Life & Legacy of Justus Smith Stearns [1845-1933]

Justus Smith STEARNS [1845-1933] was a lumber baron in Michigan, Wisconsin & Kentucky. He controlled companies which owned sawmills, coal mines, railroads, hotels & various manufacturing plants. The city of Steans, Kentucky, bears his name. So do a district in Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky and the oldest hotel and largest city park and beach in Ludington, Michigan. 

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Right click image to enlarge.

• 1841 (January 16) - Wedding of Robert Bond LYON [1796-1854] & Clarissa KELLOGG [1819-1896] in Kelloggsville, Ashtabula County, Ohio. Clarissa is Robert's 2nd wife. They will have four children:

--Catherine M. (Kate) LYON [1841-c1910] will marry three times, the first time to Eber Brock WARD (30 years her senior).

--Clarissa (Clara) LYON [b.1843] will marry General James Franklin WADE, son of Senator Benjamin Franklin WADE of Ohio.

--Paulina LYON [1849-1904] will marry Justus Smith STEARNS.

--Thomas Rice LYON [1854-1909] will marry Harriet (Hattie) WADE, daughter of Senator Benjamin Franklin WADE of Ohio.
 

• 1845 (April 10) - Birth of Justus Smith STEARNS, son of Herman Swift STEARNS & Mabel L. SMITH, in Winchester, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. The family will move to western New York and then to Ohio. Justus will work in both places as a helper in his father's sawmill.

 
• 1860 - Mason County, Michigan (including Ludington), has 831 residents in the census of 1860. The town will grow 293 percent (to 3,264 residents) before the next census is taken in 1870. County population will be 28,274 in the 2000 census.

 
• 1862 - Eber Brock WARD [1811-1875] purchases 70,000 acres of timberland on the Pere Marquette River, inland from what is now Ludington, Michigan.

 
• 1860's - Milwaukee lumberman James LUDINGTON purchases timberland in Western Michigan and builds a sawmill around which the Villiage of Pere Marquette will grow. When chartered on March 22, 1873, the town changes its name to Ludington.

 
• 1868 (March 4) - Wedding of Justus Smith STEARNS (age 22) & Paulina LYON (age 18) in Ashtabula, Ohio. They will have only one child.

R A I L R O A D 1869 - James LUDINGTON [1827-1891] and Eber Brock WARD [1811-1875] visit the future Ludington & agree to extend the Flint & Pere Marquette Railway to the port city. A famous photograph is taken when they are received at the home of Frank Filer. Eber Brock WARD [right image] becomes president of the railroad company in the same year. The railroad will reach the City of Ludington in December 1874.

• 1870 - Eber Brock WARD (age 59) builds "the North Mill" on Pere Marquette Lake in the Fourth Ward of Ludington, Michigan. The mill has 55 stone piers. He will build "the South Mill" the following season.

F I R E 1871 (October 8-10) - Great Chicago Fire kills hundreds & destroys about 4 square miles (10 km2) in Chicago, Illinois. Though the fire was one of the largest US disasters of the 19th century, the rebuilding that begins almost immediately spurs Chicago's development into one of the most populous & economically important American cities. Rebuilding dramatically increases demand for West Michigan lumber (easily transported to Chicago across Lake Michigan).

• 1872 - Thomas Rice LYON (age 18) moves from Detroit to Ludington, Michigan, to "take a position in the office" of Eber Brock Ward. He will be "only twenty-four years of age" when he undertakes "the management of this vast business" in 1878 "after its affairs [are] reorganized under the firm composed of Catharine L. Ward, John B. Lyon and Thomas R. Lyon."
• 1872 (March 14) - Birth of Robert Lyon (Rob) STEARNS, first and only child of Justus Smith STEARNS (age 26) and Paulina LYON Stearns (age 22), in Conneaut, Ohio. Robert will become an author and storyteller, live in Ludington, Michigan, most of his life, and serve as President of the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. from the death of his father in 1933 until his own death in 1939.
• 1875 (January 2) - Captain Eber Brock WARD (age 63) drops dead from apoplexy on the west side of Griswold Street a few feet from Jefferson Street in Detroit. Worth $10-15 million, Ward is Michigan's first millionaire. Ward operated ships, railroads, and steel mills. He introduced the Bessemer process and was the first to roll steel rails. His funeral will be the largest ever held in Detroit. His widow Catherine Lyon Ward (age 33) leaves Detroit "shivering under the icy regard of Detroit's polite society."
• 1875 - Justus SEARNS goes bankrupt in Ohio (according to James Cabot, Ludington historian). He will later pay back all creditors with interest (according to Dr. Frank Callum Thomas).
• 1876 - Justus STEARNS (age 31) moves from Ohio to Ludington, Michigan. (He will write on March 27, 1930: "I came [to Ludington] in 1876, bringing my wife and baby son, to work for my sister-in-law, Mrs. Ward, at a salary of $75.00 a month, my wife doing her own house work and we paying $6.00 a month rental for our home.")
• 1876 (about) - "Wildest inheritance trial ever seen in Wayne County Circuit Court" is held to settle the estate of Eber Brock WARD. "[His] speedy second marriage to Kate Lyon [about 1869] was colored with the blush of scandal and led to the trial... Although Kate [takes] the stand, she had fled the city [to Ludington?] soon after E.B.'s death."
• 1878 - Catherine (Kate) LYON Ward, widow of Eber Brock WARD, reorganizes his properties in and near Ludington, Michigan, with her brother Thomas Rice Lyon & half-brother John Bacon Lyon. Kate will take her two children (Eber Brock WARD, Jr., and Clara WARD) to Toronto, remarry, then go to Paris, remarry again & eventually die at her home near London (England).
• 1878 - "In 1878 a company was formed in which Mrs. Ward's two brothers, John B. & Thomas R. Lyon, became stockholders with Mrs. Ward. Twenty-four year old Thomas became manager. From then on as long as the business existed it was conducted by T.R. Lyon Agt. Woodruff remained as secretary. Among other early employees of the firm were Justus S. Stearns who had married Mrs. Ward's sister, Paulina, & Lucius K. Baker, who maried May, eldest daughter of the E.A. Fosters. Stearns soon bought a mill of his own in Lake County, but continued his residence in Ludington in the sightly home which he built on south Washington Avenue Fourth Street. The Baker home stood just north of the Stearns residence. Lyon married the lovable Harriet Rice of Ludington. The spacious home where their four children were reared stood on the site of the present Paulina Stearns Hospital. The popular Woodruff family occupied the house built for Milton Ward facing Pere Marquette Lake." [From "Sand, Sawdust & Saw Logs: Lumber Days in Ludington" by Frances C. Hanna (1955).]
• 1880 - Sawmill is constructed by Justus Stearns (age 35) four miles East of Branch, Lake County, Michigan (near Manistee). This is Stearns' first undertaking after "severing his connection with the E.B. Ward interests. First mill was about 2.5 miles south of Flint & Pere Marquette Railway and burned after two years. Most employees spoke Swedish. The mill was rebuilt at Stearns Siding on the railway, and then it too was destroyed by fire, and a third mill was built. The town grew and had a sawmill, planing mill, box factory, store, post office, cook shanty, powerhouse, and dwellings." Stearns will build the planing mill at Stearns Siding in 1886, but it will be destroyed by fire on October 31, 1899.
• 1880 - Thomas Rice LYON builds the Lake County Railroad west from Stearns Siding through Branch, Michigan.
• 1880's - Stumpage is purchased from US Government in La Point County, Wisconsn, by Justus Stearns and Fred Herrick. The timberland will be operated by the Flambeau Lumber Co. in Lac du Flambeau and by the Stearns Lumber Co. in Odanah, Wisconsin. Herrick will later own vast timber operations in Idaho, Montana, and Oregon, then go bankrupt in 1929. He will recall in a newspaper interview given in Spokane, Washington, that "Stearns put in $35,000 and took out $1,600,000."
• 1882 - Stearns & Mack, a general store, is operted with a partner in Scottville, Michigan (about 10 miles east of Ludington).

