BY ALEX PIAZZA
EMPIRE -- Mike Bolton was out for a walk on his property when he reached the peak of a small hill that gave him a view of his home and barn.
It wasn't the rustic scene he anticipated. Smoke poured from a utility shed and billowed 60 feet in the air. Flames soon followed and shot through the roof.
The shed stood next to a historic barn on Manning's Centennial Farm on East Manning Road off M-22 near Empire. Firefighters on Tuesday afternoon rushed to the site but couldn't save the flaming building, though their work helped spare the historic structure, a remnant of the region's settlement days.
The Manning Farm dates to 1885, family members said.
Fire investigators examined burn patterns Wednesday morning in an effort to learn what sparked the fire.
"The only logical thing would be the wood stove," Bolton said. "We've used it for years and had no issues."
Homestead Township Fire Chief Frank Walterhouse said the fire's cause remains under investigation, but he suspects the stove.
The fire did not seriously damage adjacent buildings, including the historic barn and three nearby sheds, Walterhouse said.
Walterhouse said the barn sustained minimal damage to its roof, but he was shocked it was spared.
"The wind was blowing toward the barn," he said.
Firefighters focused all of their initial efforts on preventing the fire from jumping to the barn, he said.
"That wood shed's a total loss, but it's amazing that it didn't hurt anything else," said Bolton's neighbor, Tom Brodhagen, as he drove by the pile of rubble Wednesday afternoon. "It's just kind of tragic because he's put a lot of time into restoring that farm."
Bolton's 1962 Cadillac didn't fare well, either.
He stored the classic car in his utility shed, and drove it around Benzie County during the summer.
"It was black, and it still is," he said.
Bolton and his family live in Belding, but frequent the Benzie County farm on weekends.
The utility shed served as a wood and tool shop. Several woodworking tools were destroyed in the fire, but "those are all things a person can replace," he said.
The Manning Centennial Farm was built in 1885. The Historical Society of Michigan classifies a farm as "centennial" if a family has owned it for at least 100 years, the farm consists of at least ten acres and it actively produces farm products, said Shannon White, assistant director of the historical society.
