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www.mybaycity.com September 2, 2004
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Take a Nature Walk Through Bay City's Historic Treasure Land -- Vets Park

Fall Offers a Last Chance to Enjoy the Flowered Paradise of the Waterfront

September 2, 2004       Leave a Comment
By: Dave Rogers

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Bay City's Veterans Memorial Park is a wondrous blend of nature and history
 
Across an expanse of calm water a lone heron preens atop a piling while another toys with a morning catch

      On a hazy September morn, Veterans Memorial Park is a wondrous blend of nature and history.

      Weight-conscious strivers, bare-chested joggers and serious mountain bikers are occasional passersby, nodding or grunting "g'mornin' as they go.

      Across the river an unseen train toots now and again at street crossings, heading south behind the trees. A mysterious trip to who knows where through Bay City's leafy South End.

      Ducks biding their time before the long trip south, pigeons and the ubiquitous seagulls waddle placidly in the path of walkers. They're obviously used to intruders in their territory.

      Across an expanse of calm water a lone heron preens atop a piling while another toys with a morningcatch, a silver shiner plucked from the shallows. An elderly couple stops to watch the heron, hoping to see him, or her, gulp the breakfast prize.

      Along the RiverWalk is encountered Kantzler Memorial Arboretum, established by the Bay City Garden Club in 1981. It is a paradise of flowered plots, some sponsored by groups, individuals and companies, each with its own character determined by floral selection and design.

      Visitors unfamiliar with Bay City would surely be amazed bythe panorama of history along the riverfront. The products of this short stretch of riverfront were amazing: Great Lakes steamships and barges, wooden boxes, hoops, barrels and staves, the nation's first knock-down boats, elegant yachts, speedboats and trailers, frothy beer by the barrel.

      The 20 foot high wooden rudder of the 335 foot long Steamer Sacramento would amaze any newcomer to the park. "You mean they really built the world's longest wooden ships right here?" the visitor might ask.


      A diversion from the concrete path to a wooden outlook displaying the Davidson Shipbuilding Company's sunken artifacts will confirm that phenomenal fact. It is an instant history lesson and one that never fails to amaze even those who have seen it before.

      "Crump Manufacturing Company" reads one historic plaque, "Goldie Hoop, Stave and Plug Works," another, "Jackson, Saginaw and Lansing Railroad Docks," a third. The imagination must reconstruct those sites as they are long gone, remembered only because of the attention paid to history by the RiverWalk planners.

      "Phoenix Brewery produced 20,000 barrels of beer a year before Prohibition," reads another interpretive sign, located in front of the ancient red brick building, still looming over the riverfront as it did a century ago.

      Through the morning mist on the river two hardy lasses pull steadily on the oars of their rowing sculls, their voices wafting ashore as they chat. Surely the most unusual scene for "girltalk" that anyone could imagine. The pencil-thin craft slip easily through the placid waters toward the boathouse on the Middlegrounds.

      On the opposite bank looms the monolithic old Industrial Brownhoist Foundry Building that will be a centerpiece of the Uptown at RiversEdge development. Surrounding are huge ancient industrial structures, almost incongruous amidst the crisp rows of new upscale condominiums beginning to line the riverbank.

      A radical interloper has taken considerable pains to splash white paint reading "Boycott Big Oil," whatever that means, on one of the old buildings. Pointless political graffiti is the only conclusion we can reach.

      The Grand Trunk RiverWalk Pier is built on the railroad bridge foundation laid in 1911. The picturesque spot is a tribute to RiverWalk's initiator Peggy Rowley, fundraiser extraordinary. A jaunt on that pier takes a visitor even closer to nature, virtually in the center of the river. Soon winterwill come and the pier will be closed, its colorful gazebo offering a lonely haven for passing birds.

      As fall reaches frosty fingers along the RiverWalk, the morning faithful now trodding the wooden pathways will gradually move to the monotony of shopping malls.

      Waterbirds will flap by overhead enroute to southern havens. Snow will encase the Trombley/Centre House and the Meyer log cabin and the docks surrounding the boat launches, along with the old brewery and the rest of the park.

      But there's still plenty of time to enjoy a glorious fall morning on the RiverWalk and time to renew your enthusiasm for the grand and amazing history of Bay City that it showcases.###



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February 10, 2020
by: Rachel Reh
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Dave Rogers

Dave Rogers is a former editorial writer for the Bay City Times and a widely read,
respected journalist/writer in and around Bay City.
(Contact Dave Via Email at carraroe@aol.com)

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