H O U S E 1882 - Justus & Paulina Lyon Stearns construct a large home on South Washington Avenue in Ludington, Michigan, across the street from an even larger home of Paulina's brother, Thomas Rice Lyon (as shown on 1888 map). Their son Robert Lyon Stearns will live next door. Vacated by Justus when Paulina dies in 1904, Justus will convert their home into the Paulina Stearns Hospital in 1906-07. Additional rooms and a fire escape will be added in the rear. The building will be razed in November 1940 to become a parking lot for the new Paulina Stearns Hospital built across the street on the site of the Thomas Rice Lyon home.  The "new" hospital now serves as offices of the Mason County Health Department. /// Image from Wikipedia is labled "Justus Smith Stearns 1896 house built originally by lumberman Lucius K. Baker in 1883." I


 

• 1883? - Residence is built by L.K.Baker at 1105 S. Washington Avenue, just north of Justus & Paulina Lyon Stearns. This will later became home of Robert Lyon Stearns & his wife Laura Estelle Freeman. After 1907, it will be a nurses' residence for the Paulina Stearns Hospital. The house still stands, although without its former veranda.

 
• 1888 - Number of mills peaks in Ludington. The city has nine sawmills, three salt plants, three shingle mills & one planing mill. Stearn's brother-in-law Thomas Rice Lyon [1854-1909] owns two sawmills, a salt plant, a fleet of vessels, and "the double brick store" at 902 S. Washington Avenue. Justus Stearns lives in Ludington, but his timber operations are still in Lake County, Michigan. He will purchase Lyon's Ludington operations in 1898.

W E D D I N G 1890 (May 20) - Wedding of Clara WARD [1873-1916] & Prince Joseph Marie Anatole Elie de Riquet, Crown Prince of Belgium, in Paris, France. The "glamorous and strong-willed" heiress" is 18, and the prince is 45. They will divorce, and Clara will live with or marry a gypsy violinist and two different Italians. The Detroit press has a field day covering "the madcap princess."

• 1892 - Justus Stearns is Republican elector in the presidential election in which Democrat Grover Cleveland [1837-1908] is elected.
• 1892 - Flambeau Lumber Company is founded by Justus Stearns in Lac du Flambeau, Vilas County, Wisconsin, after he purchases all of the timber in the Lac du Flambeau Indian Reservation. Stearns will write proudly to a cousin on March 27, 1930, that he and his partners "manufactured lumber [in Wisconsin] for 25 years, paying the Indians during this time over $10,000,000." The railroad website linked above says, referring both to the Lac du Flambeau and to the Odanah (Bad River) Reservations, that "Stearns must have had some good political connections in the federal government to get exclusive contracts to log off both reservations. It is very unlikely that the Indians who resided on the reservations got anything out of the deal outside of some temporary employment."
• 1893 - Coal from southern Kentucky is exhibited at the Chicago World's Fair (according to James Cabot, Ludington historian). This indicates that the coal found later in this decade is not a total surprise, as some now say (including the guide on the Big South Fork Scenic Railway).

  R E S O R T 1894 (May 4) - Epworth League Training Assembly acquires Lake Michigan beachfront in Ludington for "scientific, intellectual, and religious studies." Epworth benefactor Justus Smith Stearns will build a business operations building in 1902, a 300-foot pier in 1902 ("where his launch and other passenger steamers could dock"), and a music conservatory in 1908. Today Epworth Heights is a summer colony with 215 cottages, 250 acres, seven tennis courts, a nine-hole golf course & a peak summer population of about 2,000. The Elizabeth Truxell Epworth Museum in the 1894 Epworth Hotel includes the Ossawald Crumb Study dedicated to the fictional character created by Justus' son Robert Lyon Stearns.

  B U S I N E S S E S 1897 - Michigan State Gazetter & Business Directory (R.L Polk & Co.) contains this ad: "THOMAS R. LYON, Agent, PINE LANDS & LUMBER, SHINGLES AND SALT. Choice Farming Lands for Sale at especially low prices, and on easy terms of payment. Correspondence solicited. CHICAGO OFFICE, 140 Dearborn St. LUDINGTON, MICH." And this directory entry: "Stearns Justus S, Lumber, Box and Shingle Mnfr, Mills at Stearns' Siding."

• 1898 (February 2) - Wedding of Robert Lyon STEARNS (age 25) and Laura Estelle FREEMAN (age 24) in Nashville, Tennessee. (Laura's older sister Florence Eugenia (Gaga) FREEMAN married Edward East BARTHELL in Nashville on January 24, 1894.) Robert and Laura will have three children:

--Paulina Dean (Pina) STEARNS [1900-1966] will marry twice, including Gilbert Elledy GABLE in 1931 in New York City.

--Robert Lyon (Bob) STEARNS, Jr. [1902-1965], will marry Gloria Eden (Glosie) BRADLEY in 1940 in Tucson, Arizona.

--Freeman Ross STEARNS [1904-1951] will marry Edith Emma VAN DYKE in 1932 in Ludington, Michigan.

