TRAVEL IN MICHIGAN
LINCOLN BRICK PARK

Grand Ledge, Michigan is a small town that attracts large crowds several times a year. They are famous for their St. Patricks' Day Parade, Christmas Parade, the River Boat Queen, and the wonderful Island Art Fair. In addition to the festivals, visitors go to Grand Ledge on any given weekend to paddle the Grand River and to hike along the "Ledges". The trail along the "ledges" follows the course of the river giving access to the towering cliffs of sandstone.

As fascinating as the ledges are, there is another nature area that may be the only one of its kind in lower Michigan. North of town on Tallman Road is where Lincoln Brick Park is found. When driving into the park on a gravel road, everything appears to be about as one would expect. The park is comprised of 90 acres of recreation area and thousands of feet of river frontage. Nice trails meander through the ruins with interpretive signs at key points of interest, the trails also wind through the woods, past the playgrounds and on around the old quarry. Visitors will also notice those unexpected ruins. They don’t look like much, just a couple of walls and a chimney, but they are the first clue to what was once here. Moving further into the park, observant visitors may notice enormous mounds. Those mounds are actually piles of fallen brick. In addition to the mounds and the abandoned quarry, there is half buried derelict machinery and more ruins.

The ruins and mounds of bricks are all that remain of the Grand Ledge Brick Company. The kiln was 300 feet long and was in production for over 100 years. There were 11 buildings in the complex stretching from the quarry to the kilns, connected by railroad tracks. The factory manufactured hundreds of thousands of bricks that were used in buildings that are still standing. Collectors still search the brick piles searching for shards of pottery that was also produced here. A local legend claims that when the quarry and the old brick kilns shut down, a giant steam shovel was abandoned in the quarry and is now underwater. That quarry is a swimming spot favored by the locals.

Lincoln Brick Park is off Tallman Road north of Grand Ledge

Learn more about Grand Ledge in the book "Best Kept Secrets" - "Michigan Back Roads".