Forward Movement Park logs
Photograph
Eight piles of logs line the west-side banks of the Kalamazoo, just upstream from the Chain Ferry crossing. Two men are standing on the ferry and one man is in a rowboat in the foreground. The photo is dated August but the trees are bare. This image was featured as History Mystery #111 with the question "The west shore ferry landing area was loaded with logs. What is going on here?" and the solution "The year was 1913 and the logs were no doubt awaiting a vessel to carry them away. The rest of the story is lost in history."
2023.10.354
Digital scan
Old Chain Ferry Scows
Chain Ferry Landings
Presbyterian Camp/Camp Gray/Forward Movement Park 1899-2014
The April 18, 1913 Commercial Record states "It looks a little like sawmill days in Saugatuck to anyone who would look at the pile of logs across the river just south of the ferry. The Forward Movement Association have had men busy all winter lumbering in the their woods and now have about 115,000 feet of logs ready for the saw besides the quantities of stove wood they have cut."
1835 Logging and Lumbering
1897 Forward Movement Park, Gray and Presbyterian Camps -2014
Digital data in CatalogIt
These image(s) were copied from the SDHC photo blog [or the Jack Sheridan drive if that was a superior version] in preparation for updating the SDHC website in 2023.