• 1898 - Thomas Rice LYON's and James LUDINGTON's properties are purchased by Justus Stearns, and he shifts the main emphasis of his operations to Ludington, Michigan, on Lake Michigan.

S A L T . B L O C K 1898 - Stearns Salt & Lumber Co. in the Fourth Ward of Ludington, Michigan, grows out of Justus Stearns' original lumber operations at Stearns Siding in Lake County, Michigan. The company is capitalized at $500,000 (as of 1909). It becomes the parent of the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co.  which will own and operate "a saw mill, planing mill, salt block, stave mill, shingle mill and cooper shop" (as of 1909). Sterns' company also operates the salt block "at the Cartier Lumber Company." His own salt company in Ludington will be sold to Morton Salt Co. in 1922. It is now the site of Peter Copeyon Park, the Ludington Yacht Club, and (in part) the Ludington plant of the Dow Chemical Company.



 

• 1898 (August) - Stearns is the largest manufacturer of lumber in Michigan according to "The Timberman," a lumber magazine in Chicago. His 1898 output is 120 million board feet.

 
• 1898-1901 - Timber and coal properties are found in Kentucky by surveyor Wiliam A. Kinne from Ludington, Michigan, and lawyer Edward East Barthell from Nashville, Tennessee, while working for Thomas Rice Lyon. Lyon will sell the titles to his brother-in-law Justus Stearns. According to James Cabot, "Al" Kinne was Treasurer of Lake County, Michigan, 1895-1896. Starting in 1902, he will work for Stearns as land and timber agent, live in Stearns, Kentucky, the rest of his life, and become a Kentucky state senator. E.E. Barthell will move his law practice from Nashville to Chicago in 1915, where his clients will include investment banker Robert Rice LYON of Chicago and industrialist Justus STEARNS of Ludington. He and his wife will live in Evanston, Illinois, will have a summer home in Ludington, and will be buried near the Stearns family in Lakeview Cemetery, Ludington. Their son, Edward East Barthell, Jr., will move to Ludington in 1952, become Ludington city attorney, and write books about Greek mythology and the Civil War.

 
• 1899 (July 28) - Manistee Daily News reports that the John Schroeder Lumber Co. of Milwaukee has contracted to buy 35 million feet of lumber from Justus Stearns. The timber "is located some twenty-five miles southeast of Ludington, Mich. It is the last of the great Ward tract of timber, so called because it belonged to Capt. Ward of Detroit, father of the Clara B. Ward, afterwards Princess Chimay, and later wife of Rigo, the gypsy."

 
• 1899 (Haloween) - Stearns Siding suffers a major fire. "The school was undamaged [and] the lumber mill was also unharmed [but] the village is now a ghost town. Mr. Justus S. Stearns, who owns most of the company town says it will not be rebuilt as all the virgin timber has been cut (pine) and the hardwood is about gone. He has taken over the E.B. Ward holdings in Ludington near Lake Michigan." [From Paul Bunyan Chips, 1969]

 
• 1899-1900 - Justus Stearns is Secretary of State of Michigan.

I M P R O V E M E N T . C O M P A N Y 1900 - Stearns Improvement Company is created by Justus Stearns. This company "may be said to have made the Ludington resorts." It will lease and improve Hotel Epworth 1900-1910, build the Pavilion, construct dormitories, etc. at Epworth Heights. It will plat Chicago Heights at Hamlin Lake in 1902. (Hamlin Lake was dammed & named for Lincoln's vice president Hannibal Hamlin [1809-1891] by Chicago lumber baron Charles Mears [1814-1895]). Capitalized at $25,000 (as of 1909). The Epworth Hotel now serves as a community center & museum for the Epworth Heigths summer colony.


 

• 1900 - Stearns Lighting & Power Co. is created by Justus Stearns after acquiring a light plant formerly owned by Frank Filer (see 1869 above & 1909 below). The Stearns company will expand "lighting AND power" throughout Ludington. An extension will be added to Scottville, Michigan, in 1902. Capitalized at $50,000 (as of 1909).

R A I L R O A D 1901 (July 13) - Justus Stearns acquires the Epworth Heights Railway (known as the "Dummy Line") and renames it the Ludington & Northern Railway (L&N). The short railroad will then be extended to Sterns' interests at Hamlin Lake. Capitalized at $15,000 (as of 1909). The railroad will be used to haul timber & sand, as well as tourists & vacationers. Passenger service to Epworth Heights will be discontinued in 1919. The locomotive of a sand train will be derailed on May 21, 1923. The railroad will later be owned & operated by the Sargent Sand Company. An old L&N caboose still sits near the highway leading to Ludington State Park.


 

• 1901 - Lake Forest Cottage is constructed in Epworth Heights by Justus and Paulina Lyon Stearns as their summer home. A brochure about Epworth Heights published in 1910 will feature a photo taken "from J.S. Stearns' porch." The three-story cottage is now owned by Robert Elledy Gable (great grandson of Justus Stearns) and Emily Thompson Gable of Lexington, Kentucky.

 
• 1902 - J.S. Stearns Lumber Co., Odanah, Ashland County, Wisconsin, purchases all of the timber on the Odanah Indian Reservation. Today the webside of the Bad River Lodge, Casino & Convention Center, Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Odanah, says that all tribal lands were "clear-cut of pine between 1850 and 1920."

 
• 1902 - Ashland Odanah & Marenco Railroad is built in Ashland County, Wisconsin, by Justus Stearns. It will operate for 19 years (until 1921).

I N V E S T M E N T 1902 (May 22) - Working for Justus Stearns, William A. Kinne and Edward East Barthell ride horses to Gum Tree Tie Yard on the Cincinnati New Orleans & Texas Pacific Railway (CNO&TP) where they sign papers incorporating the Stearns Lumber Co., the Stearns Coal Co. and the Kentucky & Tennessee Railroad. Justus Stearns soon buys 130,000 acres in southern Kentucky, including the properties found about 1901. According to Dr. Frank Cullum Thomas, the "new group of entrepreneurs [is] well educated and well financed, [and] they build within thirteen months of their arrival [in Kentucky] a new town named Stearns, an electrical generating plant, America's first all-electric saw-mill, five miles of railroad through rugged terrain, and the first of many [coal] mines." The lumber and coal companies combine into the Steans Coal & Lumber Co., and Kentucky soon becomes Stearns' largest operation. Justus Stearns (age 57) is the new company's first President and will remain President until his death in 1933. Four generations of the Stearns family will serve as company president, plus John Edward Butler from Ludington, Michigan, and Dr. Frank Cullum Thomas from Stearns, Kentucky.

