Refer to comments Submitted by: Jason alexander

The town's sole purpose was to
liquidate Ward's Michigan lumber assets as directed in his will. I dont recall the exact acreage, but it was well into the hundreds of thousands.The mill constructed there was, at the time, a state of the art facility designed by the finest German engineers. Ward's property was successfully logged off within his will's required 10 year period and the mill closed
down in 1912. The rest of your information is pretty much accurate. No buildings are left from that era, only a few foundations. - Bob Goniea

I can't tell you a lot off the top of my head, but I have more information in various places. Deward was a town as you say, that existed briefly (just over a decade) near the end of the Michigan lumbering. It basically was created for the purpose of lumbering lands formerly owned by David Ward of West Bloomfield, MI. I'm not sure of the full story behind the land and his will, but I do know that he set a time limit on which it could be commercially cut for the wood upon his passing and anything that was to be cut had to be done in that window of time. When the lumbermill was first constructed, they put his first initial and last name on the front of the building, 'D Ward' and thus everyone started calling the place 'Deward'.
My great great grandmother was widowed and ended up taking a job as a cook in Deward during the height of their lumbering. If you are at all interested, I can dig out the box of old family photos and try to find some of the post cards she sent to relatives in SW Michigan which were later returned to us from a descendant of those relatives.  I think there is a similar photo to the one you have posted of the town itself, and there is also a drawn 'layout' of the town in there somewhere that when I mentioned it to the librarian at the Manistee Library, they tried to beg me to donate it to their collection.
There were a couple of other photos in there from Deward including some folks riding the logs down the river and other assorted stuff around town. One of my favorites is a non-descript picture of half-a-dozen guys standing around with their rifles and scribbled in pencil across the bottom it reads simply 'Deward Gun Club' Courtesy Scott Wood.

Deward store
Courtesy Chris Moore

Deward
Courtesy Chris Moore

Deward Foundation- About all that remains
Courtesy Chris Moore

Another Deward foundation
Courtesy Chris Moore