MARP Member Meeting
Saturday, October 8, 2016
Dowagiac City Hall
241 S Front St, Dowagiac MI 49047
Map & Directions
Make your plans now to attend the October 8, 2016 MARP meeting in Dowagiac. This venue offers the rare opportunity for many of you to arrive via train, whether you live along the Blue Water route or the Wolverine route. The meeting will begin at 11:00 am to accommodate the train schedule.
Blue Water Train #365 arrives into Dowagiac at 10:50 AM and departs for the return trip at 6:43 PM.
Wolverine Train #351 will make a special stop, arriving into Dowagiac at 9:45 AM. You will return home on Wolverine Train #358, departing at 7:21 PM.
For Wolverine riders, Amtrak’s online reservation system will automatically ticket you to and from Dowagiac on this Saturday at the usual fares for this segment. Please thank John Langdon for making these arrangements with Amtrak.
An alternative for Wolverine route folks, if “low bucket” tickets become unavailable, is to take #351 to Battle Creek and transfer to Blue Water #365 at Battle Creek.
Dowagiac City Hall is located immediately across the street from the station. Take a moment to look around the historic station to appreciate the work of the Dowagiac High School Choir members who yearly wash the 100+ panes of glass in the windows and polish the beautiful wood paneling. MARP member Ron Leatz organizes this volunteer effort.
Following MARP’s business meeting, we will adjourn to Zeke’s for our usual no-host lunch.
The Dowagiac Area History Museum will remain open for us until 3:00 PM to provide us an opportunity to learn about the products that made Dowagiac famous, as well as the entrepreneurs and personalities who had made this a surprisingly vital community.
After the museum visit, you will enjoy being part of the action as Dowagiac celebrates its annual Under The Harvest Moon Festival in the downtown area. Be sure to visit Caruso’s Candy Kitchen & Soda Fountain, where the family has been serving up old-fashioned sodas, hand-dipped ice cream, and handmade chocolates since 1922.
Dowagiac is a small community rich in history. Dowagiac was platted in 1848 when the Michigan Central Railroad arrived. The current Dowagiac train station was built by the Michigan Central Railroad in 1902, and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1993. Dowagiac is famous manufacturing the Round Oak Stoves that heated trains and stations all along the Michigan Central line. Sold worldwide, Round Oak Stoves eventually took up more than one million square feet of manufacturing space and employed more than 1,000 residents in a complex where Ameriwood turns out ready-to-assemble furniture today. Heddon Fishing Lures is another enterprise that put Dowagiac on the map and now attracts collectors and visitors to its museum. Dowagiac today enjoys a vital literary and arts scene. Among the numerous public sculptures to be seen on a walking tour of the downtown area are the three bronze Cheetahs on the Run that you see bounding alongside the track as the westbound train pulls into the station. The Dogwood Fine Arts Festival each May brings in nationally renowned authors and showcases home grown talent.