C O M P A N Y . T O W N 1902-1903 - A company town named Stearns is constructed by the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. on the main line of the Cincinnati New Orleans & Texas Pacific Railway (CNO&TP). The Kentucky & Tennesse Railroad (K&T) is constructed to supply company camps and to haul coal and timber back to Stearns. The K&T will eventually run about 40 miles from Stearns to Bell Farm, Kentucky. Eleven miles are operated today as the Big South Fork Scenic Railway which carries tourists between Stearns and the restored Barthell and Blue Heron Mining Camps (phone 606-376-5330).

• 1902 (about) - R.L. Stearns Wholesale Grocery is created to supply Stearns, Kentucky, and the camps on the K&T Railway. Apparently named for Robert Lyon Stearns, the grocery building will be clearly visible in a 1955 photo of Stearns, Kentucky. The building will be restored as "the first ISTEA project funded in the state of Kentucky." (ISTEA is the Intermodal Surface Transportation & Efficiency Act of 1991.) It now serves as the depot of the Big South Fork Scenic Railway.

C O A L . C A M P 1902 - Barthell Mining Camp -- the first mining camp constructed by the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. -- has grown to 41 dwellings, company "Store Number Two," a big motor house, bath house, coal tipple, school, and post office. The camp is named for Edward East BARTHELL [1866-1937], Second Vice President and attorney of the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. Recently restored by Harold (Sonny) KOGER, his son Harold Dwight KOGER, and their wives, several mine openings & many camp buildings are now accessible to the public (phone 606-376-8749). Image shows former Barthell School alongside the K&T Railway. Click here for history of the camp.

• 1903 - Barthell Coal Camp, on the Big South Fork Scenic Railway near Stearns, Kentucky, begins producing coal from Mine #1 of the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. The camp is named for Edward East Barthell, company lawyer from Nashville, Tennessee. Today, the camp is operated as a tourist attraction by the Koger family, rustic "miners' cabins" are rented for over-night and longer use (phone 606-376-8749).
• 1903 (June 30)- Stearns-Culver Land Co. Limited is created with its principal office in Ludington, Michigan, and a branch office in Nashville, Tennessee. Justus Stearns, W.T. Culver, Edward East Barthell, and Robert Lyon Stearns each own $10,000 of the capital stock. "This company has no connection with any other of the Stearns companies."
• 1903 - Stearns & Culver Lumber Co. of Bagdad, Florida, purchases an interest in a 180,000 acre pine tract. On March 27, 1930, Justus Stearns will write that "I went down to Pensacola, Florida, and bought a very large tract of Southern Pine, built sawmills and operated there for several years." The Florida operation will last until 1919 (according to James Cabot, Ludington historian).

H O T E L 1903 (August) - Stearns Hotel Company is created in Ludington, Michigan, and builds the Stearns Hotel at 212-216 E. Ludington Avenue. Capitalized at $25,000 (as of 1909). The Stearns Hotel is the company's principal & perhaps only property. The hotel has 60 rooms in 1903 but will be expanded by another 50 rooms in 1922. The hotel will be sold in mid-century, but the Stearns companies will rent office space until 1971 (when the last of the Stearns timber in Michigan is cut on Hamlin Lake). The hotel is now operated under the name Stearns Motor Inn (231-843-3407 -- no website). /// New paintings of Ossawald Crumb by artist Fletcher C. Ransom of Joliet, Illinois, will be unveiled one New Years Eve in the renovated Tap Room of the hotel. (Ossawald Crumb is the fictional founder of Ludington created by Robert Lyon Stearns.) Notice the matchbook says "VISIT THE OSSAWALD CRUMB TAP ROOM." Ossawald Crumb survives on a Picassa web page maintained by Diana Armistead, and reproductions of the Ossawald Crumb paintings decorate a dining room of the JamesPort Brewing Co., 410 S. James Street, Ludington (213-845-2522).

P O L I T I C S 1904 (February 25) - Justus Stearns seeks Republican nomination for Governor of Michigan, and the Ludington Record-Appeal calls him a "foe of corruptionists." Justus will run against five other candidates and receive 1/3 of the votes on the first ballot, but Republican Fred M. Warner [1865-1923] will win the election. On March 27, 1930, Stearns will write that "this was during a period when the railroads of the state controlled all of the state offices and [Republican Governor Aaron T.] Bliss of Saginaw bought the nomination through money furnished by the railroads. This, I am glad to say, ended my political career as far as aspiration to office was concerned."

• 1904 - Salt & Mineral Bath House is built by Justus Stearns on Ludington Avenue immediately West of the Stearns Hotel as "a Mecca for persons suffering from...rheumatism and similar diseases." The bath house building will later be used as offices for the Stearns companies. It will be razed in 1952 and another building (filling station?) built in its place. The building now houses Data Control Technologies, a Cellular One agent.
• 1904 (May 3) - Death of Paulina LYON Stearns (age 54), Justus' wife, in Ludington, Michigan.  She will be laid to rest in the Stearns Family Mausoleum in Lakeview Cemetery on Lakeshore Drive, Ludington, Michigan. The mausoleum contains ten crypts. The exact date of construction is unknown. Paulina occupies the second crypt. Justus Stearns will occupy the first crypt sometime after his death in 1933.
• 1906-1907 - Justus Stearns leaves his home on South Washington Street and converts it into the Paulina Stearns Hospital. Several mansions of other Ludington lumber barons are today operated as bed and breakfasts, e.g. Ludington House and Schoenberger House.

O F F I C E . B U I L D I N G 1907- - Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. office building is constructed in Stearns, Kentucky. Still painted in company colors (white with green trim), the building now serves as the McCreary County Museum (phone 606-376-5730).

H O T E L Year? - Stearns Hotel is constructed in Stearns, Kentucky. The hotel will be used over the years by many Stearns Company executives and family members, notably by Robert Lyon Stearns, Jr., who will openly lived there for many years with Gloria Bradley, his father's former mistress. Robert Jr. and Gloria will marry in January 1940 -- just after the death of his father Robert Sr. The hotel will be razed for safety reasons about 1985.

