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Lile Pond

Longitude/Latitude: 
45.5758, -84.743
Address: 
US
Management
Site History: 

Ted Lile, long time resident (Douglas Lake Road), interviewed by Todd Paddock in Oldtimers Column of South Fishtail Squib: “There were two or three logging camps between Douglas Lake and Pellston. There was also a little town called East Mill. It was on the west side of the east branch of the Maple River, right on Robinson Road. That old foundation that you see just off of Robinson Road is all that’s left of the general store – that was the basement. The logging families had houses, but they weren’t much to speak of, mostly tarpaper shacks. Well, they floated logs down the river to that mill. It was Bogardus (Colonel Charles Bogardus, previous owner of the first Biological Station property) who built the dam on the Maple River, just N of Douglas Lake Road. It was an earthern dam, built with horses and hand labor. With it they were able to run logs on the Maple during high water by adjusting the flow. That dam changed the course of the river; you can see that if you look down on the original stream bed from the dam. If you take the two-track on the (east) side of the river, you’ll come to the pond that was made when they took earth for the dam.”
 

Synonyms: 
Refrigerator Pond