La Plaisance Bay Pike

A marker tells the story of La Plaisance Bay Pike, a turnpike built in the mid 1800s that ran from the La Plaisance Bay on the northwest shore of Lake Erie to the settlement of Jacksonburg (the present-day Jackson) and then further southeast where it intersected the Sauk Trail.  The intersection, some 30 miles southeast of Jacksonburg, was called Cambridge Junction and a popular stagecoach stop, the Walker Tavern flourished there in the 19^th century (see below). The road was completed in 1835 and a few years later several boggy sections of it were covered by oak planks.  During those years, thousands of settlers heading to West Michigan and beyond used the pike road.