Owosso's castle and the Polar Express: Shiawassee's storybook side

Owosso, the seat of Shiawassee County, has two landmarks straight out of a storybook. The first is an actual castle: Curwood Castle, the turreted riverside writing studio that adventure novelist James Oliver Curwood — in the 1920s one of the best-paid authors on earth — built on the banks of the Shiawassee River in his hometown. It’s a museum now, and the city throws a Curwood Festival in his honor each June.

The second breathes fire. The Steam Railroading Institute in Owosso is home of Pere Marquette 1225, a 400-ton steam locomotive that Michigan kids know by sound: its blueprints and audio became the train in ‘The Polar Express,’ and every winter its North Pole Express excursions sell out as families ride behind the real thing through the snow. Around these two showpieces spreads a county of honest farm towns — Durand with its grand railroad depot and museum, Corunna’s courthouse square, Laingsburg’s lake country — an easy drive to Lansing or Flint but a world apart in pace.