Relief Shacks

After the horrendous fire in the Metz area, 84 of 110 families were left homeless, and with frost already settling over the area and the brutal northern Michigan winter approaching, providing adequate shelter for survivors became a major concern. James D. Hawks, vice-president and general manager of D&M, sent all the railroad's construction crews into the Metz area to build 14-foot by 16-foot wood and tarpaper shacks with dirt floors to house the survivors. Even the rough lumber for the shacks had to be brought in by train because the lumber town of Metz was without lumber, with almost all the logs, lumber, and sawmills in the entire area destroyed in the fire. Each shack had three small rooms, two equipped with bunkbeds, and a boxcar load of small woodstoves for heating and cooking was donated by the Detroit Stove Company and transported to Metz by the D&M. About 165 shacks were constructed, and only one is known to still exist.

Michigan · United States