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18-599: M-212 was assigned on December 29, 1937, from the intersection with Second Street to an intersection with US Highway 23 (US 23). In 1940, the state of Michigan rerouted US 23 and replaced it with M-33. M-212 begins at an intersection with Second Street and the Tromble Trail north of the Aloha State Park entrance gate. The community was originally a stop on the Detroit and Mackinac Railway , named after

36-600: A stone passenger depot was constructed in Harrisville . The main constituent of the freight service offered by the D&;M and its predecessor railroads was timber from what was then the vast forests of northeastern Michigan; the D&M built spurs and branch lines to the forested areas. The Rogers City Branch served the limestone quarries of Rogers City . In 1922, the railroad also had branch lines to Au Gres, Comins, Curran, Hillman, Lincoln, Prescott, and Rose City. In

54-529: A trip to Hawaii by the local sawmill owner. The state highway runs northward on Second Street away from the park gate before turning eastward on Center Street. The railroad right-of-way is now the North Eastern State Trail , which M-212 crosses along Center Street in Aloha. Eastward, the highway intersects Third and Fourth streets, both of which are separated by woodlands and residences. This

72-606: Is followed by a large clearing, giving way to a farm to the north and more residences to the south. Beyond this there is a large field where M-212 terminates at an intersection with M-33 in Aloha Township. According to the Lansing State Journal , "most people could walk the darn thing in about 20 minutes." The Michigan State Highway Department assigned the M-212 designation to its current alignment from what

90-674: The Lake Huron port of Alpena . The line was converted to 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 1,435 mm ) standard gauge in 1886 and was reorganized into the Detroit and Mackinac (D&M) on December 17, 1894. During the late 1890s and the first decade of the Twentieth Century, the timber resources of northeastern Michigan were fully utilized and the D&M expanded its trackage northward from Alpena to Cheboygan. The Bay City-Cheboygan main line prospered, and

108-399: The 1930s. Continuing coaches were carried over Michigan Central Railroad tracks from Detroit to Bay City. Separate motor coach trains operating daily except Sunday carried passengers from Alpena to the northern extent of D&M territory, Cheboygan . By the 1940s, meal services had disappeared. By 1949, service was reduced to a morning trip from Bay City to Alpena and a reverse trip in

126-491: The 1940s, D&M had enough revenue to be a Class I railroad and it was one of the first such to eliminate steam locomotives in 1948. In March 1976, the Detroit & Mackinac acquired a combination of trackage and operating trackage rights from the remains of the bankrupt Penn Central that created an alternate main line from Bay City northward, through Gaylord and Cheboygan, to Mackinaw City . However, adverse economic conditions continued to affect railroad operations in

144-607: The A&;N established a stop west of Posen at "Hoffman's" to serve Rogers City, and a stagecoach service linked the two locations. Rogers City had to wait until 1911 for a direct railroad connection. The Detroit and Mackinac Railway , successor to the Alpena and Northern Railroad and the Detroit, Bay City and Alpena Railroad, constructed a 13.6-mile (21.9 km) from the former A&N main line near Posen to Rogers City. The line opened on June 18, 1911. A major source of traffic for

162-860: The Central Michigan Railroad, incorporated in 1888, proposed to build a line from Rogers City, Michigan , on the northern coast of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan , due south to the Indiana state line. This ambitious 330-mile (530 km) project was never built. In 1893, the Alpena and Northern Railroad opened a line between Alpena, Michigan , where it connected with the Detroit, Bay City and Alpena Railroad , and LaRocque (now Hawks), in Presque Isle County . The line passed 9 miles (14 km) south of Rogers City;

180-890: The Detroit and Mackinac system. A collection of D&M artifacts, including a 1920s switching engine, are housed at the depot in Lincoln, Michigan . The stone depot in Standish, Michigan is also a museum, with rolling stock. The railroad's GE 44-ton locomotive , #10, has been preserved by the Southern Michigan Railroad Society . 0-6-0 Locomotive #8 (Baldwin Locomotive Works #41228) is preserved and awaiting restoration in storage at The Henry Ford (Greenfield Village) in Dearborn, Michigan . Rogers City Branch The Rogers City Branch

198-524: The branch was the limestone quarry east of Rogers City in Calcite, once the world's largest. The Lake State Railway acquired the Detroit and Mackinac Railway on February 17, 1992. At the time, service on the Rogers City Branch had declined to a single weekly trip, and three customers remained between Rogers City and Alpena. The Lake State Railway abandoned the branch, and the remainder of

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216-447: The evening. Sleeping cars were eliminated. And service from Alpena to Cheboygan was discontinued as well. Passenger service was entirely eliminated by 1951. Named train passenger service in the mid-1930s consisted of: The Lake State Railway continued as of 2012 to use traditional handheld technology (picks, shovels, hammers) to replace railroad ties and make other roadbed repairs on surviving trackage that had previously been part of

234-599: The first all diesel haul railroad in the United States. At the end of 1925 it incorporated 375 miles of road and 470 miles of track; that year the Turtle Line reported 81 million ton-miles of revenue freight and seven million passenger-miles . In 1967 it reported 124 million ton-miles on 224 miles of road. The Detroit, Bay City & Alpena Railroad , was a 3 ft 2 in ( 965 mm ) narrow gauge short line operated from Bay City northward to

252-566: The glamor of other highways in a profile of the shortest highways in the state in 1972. In 1996, the highway became the state's shortest when M-209 in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was transferred to local control and lost its state highway designation. Since M-212 gained this superlative, in 2018 a radio station in Kalamazoo called it "likely" the state's quietest highway, or the highway with

270-661: The lowest annual average daily traffic . The entire highway is in Aloha Township , Cheboygan County . Detroit and Mackinac Railway The Detroit and Mackinac Railway ( reporting marks D&M , DM ), informally known as the "Turtle Line", was a railroad in the northeastern part of the Lower Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan . The railroad had its main offices and shops in Tawas City with its main line running from Bay City north to Cheboygan , and operated from 1894 to 1992. In 1946, it became

288-501: The northeastern United States. The road was sold to the Lake State Railway in 1992, and ended its existence as an independent railroad. The Detroit & Mackinac called itself the "Turtle Line" and its logo symbol was "Mackinac Mac". The railroad bore the hostile backronym of "Defeated & Maltreated". The D&M mainline from Bay City to Alpena offered sleeping car and meal services between Detroit and Alpena in

306-434: Was a railway line in Presque Isle County, Michigan . It ran north from a junction with the Detroit and Mackinac Railway main line near Posen, Michigan , to Rogers City, Michigan , on the shore of Lake Huron . The Detroit and Mackinac opened the line in 1911, and it was abandoned by the Lake State Railway in 2000. A major customer on the branch was the limestone quarry in Calcite, east of Rogers City. The organizers of

324-404: Was then US 23 on December 29, 1937. It has broadly remained the same since. Originally, US 23 ran along the highway at the eastern terminus of M-212, but the highway department realigned this along the shore of Lake Huron in 1940 and later assigned M-33 to the old alignment, which remains the case. M-212 was called a "smidgin" of a highway as part of a group of roadways that lacked

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