Jan 29 2008
Riverside Natural Area - Morenci
This has been a strange day. I woke up to a phone call from school announcing a snowless snow day. Now, Adrian is in the middle of a thunderstorm. And the wind chills are supposed to go well below zero tomorrow morning. Weird.
Anyway, I decided to find a new hike today in Morenci. Morenci is a small community on the Michigan/Ohio border about two-thirds of the way west along the southern border of Lenawee County. It has a neat little downtown and the community seems to be functional and cohesive, unlike some towns in Hillsdale/Lenawee/Monroe.
My target today was the Riverside Natural Area on the north side of town. The “river” in question is actually Bean Creek as its flow exits the state. It’s kind of unusual to find a Monroe/Lenawee hike that doesn’t involve the River Raisin.
The Riverside Natural Area is on the west side of North Street. There is a dirt entry road that does not seem too busy. This entryway basically links to the city’s sidewalk system for a potentially long walk.
The entry takes a visitor to a circle along Bean Creek. Today, I walked a path along the east side of the river for about half a mile. The park is well-worn, but it is quite interesting. There is a little bit of up-and-down terrain and the river offers some really nice views.
One of the unique aspects of the park is the presence of many buckeye trees. The park IS in Michigan, but it is so close to scarlet and gray country that the god-foresaken trees have invaded the place. Hehe. They are actually quite nice.
Recent restoration projects have begun to make the park more natural. An old ballfield is returning to nature. And the park is basically being left alone. Still, the river is quite eroded in this area and it will be some time before the park is completely natural.
I need to come back to the park. There is apparently a perimeter path around the park-proper. And I never quite made it south far enough to see if the riverside trail makes it back to town. If it does, city sidewalks could make for a nice hiking loop.
This one bears some additional investigation.
This was my route today on Microsoft Virtual Earth:
Here’s a plant list for the park from a 2004 park restoration project:
http://www.beancreekwatershed.org/riverside.htm
David Green of the State Line Observer has a great article about the place:
http://statelineobserver.com/content/view/261/43/
Note: Thanks to David Green for a correction. I mistakenly referred to the stream in this park as the Tiffin River. It is Bean Creek. The creek graduates to river status across the border in Ohio.
Tiffin River? Please, it’s not the Tiffin until it reaches the Ohio border. In Michigan, it’s the Bean, named after the many redbud trees with their bean-like seed pods.
I’m glad you enjoyed the place. Maybe I can show you around sometime.
Thanks, David, for the info. I actually did check that on my Universal Map atlas. But you trump the map.
So, is it the Bean River in Morenci? Or is it still Bean Creek? And if it is still Bean Creek, how can the area be named “Riverside?”
BTW, I just love your blog. You have a very quirky sensibility. Everyone should check it out.
BTW#2, Morenci is the first place that I’ve ever been stopped by a police officer for hiking. I returned to my car and the officer drove right up, asked me what I was doing and gave me a pretty thorough once over.
More questions:
Is it possible to hike all the way back into town along the east side riverbank? And what is the status of the land on the west side? Is any of that public?
My goal would be to get a four or five mile route with as much nature and local history as is possible.
Thanks in advance.
It’s Bean Creek. It’s not called a river until you reach it’s odd appearance in Ohio where the Army Corps of Engineers turned it into a big ditch.
The park was known as Riverside Park (or the Tourist Camp) for decades. There is a trail back into town. Segments of it are owned by three different people, but it’s been considered public domain “forever.” The west is now owned by the city for future park use. The land connects with Wakefield Park in town.
The effort to turn Riverside into a natural area isn’t going all that well. We still don’t have signs up and we’re always fighting vandalism. Three benches have been destroyed and people continue to drive and make ruts off the road. Maybe this was part of the police officer’s suspicions. We try to make them aware of vandals. I’m sure you look vandalous or vandalific.
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