Two cents, Please!

Residents recall toll gate

   There's a  pastel pink house on South State Street that has a very long and interesting history.  It is believed to be about 125 years old and was located at three different sites in the Big Rapids area before finally coming to rest at its present location in about 1911.
   The existence of the old traveling house was first brought to THE PIONEER'S attention when Les Harkins of Rogers Heights asked about the history behind an old postcard he acquired which shows a toll gate in Big Rapids.  From that starting point, it required a series of talks with old timers in the area to piece together a history on the house and finally determine it was still standing at a location on South State Street.
   Joe Stratz, an 87-year-old pioneer farmer from Big Rapids, remembers "running the gate lots of times because I didn't have the two cents: and he confirms the old toll road house is now located on State Street.  The toll road ran from Big Rapids to Paris and the rate was two cents a mile.  Stratz still owns a large farm on West Avenue and he remembers back in the early 1900's when he made almost daily trips to his pasture land north of the airport.
   "It was a money making scheme," recalls Stratz who believes the toll road was established about 1889 by a group of Big Rapids businessmen.  "They had the franchise for about 20 years."
   According to Stratz, the toll gate was first located near what is now the entrance to Roben-Hood Airport.  "Then the law got after them for operating within the city limits and they moved it out in the township," he says.  "They moved it on rollers and pushed it with a steam engine to the four corners" which Stratz points out is now the intersection of 18 Mile Road and 205th Avenue.
   Stratz thinks it was about 1911 when "two guys hitched on to the gate and pulled it out so that was the end of the toll road."  He explains there was a lot of public opposition to the toll gate and "it caused plenty of disturbance."
   Big Rapids City Commissioner Charles Fairman picks up the story about this old house at this point by recalling it was before World War I when his father, George, purchased the building and moved it to the present location on State Street.
   "I was just a small kid but I remember they put wheels under it and used horses to move it along," reports Fairman.  "It was an old home then so I imagine it's about 125 years old now."