Welcome to Peter Nordeen Park
In order to set the stage, first lets place some things in context. Iron mining in the area surrounding Gwinn began in 1872. The Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Mining Company (C.C.I.) acquired property in the area from other mining companies and started mining in 1902. In the first three years of C.C.I.'s operation, more than one million tons of ore had been mined. Most of the mining was done in the Austin and Princeton area, and that is where Cleveland Cliffs' central office and testing lab were located. By 1900 iron mining companies realized that clustering neighborhoods or "locations" around mine shafts could result in that land sinking, causing neighborhoods to be abandoned (this happened in Negaunee, Norway, and Ironwood) and perhaps even leading to accidental death and related lawsuits. So when the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company decided to open a mine in this area, it located the town away from any ore bodies.
(William G. Mather - President of Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company 1890-1933)
Cleveland-Cliffs President William Gwinn Mather named the town after his mother, Elizabeth Lucy Gwinn, and took a special interest in its design. Gwinn was an outstanding example of corporate paternalism in a planned town. In 1906 Mather commissioned Warren G. Manning to plan this very special company town. Manning had been a student of the famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, and had already become one of the most influential American landscape architects and city planners. (Mather used Manning on some 60 projects, including his Gwinn Estate outside Cleveland Ohio.)
(Warren G. Manning - Boston landscape designer commisioned to design the town of Gwinn.)
Son of a horticulturist, Manning advocated naturalistic "wild" landscapes that made use of existing plants on the site. He chose a beautiful setting for Gwinn, under big pines at the confluence of the East Branch and Middle Branch of the Escanaba River. The river broadened out after a charming little waterfall just upstream. Deep holes made for a fine swimming hole, still an attraction today. A Detroit paper called Gwinn "a verdant isle among the pines." A block of handsome, dark red brick, flat-roofed civic buildings framed the leafy village green and bandstand, now called Peter Nordeen Park.
(Constructed 1911)
So, who was Peter Nordeen? Peter Nordeen was the head of Public Works in Gwinn. He lived from 1910-1965 and was also a member of the Forsyth Twp. Fire Department. His position in the community earned him the honor of a park named in his memory.
So, in your wonderings around the park, here is what your looking for. A black, magnetic micro-cache. A subtile hint there. I'm not a big fan of micro-caches but in this location options are somewhat limited. Bring a pen or pencil. Please be weary of muggles. Keep looking up. Have a good time. Special thanks to the Forsyth Township Historical Society for a wealth of information.