G A M E S 1908 - The Carrom Company in Ludington, Michigan, is acquired by Justus Stearns from the Carrom-Archarena Company. The company manufacturers the famous Carrom game boards, the "Peerless Lightweight Folding table," and many other products made from wood. It's the largest manufacturer of game boards in the US, at least for a while. Justus Stearns will write Mar. 27, 1930, that this is "a very thriving and profitable industry." Said to have maintained employment during the Great Depression despite reduced sales, the Carrom Company will be sold by Freeman Stearns (grandson of Justus Stearns) "to Milwaukee interests" in 1942. It is now owned and operated by the Mordel Manufacturing Co. at 218 Dowland Street, Ludington (phone 213-845-1261). Historic Carrom boards decorate one wall of the JamesPort Brewing Co., a new restaurant at 410 S. James Street, Ludington (phone 213-845-2522). (Reproductions of Ossawald Crumb paintings decorate a dining room of the same restaurant.)

• 1908 - Conservatory of Music building is donated to Epworth Heights by Justus Stearns for its Summer School. "Nine studios and practice rooms accomodate instructors & students as well as visiting artists. [But,] when the Epworth Summer School [is] discontined after World War I, the building [is] seldom used and [is] finally town down in 1928." (Stearns seems to have been ahead of this time: The famed Interlochen Music Camp will be founded just north of Ludington in 1926.)

F A C T O R Y 1909 - Stearns Motor Manufacturing Company is organized by Justus Stearns, William L. Gile & W.L. Mercereau and initially named the Gile Boat & Engine Company. Stearns will became sole owner & rename the company in 1914. Located near the channel to Lake Michigan at the foot of West Filer Street, the company will produce marine engines. Its officers in 1924 will be Justus Stearns (President), Edward East Barthell [1866-1937] of Chicago (VP), & Robert Lyon Stearns (Sec/Treas). Justus Stearns will write Mar. 27, 1930, that the company "has always been a losing proposition in a financial way but...has afforted employment for 200 men." It will go into receivership on Dec. 30, 1929, and be sold at public auction in 1930, then closed. Its buildings will be raized in 1979 to make way for a large city marina. Image shows Municiple Marina, site of the former motor manufacturing company.

B A N K 1909 - First National Bank, James Street at Ludington Avenue, Ludington, Michigan. Date of origin is uncertain, but Justus Stearns bought stock on Oct. 31, 1901. Then he bought out and replaced George N. Stray as president just before Nov. 4, 1909 (date of newspaper announcement). He will be annually reelected president for at least 20 years thereafter. Now stores & offices, the 3-story bank building still stands at Ludington's primary intersection and is now called the "City Center Building" [right image]. Its original clock now hangs in the National City Bank, 110 E. Ludington Avenue (231-845-5155).


 

• 1911-13 - Artist Carmichael Lawrence EARLE (age 66-68) of Grand Rapids, Michigan, is invited to to paint the people and landscapes of Kentucky by his friend Robert Lyon STEARNS (age 39-41). Earle will pass away in 1921.

 
• 1912 (May 3) - McCreary County, based on the company town of Stearns, is created as the last of Kentucky's 120 counties. It is still the only county in Kentucky without any incorporated area.

 
• 1916 (September 1) - Issue No. 5, Vol. II of "The Stearns Co-Operator" features "Old King Cole," a whimsical article by Robert Lyon Stearns, and photos of Stearns managers in Kentucky.

 
• 1916 (December 18) - Death of Clara WARD in Padua, Italy, from pneumonia received while visiting her husband Giuseppe RICCIARDI, an Italian army officer, at the war front. Justus Stearns will write on March 27, 1930, that "during [Clara's] financial troubles I visited Paris twice to assist in settling up her many bills with the Paris shops and others. She and her brother both became estranged from their mother, who died some twenty years ago at her home near London."

 
• 1917 - Handy Things Manufacturing Co. is purchased by Justus Stearns. According to James Cabot, the company will be sold in 1920 to Walter Pleiss and moved from Ludington to Missouri in 1981.

 
• 1919 - A large residence is constructed on Lake Michigan by Robert Lyon Stearns and his wife Laura Freeman Stearns. The address is 715 N. Lake Shore Drive, Ludington, Michigan. Said to have been designed by her, the property includes a large garage and a studio over the garage in which Robert Lyon Stearns will do his art work. It will be inherited by their daughter Paulina Dean STEARNS Gable Bennett and later by her son Robert Elledy GABLE. Robert Gable will sell the property out of the family in 1968, and it now belongs to the Bruce Wedel family.

 
• 1920 - National Lumber & Manufacturing Co., Hoquium, Washington. Purchased by Justus Stearns in 1920. Its subsequent history is unknown.

 
• 1920 - State Bank of Stearns  is organized in Stearns, Kentucky.

 
• 1922 (Decemeber 6) - Louisville Post quotes General Manager John Edward BUTLER in a lenghty article about Stearns, Kentucky.

 
• 1920's? - Heyday of Stearns' holdings in Michigan: Click below for a series of web photos for each of the following Stearns properties:

-- The Carrom Company: Image 1.

-- Stearns Motor Manufacturing Co.: Image 1 and Image 2.

-- Stearns Salt & Lumber Plant (now Dow Chemical Corp.): Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, and Image 4.

-- Stearns Hotel (now Stearns Motor Inn) & Ludington Bath House: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4, Image 5, Image 6, Image 7, and Image 8.
 

• 1920's - Heyday of the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. in Kentucky: The company owns Stearns, Kentucky, controls over 200 square miles of land in Kentucky and Tennessee, operates 20 miles of the K&T Railroad, owns the world's first all-electric sawmill & employs over 2,200 people living and working in at least 18 coal camps. For a series of photos showing the sawmill in Stearns & miners in many of the coal camps, click here.

 
• 1922 - Whiteside-Stearns Coal Co. is organized in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

 
• 1922 - Stearns Salt Company in Ludington, Michigan, is sold to Morton Salt and will be shut down soon thereafter. The only salt producer in Ludington today is the Dow Chemical Co.

 
• 1923 (April 10) - "A Tribute" to "Our Grand Old Man". Justus Stearns is honored on his 78th birthday by 99 "top leaders" at a lavish banquet in the Stearns Hotel in Ludington. "Each guest received a handsomely bound brochure containing a 15-page biographic sketch of Justus Stearns" (according to the Ludington Daily News, Dec. 31, 1971). A photocopy of this "brochure" was obtained in 2002 from the Mason Country Historical Society at White Pine Village.

 
• 1924 - Stearns Coal Co. is organized in Atlanta, Georgia.

 
• 1925 - Stearns Coal Co. is organized in Louisville, Kentucky.

 
• 1926 - Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. is organized in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

 
• 1928 - Stears Power & Light Co. is organized in Stearns, Kentucky .

