CIVILIZATION LOST

To all you OSU fans, hearing the words “Michigan” and “lost” in the same sentence puts a smile on your face. But we aren’t talking about football, here. We sent some students on a field study to that “state up north” to investigate a ghost town on the shores of Lake Michigan. The town, once known as Bell Village and populated in the 1800s, has been abandoned and decayed since the inhabitants used up all of the local natural resources.

A little bit of mystery, a little bit of history and a lot of physical fitness made this field study fun and educational. The students explored and mapped the remains of the structures and artifacts that can still be found. Their mission: To research and discover as much about the lost town (and why it became one) and to create a historical marker for the state of Michigan to post at the site along with data to use for promoting eco-tourism.

They had fun camping, canoeing, hiking, and swimming in waterfalls. (This trip earned them partial P.E. credit!) They also learned how to create maps that showed where the ruins are. They used GPS technology to record the coordinates and took photographs and made drawings to document their findings.

They also went into existing towns to visit libraries, museums and information centers to gather as much historical information as possible. They wrote the text for the marker and presented their work on the final day. To read their journals and see more photos, go to www.pastfoundation.org/2008Michigan.

A team’s journal comments: Today was our first day at the archeology site. As a group, our job was to map a section of the “ruins.” These ruins are believed to be the General Store of Bell Village. We know this because we found a safe which is supposed to be part of the store and there was another artifact that would not be part of a home. It looked like a type of storage container.” Asked by Adnane: “I wonder if there’s any money in the safe…”

Achal, Cassie and Eric measure some ruins.