Walton, often referred to as Walton Junction, is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in the northern

Lower Peninsula The Lower Peninsula of Michigan – also known as Lower Michigan – is the larger, southern and less elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; the other being the Upper Peninsula, which is separated by the S ...

of the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

. The community is located within Fife Lake Township,

Grand Traverse County Grand Traverse County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 census, the population was 95,238, making it the largest county in Northern Michigan. Its county seat is Traverse City. The county is part of the Trav ...

, and lies immediately north of the Wexford County line.

History

The railroad junction at Walton was established in 1872 with the completion of an extension of the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad north from Clam Lake (now

Cadillac Cadillac Motor Car Division, or simply Cadillac (), is the luxury vehicle division (business), division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM). Its major markets are the United States, Canada and China; Cadillac models are ...

). The extension include a

wye junction In railroad structures and rail terminology, a wye (like the'' 'Y' ''glyph) or triangular junction (often shortened to just triangle) is a triangular joining arrangement of three rail lines with a railroad switch (set of points) at each corner ...

, with one branch extending northeast to Fife Lake (eventually to Petoskey), and the other extending northwest to

Traverse City Traverse City ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Grand Traverse County, although it partly extends into Leelanau County. The city's population was 15,678 at the 2020 census, while the four-county Traverse C ...

. While the settlement was originally called Walton Junction, a post office by the name of Walton opened on February 14, 1873. It is unclear when this post office closed. Early on, the town gained a reputation due to its lack of law enforcement and for being a rowdy and dangerous locale. The community grew as northerly rail traffic to Traverse City and Petoskey increased throughout the 1880s and 1890s. In 1890, the local publisher, DeWitt Clinton Leach, built a dam on a creek southwest of Walton, and established a

cranberry bog Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus ''Oxycoccus'' of the genus ''Vaccinium''. Cranberries are low, creeping shrubs or vines up to long and in height; they have slender stems that are not th ...

. The bog was abandoned by the early 1920s. In 1909, an extension of the

Manistee and North-Eastern Railroad The Manistee and North-Eastern Railroad Railway Equipment and Publication CompanyThe Official Railway Equipment Register June 1917, p. 579 was a short, standard-gauge line in the U.S. state of Michigan. Organized in 1887, it served several counti ...

(M&NE) opened through the community. This line, which eventually connected Mesick to Grayling, was obliterated in 1925. In 1940, US Highway 131, which had originally run through the community, was shifted onto a newly constructed alignment east of town. Today, all that remains of Walton are a handful of residences and open plats. The original railroad junction is still used and operated by the

Great Lakes Central Railroad The Great Lakes Central Railroad is an American regional railroad operating in the state of Michigan. It was originally called the Tuscola and Saginaw Bay Railway , which was formed on August 26, 1977, to operate over former Penn Central lines ...

Geography

Walton is located in the

northern Lower Peninsula Northern Michigan (also known as Northern Lower Michigan and colloquially within Michigan as "Up North") is a region of the U.S. state of Michigan. The region, which is distinct from the more northerly Upper Peninsula and Isle Royale, which are ...

of Michigan. The community lies immediately north of the Grand Traverse–

Wexford Wexford ( ; archaic Yola dialect, Yola: ''Weiseforthe'') is the county town of County Wexford, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Wexford lies on the south side of Wexford Harbour, the estuary of the River Slaney near the southeastern corner of the ...

county line. The community is roughly equidistant between

and

, being about north of Cadillac, and about southeast of Traverse City.

Major highways

* is a major north–south thoroughfare running immediately east of the community. * is a primarily east–west route serving as a connector between US 131 and the

area.

References

{{Grand Traverse County, Michigan Unincorporated communities in Grand Traverse County, Michigan Unincorporated communities in Michigan Ghost towns in Michigan 1872 establishments in Michigan Populated places established in 1872

History

Geography

Major highways

See also

References