When the term "ghost town" is
brought up, one doesn't usually think of modern subdivisions and
upper-middle class suburbs. The classic "ghost town" is
usually applied to a town that was abandoned when a major industry
dries up, leaving crumbling shells of buildings, maybe some
artifacts, and nothing but memories. You know the drill, overgrown storefronts, smashed windows, tumbleweeds, maybe a hobo or two.
Briefly, there was an interurban rail
system all around Western Michigan in the late 19th and
early 20th century. I won't go into details, as the whole
system is well-documented elsewhere, but the electric train systems
allowed for the transportation of people all around the major
metropolitan areas in West Michigan...Grand Rapids was a major hub,
and they had lines going to Grandville, Jenison, and Hudsonville
along Chicago Drive; south to Kalamazoo; and as it pertains to this
story, to Holland and Saugatuck. The branch between Grand Rapids and Saugatuck sorta roughly followed the modern Ford Freeway/I-196 route, and then Chicago Drive/BL196/8th St. in Zeeland and Holland proper. Because these have all developed
into fairly major metro areas over the past century, there isn't a
lot of room for ghost towns. Yes, areas have been enveloped by other
cities (the City of Wyoming springs to mind), but there's not a lot
of evidence for truly abandoned ghost towns.
Enter Shackhuddle. In an effort to
find topics for this blog, I did a Google search for ghost towns in
Michigan, thinking I might find something south of the area, maybe
between Allegan and Kalamazoo. Imagine my surprise when I saw the
website listing "Ottawa County – Georgetown Township."
Doing a little more digging, there's actually an active Geocache on
the site! Naturally, I had to use the geocache information to go on
a little adventure to find the site.
Shackhuddle was a train stop along the
interurban. In its heyday, there was a school, a cemetery, and some
sort of either inn/tavern or general store. I was unable to
ascertain exactly what was there, but it was undoubtedly an area that
people lived in. My grandfather apparently talked to his kids about
going to Shackhuddle when he was a youngster in the 1930's. We know
that the interurban was built in the 1890's and dismantled in the
1920's, and that the stretch of I-196 between Grandville and Holland
was built in 1974. So, that leaves just shy of 50 years between when
the Interurban was dismantled and when Shackhuddle was abandoned.
Two items remain in Shackhuddle in
2019: The schoolhouse has been converted to a private residence, and
some small remnants of the cemetery. I-196 is important because,
from what I've seen on old maps, the highway rolled right over most of the village. The pictures I took on site seem to indicate this. Per Ottawa County records, a large number of the deceased from Shackhuddle Cemetery were reinterred in the Georgetown Township Cemetery on 28th Ave. near Rosewood. I was unable to
locate the remaining graves on my Geocaching journey, but pictures
exist online, so there must be something there.
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| An old illustration, showing horse teams creating the grade at Shackhuddle |
 |
| This was a graded feature on the site of Shackhuddle in 2019. I cannot confirm whether or not this is the same grade pictured above. |
For further reading on Shackhuddle and
the Interurban system, check out these blogs:
The first deals with the cemetery, and
the second highlights the routes of the West Michigan interurban
systems. I've linked to a few pictures from the second blog in text above.
Works Cited:
Shackhuddle - Ghost Town,
https://www.ghosttowns.com/states/mi/Shackhuddle.html.
Geocaching. “Get the Free Official
Geocaching App and Join the World's Largest Treasure Hunt.”
Geocaching,
https://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.aspx?guid=6e9b990c-c455-4eec-8c69-0f1fac15163a.
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