Frankfort is located on Lake Michigan and Betsie Lake. In the lobby over the postmaster's door of the Colonial Revival U.S. Post Office (1940, Louis A. Simon; 615 Main Street) is displayed Henry Bernstein's mural On Board the Car Ferry Ann Arbor No. 4, February 14, 1923,painted in 1941. The scene depicts the dramatic event of Valentine's Day 1923, when the Ann Arbor Railroad Company Car Ferry No. 4 spent the night lost in a blinding blizzard. Several train cars washed overboard before the ferry finally was stranded on a sandbar. (In another version of the event, the vessel struck the south pier at Frankfort while entering the harbor in a gale and sank alongside the pier. Later, Reid Wrecking Company of Port Huron raised her and she continued in service.) The American Ship Building Company built the vessel in 1906 in Cleveland, Ohio. Ann Arbor Car Ferry No. 4 transported railroad cars from Frankfort to Manitowoc, Wisconsin. In 1973 it was removed from service and scrapped. The replica in miniature of Ann Arbor Car Ferry No. 7 (1925) above the Frankfort Gateway over MI 115 at the top of the hill overlooking the city and harbor announced the importance of the car ferry to the economy of Frankfort.
On Betsie Bay in 2011 the Crystal Lake Art Center is engaged in adapting the U.S. Coast Guard Station (1934; 100 Coast Guard Street) to plans of Quinn Evans for use as the Elizabeth Lane Oliver Center for the Arts.
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