MI Travelogue is a presentation of Preferred Credit Union, www.preferredcu.org, located locally at 266 N. Jebavy Dr., Ludington.
By Rob Alway, Editor-in-Chief
DETROIT — My family took a shortened spring break trip this year, staying a little closer to home by spending a weekend in Detroit. I have wanted to visit Belle Isle Park for quite some time. We discovered that it is a place for the entire family. While we all enjoyed every attraction on the island that we visited, we each had a favorite.
Connected to the main land by the MacArthur Bridge, Belle Isle Park is a 982-acre island located on the Detroit River, sitting right on the border with Canada. Since 2013, the park has been operated by the State of Michigan Department of Natural Resources, which has a 30-year lease. The park City of Detroit purchased the land from the Campau family in 1879 and opened it to the public the following year. It is the country’s largest city island park, larger than New York’s Central Park.
The park includes a variety of educational and recreational opportunities including recreation fields, fishing piers, and walking paths. But, our focus were on three facilities: The Belle Isle Aquarium, the Anna Scipps Whitecomb Conservatory, and the Detroit Historical Society’s Dossin Great Lakes Museum. We also visited the Belle Isle Nature Center, operated by the Detroit Zoological Society.
Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory
The highlight for the visit for our children, Avoca, 11, and Sloane, 10, was the aquarium; for my wife, Becky, it was the conservatory; and I, of course, for myself, it was the maritime museum. However, we each enjoyed each facility.
First stop was the aquarium.
Both the aquarium and the conservatory were designed by Albert Kahn and George Mason; both opened in 1904. The aquarium is the oldest public aquarium in the continental United States and, at the time of its opening, the third largest in the world.
A carving of Neptune, the Roman god of the sea, greets visitors above the entryway, inviting guests into the long, domed-ceiling structure that houses over 50 tanks of fresh and salt-water aquatic life.
Glass sea-green tiles line its walls and ceiling to give it an “underwater” feeling. The aquarium was shuttered by the city in 2005 due to budgetary constraints.
Inside the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory
Volunteers from Friends of the Belle Isle Aquarium maintained the building until its reopening in 2012. Since then, fundraising efforts by the non-profit Belle Isle Conservancy have continuously worked to improve and restock exhibits and to maintain the facility.
The Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory is the oldest continually running conservatory in the United States. It contains a collection of rare and exotic plants from around the world, including palms, tropical plants, cacti, ferns and one of the country’s largest orchid collections, housed in five climatic areas: the Palm House, the Cactus House, the Fernery, the Tropical House, and the Show House.
The conservatory was built in the European Modernist style and many of its elements were inspired by Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello home. Before 1955, the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory was known as the Horticulture Building or, simply, the Conservatory. However, on April 6, 1955, the Conservatory was dedicated to Anna Scripps Whitcomb, who donated her rare and extensive orchid collection. Her collection contained 600 rare orchids, many rescued from Britain during World War II.
In 1949, the Detroit Historical Commission opened the Museum of Great Lakes History aboard the landed wood schooner J.T. Wing, which was the last commercial sailing ship on the Great Lakes. By 1956, the museum was closed due to the deteriorating condition of the ship. Deemed too fragile to move, the J.T. Wing was burned under close supervision in 1956. Shortly thereafter, the Dossin family stepped forward with funds for a new maritime museum, and on July 24, 1960, the Dossin Great Lakes Museum opened on the J.T. Wing’s former Belle Isle site.
Several additions and improvements were made over the years. In 1963, a pavilion housing the Miss Pepsi, a championship hydroplane raced by the Dossin family from 1950-1956, was constructed next to the museum’s entrance. Next came the Gothic Room, the smoking lounge from the City of Detroit III passenger steamship. The lounge serves as the entrance to the museum.
Pilothouse from the SS William Clay Ford at the Dossin Great Lakes Museum.
In 1991, the pilothouse from the SS William Clay Ford was installed facing out into the Detroit River. The bulk carrier freighter transported iron ore and coal down the Great Lakes for more than three decades, and was one of the ships that searched for survivors following the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald.
One of the center points of the museum is the bow anchor of the Edmund Fitzgerald that is displayed outside the building. The anchor fell off the ship in 1974 while it was anchored at the Detroit River’s Belle Isle Anchorage; the next year the ship was lost during a November storm in Lake Superior. The anchor was discovered and recovered in 1992. It has been on display at the museum since.
The museum was the only facility that we stopped at on Belle Isle that charged admission. However, the cost of $5 per person was rather modest. If you don’t have a DNR recreational passport on your vehicle’s license plate you will need to pay a state park day use fee.
Of course, the boat nerd in me couldn’t leave the island without watching a couple freighters pass by. It’s a great place to see ship traffic.
The final stop on the island was the Belle Isle Nature Center, which is located on five acres. The center offers a variety of activities including a building that features educational displays.
Operating the pilothouse simulator at the Dossin Great Lakes Museum
Anchor from the Edmund Fitzgerald
Token Chadburn EOT picture (if you know, you know)
Belle Isle is a great place to watch freighter traffic on the Detroit River.
______________________________
Please Support Local News
Receive daily MCP and OCP news briefings along with email news alerts for $10 a month. Your contribution will help us to continue to provide you with free local news.
Payment can be made monthly via credit card, bank account, PayPal or Venmo through recurring email invoicing. These payments can be set up for autopay each month.
To sign up, email editor@mediagroup31.com. In the subject line write: Subscription. Please supply your name, email address, mailing address, and phone number (indicate cell phone). We will not share your information with any outside sources. For more than one email address in a household, the cost is $15 per month per email address.
Alternative methods:
- We can send you an invoice for a yearly payment of $120, which you can conveniently pay online or by check. If you are interested in this method, please email editor@mediagroup31.com and we can sign you up. You can also mail a yearly check for $120 to Media Group 31, PO Box 21, Scottville, MI 49454 (please include your email address).
Payment must be made in advance prior to subscription activation.
We appreciate all our readers regardless of whether they choose to continue to access our service for free or with a monthly financial support.
_____
This story and original photography are copyrighted © 2025, all rights reserved by Media Group 31, LLC, PO Box 21, Scottville, MI 49454. No portion of this story or images may be reproduced in any way, including print or broadcast, without expressed written consent.
As the services of Media Group 31, LLC are news services, the information posted within the sites are archivable for public record and historical posterity. For this reason it is the policy and practice of this company to not delete postings. It is the editor’s discretion to update or edit a story when/if new information becomes available. This may be done by editing the posted story or posting a new “follow-up” story. Media Group 31, LLC or any of its agents have the right to make any changes to this policy. Refer to Use Policy for more information.
.png)
