The Monarch and Hartwick Pines

Logging Era Grayling MI Monster Hartwick Michigan White Pine, photo by UpNorth Memories – Donald (Don) Harrison

This Friday, April 26th is Arbor Day, and I thought it would be nice to take a look what is probably the most famous trees in Michigan’s history and the place where it once grew, Hartwick Pines State Park. In 1927, Karen Michelson Hartwick purchased over 8,000 acres of land that included 85 acres of old growth white pine from the Salling-Hanson Company of Grayling. Mrs. Hartwick was a daughter of  a founding partner of the logging company and shortly after the purchase, she donated the land to the State of Michigan as a memorial park named for her husband, the late Major Edward E. Hartwick of Grayling. A nice article from the Toledo Blade about Hartwick Pines explains:

This is Hartwick Pines, the largest stand of “old growth” forest in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. Here, white pines, red pines and hemlocks ladder their way 160 feet to the sky.

…There are approximately 24,000 trees in the Hartwick Pines old growth grove today, but not all are “old growth” trees. Lightning and wind claim a few of the old trees each year, and they are replaced with a mixture of hardwoods and pines.

A large hemlock near the parking lot was recently damaged by a storm and had to be removed. Its stump showed 365 annual rings. The most famous tree at Hartwick Pines — The Monarch — lost its crown in a 1992 storm and then died four years later. It was 155 feet tall when healthy, with a circumference of 12 feet and an estimated age of 325 years.

Read on and learn more about Hartwick Pines from the State of Michigan.

See this big as the Monarch and jump in to Don’s slideshow of postcards for more vintage scenes from Hartwick Pines!

PS: The Monarch was a white pine, Michigan’s State Tree.