 
• 1928 (June 12) - Justus Stearns is a delegate from Michigan to the Republican National Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, where Herbert Hoover is nominated.

 
• 1929 - Bankrupcy of Fred Herrick (age 76), Stearns' former partner who had followed the lumber business from the Great Lakes to the Northwest.

 
• 1930 (July 16-17) - Stearns Motor Manufacturing Co. sells its 125,000 square foot factory in Ludington, Michigan, at a public auction. The company manufactured marine engines. The auction flyer invites prospective buyers stay at "the Stearns, Ludington's finest hotel." According to one source, the company "during Prohibition...sold fast engines to bootleggers plying their trade on the Great Lakes but faster engines to the Coast Guard."

 
• 1930 (February 10) - Engagement of Paulina Dean (Pina) STEARNS [1900-1966] to John Wright DeFORREST is announced to 150 guests at the Stearns home in Ludington, Michigan, but the engagement is broken, and they never marry. She will secretly marry Gilbert Elledy GABLE [1886-1941] the following year at the Vassar Club in New York City. Gilbert is reputed for his discovery of dinosaur fossils in Arizona.

L E T T E R 1930 (March 27) - "Dear Cousin William:" Justus Searns (age 85) writes a 6-page letter to William S. Stearns in Fredonia, New York, outlining "something of my family history." The two cousins share childhood memories, but apparently they had no contact for many decades until William contacted the well known millionaire late in life. Quotations from this extrodinary letter are sprinkled throughtout this webpage. Click here for full text. Image is fountain in Fredonia Commons Historic District.

• 1931 - Stearns Salt Company in Manistee, Michigan, is sold to Morton Salt Company. Morton still produces salt in Manistee.

M E M O R I A L 1932 (July) - Lumbermen's Memorial is dedicated at East Tawas, Michigan. 189 road miles east of Ludington. Promoted by William B. Mershon [1856-1943] of Saginaw, Michigan. Jusus Stearns & Robert Lyon Stearns are "substantial contributors." Justus Stearns, "one of the best-known lumbermen of the state, was an honor-guest at the dedication...[and], now 87, was the oldest lumberman present." (Robert Lyon Stearns "was at Stearns, Ky., and unable to be present.") The bronze monument depicts three heroic loggers.

• 1932 (July 23) - Wedding of Freeman STEARNS [1904-1951] & Edith Emma VAN DYKE [1906-1951] in Ludington, Michigan. Freeman is a son of Robert Lyon STEARNS, and Edith is an actress born in Pentwater, Michigan. Their home is on Ludington Avenue across from the Stearns Hotel & the Ludington library. The house will be raized in 1939, and a filling station built on the site. Most recently a Shell station, the building is still there but closed. Edith and Freeman will both die in 1951:  She at the Paulina Stearns Hospital in Ludington in February, he in Tucson, Arizona, in June.

B O O K L E T S 1932-37 - Fictional character Ossawald Crumb is presented in two booklets by Robert Lyon STEARNS (age 60-65). Crumb is supposely the first permanent White resident of what is now Ludington, Michigan. An Ossawald Crumb website is maintained by Robert Elledy GABLE, grandson of Robert Lyon STEARNS.

• 1933 (February 14) - Death of Justus Smith STEARNS (age 88). He will be laid to rest in the first crypt of the Stearns Family Mausoleum in Lakeside Cemetery, Ludington, Michigan. At the time of his death, Stearns is president of nine companies (according to James Cabot, Ludington historian).
• 1933 - Robert Lyon STEARNS (age 61) succeeds his father as the second President of the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. He will remain President until his own death in 1939.
• 1933 (April) - Edward East BARTHELL publishes "Mountain Stories" drawn from his experiences doing land title work in eastern Kentucky and Tennessee in 1898-1901.

G A M E S 1930's - The Carrom Company in Ludington, Michigan -- owned by the heirs of Justus STEARNS -- continues to work during the Great Depression just so its people would be employed.

M I N I N G . C A M P 1937 - Blue Heron Mining Camp -- the company's 18th coal camp -- is constructed by the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. on the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River. This camp will be abandoned in December 1962 but restored with open-sided steel "ghost structures" in 1989 by the US Army Corps of Engineers. It is now maintained and interpreted by the National Park Service as part of the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area. The restored camp is reached by the Big South Fork Scenic Railway as well as by a highway.

• 1937 - Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. sells about 47,000 acres of surface rights in McCreary and Wayne Counties, Kentucky, to the Federal government. The company reserves its coal and mineral rights and will continue to mine the property for many years.

N A T I O N A L . F O R E S T 1937 - Cumberland National Forest (now Daniel Boone National Forest) is created in Kentucky, in large part from land purchased from the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co.  Seventy percent of McCreary County land passes into Federal ownership.


 

• 1939 (November 2) - Death of Robert Lyon STEARNS (age 67), Justus' only child, in Tucson, Arizona. He will occupy the 3rd of the 10 crypts in the Stearns mausoleum, Ludington, Michigan.

 
• 1939 - John Edward BUTLER succeeds Robert Lyon STEARNS as the third President of the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. Butler was graduated in 1893 from Ludington High School and became a teacher. In 1932 and 1936 he was alternate delegate from Kentucky to the Republican National Conventions. (On May 13, 1939, J.D. BUTLER [sic] and Robert Lyon STEARNS, Jr., are the central figures in a photo of the Stearns company office staff.)

 
• 1940 (January 3) - Wedding of Robert Lyon (Bob) STEARNS, Jr. (age 37) to Gloria Eden (Glosie) BRADLEY (age 38) in Tucson, Arizona. Glosie is a former mistress of Bob's father, Robert Lyon Stearns, Sr. She and Bob have lived together many years at the Stearns Hotel in Stearns, Kentucky.

H O S P I T A L 1940 (August) - Paulina Stearns Hospital moves to a new building constructed on the site of the former Thomas Rice Lyon home, replacing the original hospital in the former Stearns home across the street. The "new" hospital is now used for offices of the Mason County Health Department, 1110 S. Washington Avenue (231-845-7381).


 

• 1941 - An illustrated brochure "Forty Years of History" is published by the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. in Stearns, Kentucky. According to the brochure, the "army of the House of Stearns can ship 140 solid cars -- 7,000 tons -- of carefully prepared coal in a single day." Four "famous registered trade names" are used: Stearns Golden Eagle, Stearns Golden Pheasant, Stearns Scarlet Tanager, and Stearns Blue Heron. As presented in the brochure, the company board of directors is:


John E. Butler, President & Operations Manager
Robert L. Stearns, Jr., Vice-President
Roger W. Henderson, Treasurer
Harry C. Trent, Secretary
Freeman R. Stearns, Asst. Secretary & Treasurer
Edw. E. Barthell, Legal (Chicago Ill.)
Albert S. Puelicher [apparently a banker from Milwaukee, Wisconsin]
Henry C. Gillis, Legal (Williamsburg, Ky.)
 

