This week’s Back to the Present, provided by the Menominee Range Historical Museum, looks at the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Depot in Channing. The village of Channing began as a railroad station called Ford Siding in Sagola Township. Platted June 28, 1893, by the Milwaukee Land Company on the W 1/2 of NW 1/4 of Section 8, T43N of R30W, the village was named for John Parke Channing, a highly-respected mining engineer who was exploring the area near the beginning of his career. The post office was established Dec. 7, 1892, with Horace W. Bent serving as postmaster.

An advertisement to “boom” the new town of Channing on the Lake Superior Division was placed by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway, appeared in the July 13, 1893, edition of Iron Mountain’s The Range-Tribune. The following information appeared in the advertisement: “Channing is located at the junction of the main line of what was formerly the Milwaukee & Northern Railroad, with the new branch leading to Ontonagon. It will be a division station where the railroad company propose to erect numerous buildings necessary to the proper conduct of business. The town was laid out by the Milwaukee Land Company, a corporation which controls townsites all over the St. Paul system, and no pains will be spared to make Channing an important business as well as railroad centre. Special Inducements will be offered to the first party who will erect a substantial and commodious hotel for the accommodation of the traveling public and railway employees.”