The settlement at Metz grew directly because a Detroit and Mackinac Railway depot was established there in 1895. Although the depot closed the following year, it reopened in 1901 and served the community until 1966, with two eastbound and two westbound trains stopping there each day. The depot stood at the center of the scene, with a boxcar on a siding to its right and large piles of logs in the foreground waiting to be loaded onto open railroad gondola cars for shipment to sawmills, usually in Alpena. Logs stored along the tracks at Metz and nearby Nowicki's Siding later provided fuel for the fire as it burned through Metz. To the left of the depot stood the largest of Metz's three hotels, owned by Big John Nowicki. After the tragic fire, Big John was accused of delaying the departure of a Detroit and Mackinac relief train sent to evacuate people from Metz by bribing the train crew with food and drinks so he could load all the whiskey from his saloon aboard.