by Peter Jakey, Managing Editor

It won’t be long before the remaining buildings from the once thriving community of Petersville will be forever wiped from the landscape. Near the popular tourist stop, Quarry View, the farmhouse and barn of Alvis Radka still stand, as does the one-floor structure of Fred Radka. Almost directly across the road is the boarded up house of Joseph Kasuba. While the Radka properties are slowly being dismantled, and have been owned by Carmeuse Lime & Stone for the last three years, the Kasuba house remains under ownership of the family.

Dolores (Kasuba) Rickle of Rogers City, born June 25, 1938, in the front, lakeside bedroom of the house, said family health issues prevented the sale for many years. In the meantime, neither side has come forward to initiate talks and the family isn?t interested in moving the house, so there it stands, much the way it has for a couple of decades. In 1929, Paul H. Hoeft, Rogers Township supervisor, plotted the Kasuba house as the final property on the southern boundary of Petersville. It will more than likely be the last one there.

Progress, a two-sided coin

It was progress that spelled the beginning of the end of Petersville. The expanding quarry, which provided a good wage to so many families, needed room to grow and the company wanted the rich limestone underneath many of the property owner’s homes. After several years of negotiating, the first few home sites were sold in the early 1960s, and plot by plot, the properties were sold. The former owners were given the opportunity of buying back houses at low cost and moving them to different sites. Many of the houses remain in Grand Lake, Millersburg, or along Lake Huron as cottages.

“I remember them blasting, later on, towards the end of the settlement,” said Daniel Mulka, who spent a half dozen of his childhood years growing up there. “Everyone was concerned about their wells and their windows, because it was that close.” Mulka said Frank Buza was a real estate agent for U.S. Steel and struck deals with the people.” His parents received $22,000 for three acres and their home. “That was in the 1970s,” said Mulka. “I think I remember hearing my parents saying that they thought it wasn?t enough.”

History of Petersville

David Wilson of Ireland homesteaded the 120-acre farm that eventually became Petersville. President Ulysses S. Grant signed the original homestead certificate, issued Sept. 1, 1875. Wilson transferred the property to his daughter, Rillah Simons, via quitclaim deed Dec. 3, 1900 and she added her husband, Robert Simons, as co-owner on Dec. 16, 1903. On Dec. 12, 1914, Rillah and Robert Simons gave daughters Lydia, Mildred and Irene the property. Records show that Robert Simons leased the property to Carl D. Bradley on Nov. 30, 1927 for five years. After the five-year lease period, Ray W. Peters, who was married to Lydia, bought out the other owners. “When I was a baby in 1933,” said Keith Peters, the son of Ray and Lydia, “we moved to the farm and lived in the old farmhouse which was partially log construction. I don’t recall how long we lived at the farm before moving into Rogers City on Sixth Street.” Keith Peters now makes his home in Ithaca. Ray Peters had a trucking business in town and began plotting the farm into Petersville in 1936.

Longtime Rogers City resident Ed Mulka, who lives on South Sixth Street, remembers double winged planes landing at Simons Field, which ran parallel to what is now business 23, from the bridge to Joe Kasuba’s. Simons Field was later filled with houses. There are believed to have been as many as 50 to 60 homes built between the two hills that marked the north/south boundaries, starting into the late 1930s. It almost has to be considered a suburb of Rogers City, one mile away. Estelle (Witulski) Plume, started her life 72 years ago in Petersville, said some still joke that Rogers City was a suburb of Petersville.

Plume has spent the last several years using every ounce of her remaining energy, trying to preserve whatever nuggets of historical information about the vanishing town. She believes it is important part of the local history. “We had more homes than Hawks,” she said. Her parents were among the last to move in 1962.

Life in Petersville

Dr. Earl Fairbanks, 92, of Hawks, lived in three different homes, including Doc Bruning’s in 1942. It was located across the roadway from Joe Kasuba’s home. “People were very obliging and would do anything for you,” said Fairbanks. One of his neighbors was Fred and Lilly Radka, who would take Earl along to family birthday parties. “We played Spitzer, and had a good time.”

When the tiny army of workers wasn”t migrating to the quarry to earn the day”s wages, or there were chores needing to be done, Spitzer seemed the game of choice, while children enjoyed playing hide-and-seek in barns, ran in the orchards, played ball behind Dick Haneckow’s neighborhood store, or sliding on banks in the only unofficial park in Petersville: the Calcite quarry. “We would be sliding down the banks, and we would be maybe 10 to 20 feet above the shovels, and they would be digging under us,? said Plume, recalling one of her most vivid memories. She had to make sure her dad wasn’t driving one of the trains taking the limestone back to the plant, or she would have got her hide tanned later that day. Some of the shovel operators went as far as allowing children into the buckets, and gave the Petersville kids carnival-like rides, before the next train arrived. Estelle said the operator said , “climb in and hang on.” “They would give us a ride up and down until the next train was sighted,” Estelle said.

Today, visitors are not allowed on the property unless they make an appointment, sign a form, and wear safety goggles and a helmet. “My recollection is that there were a lot of kids,” said Daniel Mulka. “Everyone was in such close proximity, everyone knew each other.” Wives and mothers canned, preserved and pickled produce by the bushel, and some raised enough extra to sell. Four or five families, from Rogers City didn’t have homes in Petersville, but would drive out to tend to their gardens, which were more like mini-crops.

There were those who also had their own chickens, rabbits, a cow and even pigs. Charlie Cook owned and operated a turkey farm for five years in the late 1940s and early 1950s. And whatever Petersville didn’t have, usually required a ride or walk into Rogers City. “We did a lot of walking it seems,” said Daniel Mulka. Plume remembers getting out of the movies and getting ready for the hike home when it started to rain. “Mrs. Haneckow was there with her daughter and pulled up and said, ‘climb on.’ Whoever could get in, got a ride to Petersville. We had eight people in the cab and six in the rumble seat.”

There also was a person hanging from each fender. Dolores Rickle said a popular Sunday activity was walking to the North Star Restaurant (next to the motel) for a soda and a hamburger. She said the owners also would show drive-in movies on a screen where the pool now is. Children trick-or-treated on Halloween and handsome boys dated pretty girls. Petersville had a short life as communities go, no more than 35 years. That was just enough time to raise a family and see them bring their own families home to visit. In some cases, young families settled in the little community.

First reunion

 

Some 30 years after the first house was sold to Calcite, about 250 people gathered at Belknap Township Hall on July 24, 1993 to reminisce at the first official Petersville reunion. They came from Detroit, Flint, Bay City, and places in between. The old Petersville sign, its whereabouts now unknown, made a great conversation piece. There were a few more reunions, but as the years went by, many of the original settlers passed away and the gatherings got smaller. The last original owner, Louise Nowak, died last winter. “It’s sad in a lot of ways,” said Keith Peters, “because it was a community, and home to quite a few people.”