiction of the road commission by virtue of recorded plat dedications and provisions of the McNitt Act and Public Act 51 of 1951, as amended. Roads without a “Pvt” or “NC” designation are roads that have been accepted into the official County Road System and are Certified as such with the MI Department of Transportation. Unless the roads are included in our Seasonal Road System, they can be maintained year-around. 7. PAGE - This column lists the page number on which you can find a map showing the road’s exact location. BOARD OF ROSCOMMON COUNTY ROAD COMMISSIONERS Kimberly Akin, Member Fred Chidester, Member Tom McGinnis, Member Jim Porath, Member Clint Stauffer, Member 1 DEVELOPMENT AND PROGRESS OF ROSCOMMON COUNTY The Latin word “via”, meaning “way”, was one of the earliest words used to describe a path from one place to another. In England, hundreds of years ago, certain main roads were higher than the surrounding ground. This was caused by earth being excavated from side drainage ditches and thrown toward the center - thus the obvious name “highway” originated. The first settlers in North America found a wilderness. Homes were located along lakes, bays and rivers, and these waterways were the main means of transportation, however, as new settlers ventured inland they built crude roads to the nearest wharf. Routes in Michigan grew from Indian Trails to Super Highways as the modes of transportation advanced. Michigan was destined to become the leading state in good roads because of the manufacture of the automobile. The first road of concrete was laid in Wayne County, near Detroit, in 1909; and today, in 2004, Michigan is still one of the leading states in good highways. From the year 1850 to 1890, very few roads were constructed in northern Michigan because of the sparse population and the railroads had spurs connecting most of the mill-towns and log banking sites. In fact, the 1870 Michigan census shows “zero” population in Roscommon County. At that time, transportation by horse-drawn wagons was fairly easy because of the lack of second-growth trees through the large stands of virgin pine. Many abandoned railroad grades later became horse and buggy trails. Travel by early motorists was an adventure in itself. Directions were given by automobile clubs such as, “Go westerly on this trail until you come to the little white church, then take the North fork in the road”, etc. The idea of a free road map had not yet been conceived and was not developed until the year 1914, just one short year before the birth of the Roscommon County Road Commission. A Resolution was passed January 5, 1915, at the Roscommon Board of Supervisors meeting that a proposal for the establishment of a County Road System be placed on the ballot April 15, 1915. At this election, 580 votes were cast with 388 yeas and 192 nays. The first County Road Commission meeting of record was held June 16, 1915. Appointed commissioners were William B. Orcutt, Chairman and Henry Traubenkraut and Thomas Withe, Members. Their first duty was to ascertain which roads were suitable for adoption as County Roads. The choice of words and road locations proved the wise ability of these pioneers, for they are presently our most heavily traveled trunklines and primary roads. 2 1. The Houghton Lake-Roscommon Road later became US27 then M18. 2. Richfield Road later became M76, then #600 or F97. F97 runs from the South county line to the North county line. M76, now known as Old76, runs from St. Helen to the village of Roscommon. 3. Markey Road later became County Road #100. 4. West Branch State Road moved nearer Houghton Lake and became US27, then M55. 5. Top of Michigan Trail-Gladwin to Prudenville. Later became part of the Bay City-Grand Traverse Road, now M18, M55 and County Road #303. 6. The road North from Roscommon to Grayling was accepted because it was an established public wagon road. By establishing these routes as Trunkline Highways the Road Commission was allowed assistance in the form of “State Reward Money” at the rate of $500.00 per mile of a nine-foot road or “double reward” for Class “B” twelve-foot roads. The first plat to be approved in Roscommon County was in the year 1875. This plat consisted of 251 lots and was laid out along the railroad tracks and known as the Plat of the Village of Roscommon. In 1879, 379 lots were added for a total of 630 lots. Roscommon’s Robinson Plat and new additions in 1882 and 1890 were the only additional developments until after the turn of the century (a total of four plats containing 1,331 lots). From 1890 to 1909, 31 plats with 21,963 lots were recorded. This decade was one of large plats and small lots, primarily around Higgins Lake; however, the first development in St. Helen and the Houghton Lake area also came in this period. The plat of the “Village of St. Helen’ with 114 lots was approved June 26, 1902 and the plat of the “Village of Houghton Lake” was approved May 18, 1907 with 32 lots. From 1910 to 1919 platting slowed somewhat with only 780 lots in five plats being recorded. The era immediately following World War I saw the beginning of substantial development of the South Shore of Houghton Lake with an increase of 44 plats containing 5,453 lots. The crash of 1929 slowed progress almost to a standstill and only three plats were surveyed between 1930 and 1939, one in 1931 and two in 1939, for a total 275 lots. During this decade with Act No. 130 of the Public Acts of 1931, the Board of County Road Commissioners incorporated the township roads into a county system at a meeting held with township officials on December 3, 1931. The first roads taken over by the Road Commission gave the road system a total of 49.29 miles which increased to 170.24 miles in 1937. Prior to Act No. 130 (The McNitt Act) plats had been approved by county officials and the Plat Board along with the Auditor 3 General; therefore, the first plat to be reviewed and approved by the Board of County Road Commissioners was the plat of Markey Point on August 16, 1939. During the early 40's, a road was completed from Peterson’s Landing on the West Shore of Houghton Lake to Howe’s Point on the North Shore. This opened up a new area for platting and immediately following World War II, the boom seemed to be concentrated in this area; ending the ten year period of 91 plats and 5,144 lots. The slow down in the next decade may possibly have been due to Act No. 51 of Public Acts of 1951; however, this was not fully enforced until 1957. This law required matching funds from townships for all local roads constructed by the County Road Commission. From 1950 to 1959 there were 59 plats approved with 1,904 lots. At the end of 1959, the Roscommon County Road Commission had 129 miles of primary roads certified in its system and 587 miles of certified local roads. In addition to this mileage, a maintenance contract with the State Highway Department demanded maintenance of 109 miles of State Trunklines. The State Highway Department is now known as the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT). The years from 1960 to the end of 1969 has actually shown the greatest increase in plats, lots and road mileage in the history of the county, in that 162 plats with 6,148 lots were approved. The new county plat specifications, written in the early ‘60's, required much better construction on streets before acceptance. Also, the square foot area of a lot in today’s subdivisions is approximately five times larger than those of the early 1900's. The greatest development in the ‘60's was in the St. Helen area, Richfield Township. The high rate of development continued in 1970 with the approval of 20 plats with 1,979 lots.