Spikehorn: Spikehorn's Deer Park Traditional Cache
Spikehorn: Spikehorn's Deer Park
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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This cache is part of the Spikehorn series that acknowledges
one of the most colorful characters in our state's history, John
'Spikehorn' Meyer. Best known for his Bear Den and Wildlife
Park, John E. Meyer was born in Ohio on July 15, 1870 and traveled
to Michigan in 1876 with his family.
John Meyer was born July 15, 1870 in Winesburg, Ohio and moved to
Coe Township in Isabella County with his parents in 1876. His
father, Alexander Meyer, purchased 160 acres two miles from
Salt River, now known as Shepherd, Michigan; the town was renamed
after pioneer resident Isaac N. Shepherd in 1886 when the
Ann Arbor Railroad arrived. (The Deer Park bordered his land to the
East.) His father emigrated from Switzerland and married widow
Rosina (Rosanna) Walter on August 25, 1869; she had a
5-year-old son. The family farmed and made cheese but young
Spikehorn found farming quite boring. Years later, his father
became a cattle buyer and shipped livestock to New York and various
meat markets. He died July 18, 1904 due to heart failure after a
fall from a hay wagon. His mother died three years later on July
16, 1907.
Every day, young Spikehorn walked three miles on the tracks to the
DuBoise School (the first school in Isabella County) where he
learned to read and write the English language. He ended up
quitting classes and raising deer as a hobby on the parcel of land
SW of the intersection of Shepherd and Millbrook Roads. He built a
cabin west of the Deer Park, just east of the family farm on
Millbrook Road; today, only trees mark the site where he lived for
almost twenty years.
This stretch of the road may be gravel today, but it was the site
of one of Spikehorn's first great ideas - he constructed 11 rods
(181.5 feet) of concrete highway in front of his land. The
9-foot-wide strip was 8 inches thick and was built to encourage the
township to extend it - it cost him $88. (Ref.- Mt. Pleasant Times,
November 3, 1911.) On September 13, 1920 he sold everything he
owned in Isabella County and headed North in search of excitement
and investments.
FTF ~
hightechman/gal
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Gur pnpur vf jryy-thneqrq.