This cache is located on the former grade of the Grand Trunk Western Railroad, at the former station and village of Dennison. The cache is hidden on rural road right-of-way.
Dennison's first General Store, 1871. The building in the background is the home of Mark Golden, the store keeper.
The quaint little cross roads here was once the bustling little village of Dennison. The town was established in 1858 when the Detroit & Milwaukee Railroad laid track through Northern Ottawa County. The first resident was T.D. Dennison, who had settled in the area eight years earlier. Mr. Dennison used local timber to construct a small depot on the north side of State Road. It was at first called Polkten but, when the town inquired for a post office in 1866 its name was changed to Dennison. This was to avoid confusion with another nearby post office called Polkton. By the early 1870's the village had a population of 25 and was home to a general store, a sawmill, a grocery store, and a blacksmith.
The Dennison post office closed in 1917 due to rural free delivery, in this case from Coopersville. In the 1930's, a welding shop and gas station opened at the Dennison cross-roads. Over the years, Dennison has faded away, an old road sign in a field near the highway is all that reminds us of this one time village.
1897 Plat of Polkton Twp. showing the villge of Dennison.
The railroad company known as the Detroit and Milwaukee Railway was created in 1855 as a consolidation of the Oakland and Ottawa Railroad and the Detroit and Pontiac Railroad, and began to build a cross state line from its northern terminus, Pontiac. Fenton was reached in 1855 followed by Owosso and Durand in 1856, and Ionia in 1857. The line was finished in 1858, reaching Grand Rapids on August 26th and Grand Haven on November 22nd. A large, combination depot and hotel was built across the river from Grand Haven and ferries were used to access Grand Haven.
In 1878, the D&M went into receivership and was purchased by the Great Western Railroad, who reorganized it as the Detroit, Grand Haven and Milwaukee. In 1882, the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada gained control of the Great Western. On November 1st, 1928 the DGH&M was merged into the Grand Trunk Western, a subsidiary of the Canadian National Railway. In 1930, the GTW moved its cross-lake car ferry service from Grand Haven to Muskegon (at the PRRs request) and obtained trackage rights over the Pennsylvania (formerly Muskegon, Grand Rapids and Indiana) to Muskegon. A short connecting link was built (in 1929) between Penn Junction and Walker. The GTW then ceased operations to from Penn Junction to Grand Haven, although the line wasn't officially abandoned until 1977.
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