Just Ghosts Remain in This Michigan Ghost Town

Now here’s a ghost town where there’s nothing BUT ghosts. No houses. No storefronts, no barns...no nothin’.....just ghosts of what once was. Caffey in Mackinac County was a lumber settlement along the St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie Railroad.

In 1888, the Hall & Buell Company engaged a gang of men to begin work on a new logging railroad eight miles west of Trout Lake. It reached from the Minneapolis Road into a good-sized section of pine trees in Schoolcraft County.

In the 1890s, the settlement was named Lewis; the problem was, there was already a “Lewis” in Michigan, so the community was re-named ‘Caffey’ after the towns’ first postmaster, William Caffey, a Civil War veteran. The post office opened in 1899, closed in 1909, re-opened in 1913 and finally closed for good in 1916.

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From then on, all bets were off. The settlement just stopped cold and the few buildings were torn down, leaving no trace that there was once hope of a growing community.

Caffey Corner is about a mile south where Trout Lake Road meets the old Hiawatha Trail and has a dwelling or two. Further down is the Caffey cemetery, that indeed proves there was a good number of people who once lived there.

But not anymore.