Rice Creek dam

The Rice Creek dam in Marshall, MI was my 2nd stop after the Ceresco Dam, on a ride to Lenawee County in fall 2005. There is a park here, and a place to make lunch. (I’m posting this now because someone on the Phred mail list is asking about Trangia stoves. What I have here on the bench is the model 27.)

This site was used for water-powered mills already by the time of the Black Hawk war in 1832. The first complete dam may have been built shortly after that. Now there is a plan to remove the dam to restore the stream to its earlier condition, so fish can once again go upstream to spawn.

In a way it’s sad to have to destroy history in order to restore history, but conflicts over dams are nothing new. One such conflict out in Illinois was a part of the Black Hawk war.

The initial war scare had started to die down in Michigan when news came of the Indian Creek massacre. This was an event that took place near present-day Earlville, Illinois. It was the only place where Potawatomi people were involved in the killing. They may have had a personal score to settle over a settler’s refusal to remove a dam that was interfering with fish spawning. I rode there in fall 2004 and have my own photos, but for now I’ll just link to this Wikipedia article.

A militia contingent from Marshall did get called out but seems to have gone no further than Schoolcraft. Marshall is a historic-minded place, and there are a lot of sites here in addition to this dam that are connected to the story of the Black Hawk war. So there will be a lot left even after the dam is torn out.