Dear friends and family,
Here’s a story that shows dad’s advocacy of public recreational lands. I remember years ago when we lived in Utica, Michigan in the 1960’s how excited he became about a new park that was under construction around an artificial lake called Stony Creek Metropark. He would drive us out there to view the construction of the roads and enjoy the views from the hills. His excitement was infectious.
When they began working on the Polly Ann Trail, dad was doubly enthusiastic because he lived one house away from the trail in Dryden. He would walk his dog on the abandoned tracks and imagine it as a finished walking trail. Dad was bursting with excitement when they finally tore the tracks out and began smoothing the trail out. Dad wrote about the trails that the Polly Ann linked up to but, I think the section through Lapeer County is probably the most beautiful part of the trail system. There are awesome views of meadows and creeks with abundant wildlife. A true paradise for those that want to have a long-peaceful walk or bicycle ride. You want to bring water and food because they did not build restaurants or stores to supply the trail participants.
I hope you enjoy this story and perhaps, you might want to walk the Poly Ann Trail, some day.
Love to all,
David T
p.s. Don’t be shy about making any kind of remarks in the “Comments” section at the end of each story.
“Rails To Trails Are Peaceful”
By Don Tschirhart
Excerpted from the unpublished book “It’s a Wonderful World II: A Retired Reporter Looks At Life“
Rails To Trails Are Peaceful
My friend and Cairn terrier, Molly, is a walker. Just mention the word “walk” and her whole body wags.
That’s why she jumped for joy when one day last fall we strolled the beautiful Polly Ann Trail in Dryden. All those wild rabbit, raccoon and woodchuck smells send her from one side of the trail to the other.
Up ahead two young boys were riding bicycles. A woman, her husband and three children walked toward me.
I thought to myself. How wonderful to have a trail so quiet and tranquil. It’s like something out of northern Michigan.
Then I remembered how a small group of Lapeer homeowners, horse people and bicyclists fought for a dozen years against heavy opposition to get the abandoned railroad track between Bordman Road and Kings Mill on Lapeer County’s east side declared a 17-mile linear, rail-to-trail state park.
No motorized vehicles — motorcycles, RVs or cars — are allowed on the trail, but the signs declaring this are too often ignored.
For those who are new to Lapeer County and to remind those who may have forgotten, there was a passenger and freight train line opened in 1888 from Pontiac to Port Austin at the tip of the thumb. It was called the Pontiac, Oxford and Northern, which was abbreviated to P.O.& N. Locals affectionately dubbed it Polly Ann. From 1909 it was operated by the Grand Trunk Railroad Co.
A friend of mine told me that about 30 years ago the train derailed and blocked traffic on Hollow Corners Road (a mile north of Dryden Road) for a week until cars could be righted and the tracks replaced. The last train to go the entire route was in February, 1984.
Weeds and scrub trees grew up on the abandoned track. Some adjacent property owners said Grand Trunk had promised to allow them to buy the 50-foot-wide track route. The owners waged a battle to control the route including an unsuccessful law suit.
Because Grand Trunk had agreed decades ago to sell the corridor to the state the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, using a federal matching grant, they bought the corridor in 1993 for $728,000.
Since then volunteers and county prisoners have cleared six miles of the parkway in Dryden township and village and using donated lumber and labor constructed six large wooden bridges to replace unsafe ones.
Volunteers, most from a group called Friends of the Polly Ann Trail, have said they would also like to help clear the weed-covered section of the trail in Imlay, Attica and Arcadia townships and Imlay City.
But city and township officials in these towns have rejected the offer saying some residents do not want the trail.
Like the old “hip-bone-connected-to” song, the Lapeer section of the Polly Ann is connected to the Oakland Polly Ann that traverses Leonard village, Addison and Orion townships and is then connected to the Stony Creek trail that goes through Rochester which in turn is connected to the new trail near Romeo and Armada. Eventually, the entire trail will connect Kings Mill in northern Lapeer to Metropolitan Beach Park on Lake St. Clair and other parts of southeast Michigan.
While I would like Lapeer County to remain as rural as possible, present residents shouldn’t be like ostriches and stick their heads in the sand.
More homes, stores and factories will be built in Lapeer County. This means more people and more people means need for more recreational needs, that is, more park land.
Where will the newcomers come from? That’s easy.
Just a few miles south of the Lapeer County southern border is the so-called Automation Alley, in Oakland County centered at the I-75 and M-59 freeway interchange. There is the Oakland Technology Center and the Daimler-Chrysler Headquarters and Research Center and many other high-tech companies.
They get high-tech wages. High-tech wages buys high-priced houses and shop at department stores.
At the same time Interstate-69 bisects Lapeer County and is the main truck route from Quebec, Canada, to Mexico.
But you say, Lapeer County is a residential community. You’re right. Families will be moving here. And as they migrate land prices go up. Higher acreage prices and park land prices will zoom.
That’s why it is important to accumulate as much vacant property as possible for parks to service future home owners at today’s bargain prices.
It is the reason the state’s purchase of the Polly Ann Trail is so important to the county. The park makes available to residents a safe place for families to ‘re-create’ themselves.
As the old sayings goes, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
Don Tschirhart