• 1942 - The Carrom Company is sold by Justus' grandson Freeman STEARNS [1904-1951] "to Milwaukee interests."

 
• 1947 - Dr. Frank Cullum THOMAS, a native of Stearns, Kentucky, starts to practice denistry in Stearns. In 1958, "Dr. Frank" will switch from denistry to work for the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. He will serve two terms as company president: From 1962 to 1976 and again from 1978 to 1987.

 
• 1949 - Robert Lyon STEARNS, Jr., Justus' grandson, succeeds John Edward BUTLER as the fourth President of the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co.

P A R K & B E A C H 1950 (guess) - Stearns Park is landscaped and donated to the City of Ludington by Laura Estelle FREEMAN Stearns [1873-1962], widow of Robert Lyon STEARNS [1872-1939]. The park is still the largest in Ludington and has a major beach on Lake Michigan. Laura made art from sea shells and composed many songs, including "Ludington on the Lake." The sheet music of "Ludington on the Lake" is sold by the Mason County Historical Society at White Pine Village near Ludington.

• 1950's - Decline of the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. in Kentucky. "The coal mines play out one by one, and their coal camps are abandoned."
• 1955 - Frances C. Hanna writes "Sand, Sawdust & Saw Logs: Lumber Days in Ludington," Ludington, Michigan, pp. 55. Chick here for on-line text.
• 1958 (July 5) - Wedding of Robert Elledy (Bob) GABLE (age 24) to Emily Brinton THOMPSON (age 25) in Bar Harbor, Maine.

P R E S I D E N T 1962 - Dr. Frank Cullum THOMAS succeeds Robert Lyon (Bob) STEARNS, Jr., as the fifth President of the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. The Blue Heron Mine & its mining camp are closed in December of the same year. Bob never enjoyed good health (according to James Cabot, Ludington historian) and will die in 1965 (age 62).

• 1960's - Coal markets are lost as railroads convert from steam to Diesel locomotives.
• 1969 - Robert Elledy Gable (age 34), Kentucky Commissioner of Parks, is selected by the Jaycees as one of "Three Outstanding Young Men of Kentucky."
1971 (June 30) - Stearns companies close their offices in the Stearns Hotel of Ludington shortly after the last timber is cut at Hamlin Lake just north of Ludington.

N A T I O N A L . R I V E R 1974 (March 7) - "Recognizing that the Big South Fork, with its gorges, homesteads, rockshelters & arches, is worth more preserved than flooded, Senator Howard Baker (R-Tenn) & Senator John Sherman Cooper (R-Ken) sponsor & shepherd through Congress the legislation that creates Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area, which was signed into law on March 7, 1974, by President Nixon. The new law directs the Corps of Engineers to acquire land for the park & build the facilities before turning the park over to the National Park Service for administration. The Corps quickly draws up plans for what some are calling 'The Yellowstone of the East' & starts buying land."

• 1976 - Paintings of Robert Lyon Stearns are given a retrospective exhibition at the West Shore Community College just outside Ludington. This is a bicentennial project co-sponsored by the Mason County Bicentennial Commission, Mason County Historical Society & West Shore Community College, under the direction of Prof. Leo Teholiz.
• 1976 - Robert Elledy (Bob) GABLE succeeds Dr. Frank Cullum THOMAS as the sixth President of the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. By this time, the company has sold most of its holdings to the Blue Diamond Coal Co., including the ultramodern Justus Mine named for the company's founder Justus Smith STEARNS. Gable is a great grandson of Justus STEARNS and a grandson of Robert Lyon STEARNS. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky, owns the Stearns Company, Ltd. ("commercial real estate developer with ties to coal and lumber industries"), was finance chair for one or more campaigns of Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee, and was a Republican candidate for governor of Kentucky in 1975.

 
• 1976 - Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area is created by Congress to include land formerly owned by the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co.

 
• 1976-78 - Bitter strike takes place at Blue Diamond's Justus Mine.

 
• 1977 (August 16) - Death of Gloria Eden (Glosie) BRADLEY Stearns [1901-1977] in Somerset, Kentucky. She is the last of the ten family members laid to rest in the Stearns Family Mausoleum in Lakeview Cemetery, Ludington, Michigan. Here is the complete list:

(1) Justus Smith STEARNS [1845-1933]
(2) Paulina LYON Stearns [1849-1904]

(3) Robert Lyon STEARNS [1872-1939]
(4) Laura Estell FREEMAN Stearns [1873-1962]

(5) Paulina Dean STEARNS Gable Bennett [1900-1966]
(6) Gilbert Elledy GABLE [1886-1941]

(7) Robert Lyon STEARNS, Jr. [1902-1965]
(8) Gloria Eden BRADLEY Stearns [1901-1977]

(9) Freeman Ross STEARNS [1904-1951]
(10) Edith Emma VAN DYKE Stearns [1906-1951]
 

• 1978 - Dr. Frank Cullum THOMAS succeeds Robert Elledy GABLE as the seventh and last President of the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. Gable will be appointed to the Franklin Deleno Roosevelt Commission by President George Bush in 1992. As of 2002, Dr. Thomas has been a director of the First National Bank in Oneida, Tennessee, for 31 years and is an adviser to the McCreary County Museum in Stearns, Kentucky.

 
• 1979 - The Stearns Company "makes its initial entry into the commercial real estate business by investing as the money partner in thirteen separate projects located in seven southern and western states."

 
• 1980 (November) - Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. leases more than 8,000 acres within the Daniel Boone National Forest to the Ramex Mining Corp. Ramex will obtain coal mining permits and begin mining, then be shut down by the US Office of Surface Mining Reclamation & Enforcement (OSM).

 
• 1984 - The Stearns Company "has development offices in Menlo Park, Califonia, and Phoenix, Arizona, in addition to its Lexington, Kentucky, headquarters, and has acquired or developed almost $200 million of land, hospitality, R&D, industrial, commercial, office, mineral and other real estate assets owned and managed and/or under development in eleven states."

H O T E L 1985 (about) - Stearns Hotel in Stearns, Kentucky, is raised for safety reasons -- as were the Stearns sawmill and record tall smoke stack. The Stearns Hotel in Ludington, Michigan, will survive after being remodeled and renamed the Stearns Motor Inn (phone 231-843-3407).

