Hartwick Pines State Park

Posted by Bill on Monday, September 17, 2007   |   No Comments

Its nearly 10,000 acres of rolling hills make Harwick Pines one of the largest state parks in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. The centerpiece of the park, of course, is the wonderfully peaceful 49-acre stand of virgin white pine, designated by park officials as Old Growth Pines.

The park also includes a visitors’ center with exhibits, interactive displays, multi-media presentations and other programs. Visitors will also enjoy a fascinating logging museum, four small inland lakes, campgrounds and miles of walking and biking trails. The park’s gentle hills overlook the east branch of the AuSable River, and the whole area is a vivid reminder of the thriving timber industry that once dominated this region of Michigan.

Signs of that colorful time dot the park grounds. In fact, there’s a set of Big Wheels, an apparatus to move logs, guarding the park entrance. Big Wheels were invented by Silas Overpack of Manistee. The idea was to chain logs underneath the axle, and then hitch up horses to pull the load. Big Wheels were an important innovation because they offered an alternative to sled transportation and could be used when there was no snow.

White pine, the material most in demand for the building boom of the second half of the nineteenth century, grew abundantly in the forests of Michigan. By 1869 the state was producing more timber than any other. And for the next three decades, Michigan reigned supreme as the nation’s number one timber-producing region.

The abundance of white pine was one reason for our dominance. But our network of rivers was also an important factor because it provided a quick and convenient means of transporting logs to saw mills and ports on the Great Lakes.

How did this stand of pines escape the crosscut saws? According to park rangers, timber scouts probably passed it over because it was smaller and of limited commercial potential. They may have planned to cut the stand after it had matured for a number of years. At any rate, the crosscut crews never returned, and in 1927 Karen Michelson Hartwick bought 8,000 acres, which included 85 acres of old growth pine, from the Salling-Hanson Company, a logging firm founded by her father, Nels Michelson.

Mrs. Hartwick donated the land to the State of Michigan as a memorial to her late husband, Marjor Edward E. Hartwick, who had died in World War I. Mrs. Hartwick also wished to commemorate Michigan’s logging heritage and her family’s role in it and therefore asked that the Hartwick Pines Logging Museum be built on the land.

Hartwick Pines State Park is easily accessible from I-75. Just take exit 259 and follow the signs on M-93 for three miles. You’ll need a Motor Vehicle Permit, which you can get at the park’s entrance. The address is 4216 Ranger Road, Grayling, MI 49738. Phone: (989) 348-7068.

If you visit Hartwick and get as enthused about Michigan’s logging heritage as I was, you may want to take a side trip to the Lumbermen’s Monument near Oscoda, MI, on Lake Huron. Erected in 1931, the 14-foot bronze statue overlooks the AuSable River.

Oscoda is also said to be the burial site of James MacGillivray, a writer who first mentioned Paul Bunyan in a Detroit News article of July 24, 1910.

Previous: Chicago’s River Cruises

Next: Lineal parks