Early bridges in the Upper Chain of Lakes
The wooden Dufore Bridge near the bend in Nelson Road on the east side of Six Mile Lake. For several years it served as a footbridge and carried crops and small loads of logs from one side of the lake to the other. Current navigation charts show depths of eight to 12 feet near the middle of Six Mile Lake at the bridge’s approximate location. Water levels were likely lower at the turn of the 20th century.
Old black-and-white photographs of early bridges in the Upper Chain of Lakes capture our interest today, just as they once captured the attention of Antrim’s early photographers. Thanks to them, we have accurate images of these bridges before they disappeared or were replaced by today’s concrete and steel structures. One of the wooden bridges in the Upper Chain was Dufore Bridge, which crossed a narrow section of Six Mile Lake.
Dufore Bridge was likely built in the 1890s or early 1900s as the logging era was ending and northern Michigan was shifting from lumber to farming. Erected much like a pier, it rested on timber piles driven into the lakebed by a steam-powered pile driver brought to the site on a scow or derrick barge. William and Les Holbert, Louis Dufore and his son Irving, and other early homesteaders helped build and maintain this vital road crossing. They represented a generation of homesteaders and farmers who bought and cleared cutover stump land throughout Antrim County. The sturdy bridge carried crops, small loads of logs, and people traveling by horse and buggy or wagon across the narrow lake.
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