N A T I O N A L . R I V E R 1986-1989 - Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area. "By 1986, National Park Service personnel are staffing a small visitor center on the East Rim, and the Bandy Creek Campground has opened its gates, welcoming visitors with hot showers, a camp store, stables & craft store. In 1989, the Blue Heron Mining Community opens with much fanfare. Mine 18 of Stearns Coal & Lumber Company fame has been reborn as semi-restored ghost town. 'Ghost structures' consisting only of framing, the bare bones of buildings, stand at places marking homes, the company store, churches, machine shops & more. The original coal tipple, a central facility for loading coal to be transported, is restored for exhibit. A mine opening is also carefully preserved & stabilized so that visitors can enter it."


 

• 1986 - The Stearns Company and Winding River Realty Utah, LC (WRRU) team "begins the consolidation process...drastically reducing its $3.5 million of corporate overhead, closing the development offices in California and Arizona...and selling most of Stearns' substantial holdings in California, Arizona, Texas and the Southeast."

 
• 1987 - Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. is dissolved, and the last railcar of coal leaves the Blue Diamond mines.

 
• 1987 - Tom Zinn becomes President of the Stearns Company in Lexington, Kentucky. This company has had a "nine state, $200 million portfolio of hotel/office/warehouse/R & D/retail and land properties with development offices in the Silicon Valley, California, Phoenix, Arizona, and Lexington, Kentucky." Zinn joined the Stearns Company in 1981 and will leave in 1999. Robert Elledy Gable (great grandson of Justus Stearns) is chairman and chief executive officer.

 
• 1989 (May) - Restored Blue Heron Coal Camp in the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area is dedicated. The ceremony is attended by Mary McDonald, education director of the Mason County Historical Society in Ludington, Michigan.

 
• 1989 (October) - The Stearns Company, Ltd., files suit in the US Court of Federal Claims, claiming $17 million for a mineral estate of about 38,000 acres under Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky.

 
• 1992 - Dr. Frank Cullum Thomas writes article on McCreary County for the "The Kentucky Encyclopedia" (University of Kentucky Press).

 
• 1995 - "Ancestors & descendants of Lewis Ross Freeman with related families, based partially on the work of Freeman Worth Gardner & Willis Freeman" is published by Patty Barthell Myers of San Antonio, Texas. Mrs. Myers is a granddaughter of Edward East Barthell [1866-1937] and a great granddaughter both of Lewis Ross Freeman and of Thomas Rice Lyon [1854-1875].

 
• 1996 (January) - Tom Zinn "begins providing consulting services to Winding River Associates, LLC (WRA) -- the fee simple owner of approximately 5,000 acres of property in Washington County, Utah -- while continuing his duties as President and Chief Operating Officer to Stearns Enterprises, Inc., the general partner of the Stearns Company, Ltd."

 
• 1996 (April 13) - Wedding of James S. GABLE & Lisa Vittoria-Ann GUILLERMIN in Washington, DC. James is a son of Robert Elledy GABLE, a great grandson of Robert Lyon STEARNS, and a great great grandson of Justus Smith STEARNS. Wedding guests include James' sister Beth GABLE, James' brother John GABLE, and Dr. Frank Cullum Thomas and his wife Mary of Somerset, Kentucky.

 
• 1995 (about) - R. L. Stearns Wholesale Grocery and Railroad Depot are restored as the first project in Kentucky funded by the Intermodal Surface Transportation and Efficiency Act of 1991 (STEA).
• 2002 (May 22) - Stearns, Kentucky, celebrates its centennial.

G E N E A L O G Y 2002 - "Ancestors & descendants of Thomas Ross Lyon & his wife Harriet Wade Rice" is published by Patty Barthell Myers of San Antonio, Texas. Mrs. Myers is their great granddaughter.

• 2002 (July 20-21) - Ludington, Michigan, hosts the 11th annual "Gus Macker 3 on 3 Basketball Tournament" in Stearns Park.
• 2002 (August 5) - Federal judge awards the Stearns Company millions of dollars in its lawsuit against the Federal government. Coal Age magazine says this is "a landmark case that goes to the heart of a longstanding national dispute over private property rights and government regulations."

A R T I C L E 2003 - "Big South Fork Coal is Connected to Great Lakes Lumber" (a short article about the historic connection between Justus Stearns' interests in Kentucky/Tennessee and Michigan/Wisconsin) is published by Edward W. Lollis (author of this webpage) in the 2003 edition of Park News: Big South Fork Visitors Guide , the official newspaper of the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area, National Park Service, Oneida, Tennessee.

---

Major sources of the information in these two webpages:

• Cabot, James L., Ludington historian & author of "From Our History," a weekly column in the Ludington Daily News, Ludington, Michigan.  Interviews August 28 & 31, 2002.

 
• Gable, Robert Elledy, Chairman of the Board, the Stearns Company, Lexington, Kentucky, and former president of the Stearns Coal & Lumber Company, Stearns, Kentucky. Meeting at Epworth Heights, Ludington, Michigan, on July 28, 2003 .

 
• Myers, Patty Barthell (1995), "Ancestors and descendants of Lewis Ross Freeman with related families, based partially on the work of Freeman Worth Gardner and Willis Freeman," Penobscot Press, Rockport, Maine, pp. 944.

 
• Petersen, David, Webmaster, www.LudingtonMichigan.net. Scottville, Michigan. Telephone conversation Sept. 3, 2002.

 
• Truxell, Elizabeth, editor (1994), "Epworth: The first one hundred years," Epworth Board of Trustees, Epworth Heights, Ludington, Michigan, p. 102.

 
• Blue Heron Mining Community (open-air museum), near Stearns, Kentucky. (This is a unit of the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area, National Park Service, Oneida, Tennessee.)

 
• Elizabeth Truxell Epworth Museum, Epworth Hotel, Epworth Heights, 1161 N. Lakeshore Drive, Ludington, Michigan (Kay Ricco, manager).

 
• Mason County Historical Society, White Pine Village, near Ludington, Michigan. (Jayne Budzynski, coordinator)

 
• McCreary County Museum, Stearns, Kentucky. (Dawn Strunk, curator.)

 
• Stearns Family Mausoleum, Lakeview Cemetery, Lake Shore Drive, Ludington, Michigan.

 
• Thomas, Dr.Frank Cullum , former president of the Stearns Coal & Lumber Company, Stearns, Kentucky. Meeting in Somerset, Kentucky, on July 21, 2003.