Mystery house went through ice

While looking up items to fill our Peeking In The Past feature (see Page 7), we ran across this article from the Aug. 13, 1970 Oxford Leader. It’s a little local history we think you might enjoy. — DPR

Aug., 1970 — A few weeks ago, an old straight-back chair and a stove were found by skindivers at the bottom of Horseshoe Lake, north of Oxford on Oakwood Rd.
Divers reported that there was a house, a one-story model with the walls fallen outward, at the bottom of the lake. They also said there was an old truck at the bottom near the house. A ranger at the lake, which is the home of the Detroit Sportsmen’s Congress, said he had been told the house and truck might have been dropped in the lake by a 1948 tornado.
Stub Robinson, an Oxford barber and parttime historian, says he knows what really happened at Horseshoe Lake. According to Robinson, he and several other youths from Oxford back in 1926 or 1927 used the one-room shack on Horseshoe for weekend activites.

“We used to terrorize a caretaker named William Rogers,” said Robinson. “Finally, he (Rogers) decided to burn the shack to keep us kids out of it.”
Robinson said Rogers dragged the old shack out on the ice one winter to burn it, because he was afraid to burn on land for fear it might start a fire in the cedar swamp.
“When he dragged it out on the ice, the ice gave way and the small house sank to the bottom of the lake,” Robinson explained. “I don’t know how the truck got there, but maybe it was used to pull the house out on the lake and went through when it did.”
Robinson said he and other youths from Oxford had furnished the small house with a couple of straight-back chairs, a rocker, bunk bed, table and tin stove. “It was just a small place,” Robinson said. “Maybe 15 by 20 feet, it was, but we used to have a lot of fun in it on weekends.”
Among the “kids” he said once used the small house were Don Miller, “Red” Hallock, Fred Stites and Lyle Spies.

  Laverne “Stub” Robinson, Stub Robinson