By Joel Thurtell
Knowing of my interest in the Rouge River, my friend John W. Smith told me about what he thought
Trash or treasure? Is this an artifact of history or some piece of junk dumped in the Rouge River at Beverly Hills' Douglas Evcans Nature Preserve? Joel Thurtell photo.
might be the remains of a 19th century mill lying in the Rouge not far from his home in Beverly Hills, Mich.
What John reported was some kind of mechanism with very old-looking wheels. These were not car wheels, or even modern trailer wheels. They were all-metal, flat wheels with metal spokes.
Junk car in the Rouge April 2008. Joel Thurtell photo.
Well, I was hooked. I’ve spent a fair amount of time finding, logging and reporting trash in the Rouge River in Metro Detroit. I’ve seen everything from old cars to washing machines, from bathtubs to shopping carts, milk crates, fire extingusihers, myriad bottles and jugs both glass and plastic, car axles, and even TV set.
Many of the cars I’ve seen have since been removed through the efforts of Friends of the Rouge and the Livonia construction company, Aristeo. But this report of a possible 19th century mill artifact in Beverly Hills intrigued me.
Six years ago, when I was still a reporter with the Detroit Free Press, I canoed the Rouge in Beverly Hills with Pat Beck, a Free Press photographer. We did a story about that mid-November canoe jaunt in 2002, and from that sprang our idea for a canoe trip up the Rouge River. We did that project in June 2005, and next March, Wayne State University Press will publish our book about the adventure, It’s called UP THE ROUGE! PADDLING DETROIT’S HIDDEN RIVER.
But back to this antique mill junk reported to be in the Rouge. I went with John and a friend and former Detroit News reporter and editor, Dave Good. John is a retired University of Michigan-Dearborn and Henfry Ford Community College political science professor. By nature, he is a curious fellow. He’s writing a political geography of Michigan in the 21st century and has been comparing the highly industrial and highly contaminated Rouge with more pristine areas in Michigan, like Isle Royale. He wondered what this thing in the Rouge might be. So did I.
We were rained out the first time we tried to go back to the possible old mill site in Douglas Evans Nature Preserve.
We tried again on Thursday, August 14. It was a bright, sunny day. I put on my rubber hip boots and we
John W. Smith with the artifact he found in the Rouge River at beverly Hills, Mich. Joel Thurtell photo.
trekked past the huge underground wasterwater/stormwater retention basin that hogs much of the once primal nature preserve’s terrain. I was fascinated with the giant outlet of the retention facility — a huge concrete tunnel that excretes who knows how much storm water laced with sewage and chlorine when it rains hard. This will have to be the focus of another post, believe me.
A few yards downstream from the sewer outlet, John pointed out the mill artifact. I looked around the area to see if there was any sign of a building or dam or any human construction that would have supported a mill. Zero.
I looked closely at the machine. It looks like some kind of vehicle for moving something. As John said, the four wheels have flat rims, no place for tires. The metal rims are connected directly to metal spokes, much of which has corroded or disappeared altogether. One set of wheels is bigger than th eother. They are connected to a rectangular metal frame that John surmised might have been intended for hauling logs. Maybe there was a sawmill here?
Corroding wheel, part of old artifact of piece of junk in Rouge River in Beverly Hills. Joel Thurtell photo.
But again, I saw no other evidence of a mill or any human endeavor at this spot. Usually, there is some vestige of a mill. A ruin of a dam, some rotting wood or corroding metal. The course of the steram altered in some way. When we canoed up the Rouge, we portaged around the still-functioning dam at Henry Ford’s Fair Lane estate, but had to deal with three other dams that were wrecks and hazards to navigation.
Growing up alongside the Flat River north of Lowell in western Michigan, I remember playing and later canoeing and swimming around what I believed was the ruins of a grist mill at an island not far from the town’s Boy Scout cabin. There was a stone and mortar headwall for a dam and in the 1950s, I could see planks and spikes that I took for the floor of some kind of building that I suspected was part of the mill race. Recently, I learned this was not a grain mill at all, but an early attempt at generating hydroelectric power.
Now I have a theory about this seemingly ancient artifact John Smith fround lying in the Rouge in
Beverly Hills. First, though, I should say that I’m not so sure it’s really old. It could be a piece of specialized equipment from a factory that just looks old because it’s been fabricated in a way that looks odd to our eyes.
But it’s not important to my theory whether this thing is old or not so old. Because whatever we call it, new or old, it is actually one kind of thing.
It is really no different than those junk cars or the washing machine, shopping carts and a host of other
Bath tub and shopping cart in Rouge River at Detroit April 2008. Joel Thurtell photo.
human-created things Pat and I saw on our canoe trip.
Antique or modern, it is plain and simple trash.
Beverly Hills historians might want to have a look.
If it has historical importance to the community, it belongs in a museum.
If not, it’s in need of a Dumpster.
Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com
Maybe the people who insist on stripping Detroit’s buildings of their metals should shift their efforts to cleaning up the Rouge. With scrap metal prices, that mill-like thing and other metal stuff would fetch some decent coin at a scrap yard (if you could get it out, of course).