Army Bob: North Dorr history holds key to solving mystery?

It was a mystery. How did a large amount of broken glass find its way to the stream behind our home?

We purchased three acres of land to build our retirement home on in beautiful Dorr Township. Even before we laid down the foundation, I would drive over from Chicago and work on the landscaping.  Poison ivy vines the size of tree trunks (I used a chainsaw to cut them) and wild grape vines were everywhere, along with trash, dead animals and plant life.

After a good bit of work, along with a nasty rash from the poison ivy, (I later learned to suit up in a suit resembling a MOPP 4 suit, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear protective suits used by the military), one could see the stream that ran through the back portion of the property, a part of the Byron and Dorr drainage system and running under 108^th Street and through our property.

Next was removing obstacles so the water could run free and not back up to flood the back portion of the property. Trees and rocks were removed and the pleasant sound of bubbling water was restored; you could even see the water and a massive amount of broken glass.

In some 350 feet of stream bed, I pulled out seven five-gallon buckets of broken glass. After a few heavy rains, four buckets more were uncovered.

Next I raked the entire stream bed and picked up five more. A few times a year I would go back and recover ever lessening amounts of broken glass.

Add it all up and it was an unusual amount of broken glass, mostly beer and liquor bottles. The broken glass was mostly weathered and worn, the  very sharp edges were worn down from time and flowing water. The mystery was, where did it come from? In my misbegotten youth I was a supervisor with the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, so solving a good mystery was a welcome challenge.

Older long-term residents of the North Dorr area were interviewed, but not one could explain the mystery of the broken glass. Records checks could not find a dump within many miles, nor any answers to the why. Nothing upstream that would contribute to the pile of glass.

The stream was bordered by two corn fields, one on each bank, full of glass not within a quarter of a mile from an older home. The nearest is the oldest home still standing in Allegan County, but it was just to far away to be the source.

Then I found a book “Allegan County Historical Atlas and Gazetteer” Pavilion Press, 1998, that had a short reference to North Dorr and its history.

North Dorr of old was a communications center because it was on the stagecoach line with a rooming house/restaurant, church, school and post office at the intersection of 22d Street and 108th Street, not all that far from the glass filled stream in question. When the railroad passed up North Dorr in favor of Dorr, the hotel/restaurant became a liquor store and apartment building. Across the street in Kent County in the old days were other liquor establishments.

Many years later in the days prior to the 18^th Amendment (national prohibition) and the Volstead Act of 1920, counties in Michigan could decide if they wished to go dry or stay wet. Allegan County went dry and Kent County stayed wet, a gift to those selling liquor in the portion of North Dorr north of 108^th Street in Kent County.

Drive east of the long-gone liquor stores in North Dorr, and you find a farmer’s access road to the corn fields and a spot to drink out of sight of the law along the stream in question, and on what would over 100 years later become our home.

“Visiting North Dorr” became an expression in Allegan County for consuming alcohol.

Is the mystery solved? Perhaps, but a logical answer to the question is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, the investigation remains open.