By Frank Passic
LIME LAKE HISTORY, Part 2
We continue our article about Lime Lake in Spring Arbor, as printed in the Albion Evening Recorder, July 9, 1919 pg. 2 in an article entitled “Albion Man Discovered Valuable Marl Beds.”
“The work of development went forward. Spurs were put in from the MCRR Air Line that ran between the two lakes. Boarding houses were built for the workers who themselves were building barges that carry four freight cars each out into the lake to receive their loads of marl out of the marshy shore. Dredges went steaming and fussing up and down the edge devouring the land in great chunks like a small boy biting into his cookie.
This has been going on for more than a decade. Each day but the Sabbath from March to November, sees 18 carloads of marl sent over the road to the Union City factory. Two great lakes now meet the eye where mere ponds were before. These are very deep and hence a beautiful blue. Fed by immense springs, they are always fresh and afford good fishing. In some places no bottom to the marl beds can be found, and the owners estimate that the supply will not be exhausted in 100 years. So pure and white is the product that chunks dropped from the freshly loaded cars look like chunks of lime; the cars are white-washed by it and the track all the way to Union City.
The article concludes: “And in that city are factories converting this gift of nature into material for builders to use, all because there were some Albion men with a vision and enough ambition and enthusiasm to make it practical.” I wish we knew who those Albion men were.
Mining was discontinued in August, 1929. The Spring Arbor history states, (Pg. 64) “The closing came about because they were forced to burn so much coal to drive the water out of the marl that they could not compete with plants using lime rock.”
Today, Lime Lake is a popular recreational lake, used for boating, kayaking, fishing, and walking along the adjacent Falling Waters Trail (FWT). Now over a century later, there are still underwater evidences of mining operations at Lime Lake, in the form of marl walls, pillars, “mountains,” and formations of all shapes and sizes. The contour has been described as “a coral reef without the coral.” This has attracted the attention of Michigan (and beyond) scuba divers as a popular dive site. The depth reaches up to 33 feet.
In 2012, divers from the Divers Mast Scuba shop club in Jackson prepared a “nook” of land along the FWT at Lime Lake for use as a scuba diving launch site. After permits were obtained and donations raised, a heavy tarp measuring 15 wide by 40 feet long was installed in the water. It was topped with pea stone to prevent divers from sinking in the muck as they walked out to the drop-off. During the clean-up/preparation day on August 18, 2012, over a truckload of metal debris was pulled from the water. In addition, a walking path was prepared beginning from the nearby small parking lot to the dive site just south of the FWT. That path was later upgraded and paved by Spring Arbor Township for the installation of their walking trail which now joins the FWT at that point.
Lime Lake has since become a popular Michigan scuba diving site, as its unique underwater contour and better visibility have given the lake an attractive reputation in the Midwest diving community. There have already been two write-ups about this dive site in national diving periodicals. In addition to diving the site, divers also eat at nearby restaurants and patronize other local businesses while they are in town. It is a win-win situation. Concluding this series, from our Historical Notebook this week we present a photograph of volunteers from Diver’s Mast preparing the dive site at Lime Lake on August 18, 2012. Also illustrated is a June 29, 2025 photo showing part of the underwater “Gnome Village” located on a marl mountain. This is just one of numerous attractions in the lake designed especially for divers. Contact your local dive shop if you are interested in scuba diving lessons. How many of our readers have ever been to Lime Lake?
