Are These Ghost Towns or Not? Urban & Elmer: Sanilac County, Michigan
There are a couple of curious places in Sanilac County's Moore Township. The “communities” of Urban and Elmer.
Urban shows up on old atlases but doesn't seem to be anything but a former postal station. According to the atlases, Urban popped up in the 1880s as “Urban P.O.”. No businesses, no homes, no railroad depot...just a post office. However, there was a one-room schoolhouse just north of the post office and a church a little further up.
Other than that, Urban had nothing else. By the 1920s, it appeared to be non-existent, according to the old atlases. Nowadays there's one residence sitting in that lonesome intersection in the countryside. You can find “Urban” at the intersection of Urban & Ubly roads.
Four miles south of Urban is Elmer, at the junction of M-46 and Ubly Road. Elmer sits on the border of Moore & Elmer Townships. It was settled in 1866 when Walter Hyslop came and laid down his roots. A post office was set up, “Elmer P.O.”, and began operating in 1876.
Elmer got off to a good start, with a little rippling of a possible growing community. But without a railroad coming through, it didn't prosper. The post office closed in 1906. Today, there are a few homes in Elmer, the old mixed with the recent, but you can count them on two hands.
These are two curious little roadtrip drive-throughs, and there is an old one-room school between Urban and Elmer, on the east side of Ubly Road.
If anyone has more info on one or both of these, let me know!
URBAN AND ELMER
MORE MICHIGAN GHOST TOWNS:
Michigan Ghost Towns of Henderson & Ralph
Michigan Ghost Town of Redridge
Inside the Buildings of the Ghost Town of Watson
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