Polite Graffiti

Odd bit of graffiti on a downtown Three Rivers building.

Three Rivers Holiday Trees

Merchants downtown have store-thematically decorated trees in their windows, unveiled yesterday and with the community voting for their favorites today. Some are very clever! I especially liked the popcorn decorated tree at the movie theater, the chair-tree at Second Wind Furniture (made out of old chairs!), the art-tree at the Three Rivers Artists Guild's Gallery. And this one, though it takes a bit more explanation-this is a recycled office tree, with ornaments cut from old office computer circuit boards, snowflakes from recycled office paper, and a garland of packing peanuts. Very clever! At Love Your Mother, 39 North Main Street, Three Rivers, a store specializing in earth friendly products and gifts made from recycled stuff.

Last minute shopping

Actually I took this the day before Thanksgiving, a mom doing some last minute shopping in the family station wagon with the little kids in tow. Amish style. If you are a busy mom, imagine taking care of all that - and the horse, too.

Veggie Thanksgiving

Instead of Turkey, a nice fat stuffed pumpkin!

Snowflakes arrive

Spotted downtown this morning - a crane and crew hanging giant lighted snowflakes across the street.

Runnin' on the River

Jet skis on the Portage River in the late fall sunshine. Watch out for those rocks...

Area artists out of town

The Three Rivers area Watercolor Circle traveled to the Elkhart "Midwest Museum of American Art" where the juried regional show (http://midwestmuseum.us/elkhart-juried-regional) is currently on display. There we saw the work of the fabulous (fabius) Helen Mac. Pop over to her blog, http://helenmac-fabiusdaybyday.blogspot.com, to see what else she is up to!

YAB (yet another bridge)

This is the abandoned railroad bridge from yesterday, taken from the bank of the St. Joseph River.
Still a lot of bridges left -- I may need to come back to this topic!

Abandoned

This is a bit of the past, forgotten. And strangely beautiful that way.

Rocky River Rocks

Fun to do this in a kayak. Under the bridge in Scidmore Park.

Downriver

Looking down the St. Joseph River from the old railroad bridge. I continue to be amazed by the rivers here, the way you can be in the city but feel like you are a hundred years and a thousand miles away from modern life. Just get out on the river!

Horse and Buggy Days

On Labor Day for the Bridge Walk the Woman's club handed out a brochure/passport for the bridges. A comment on it read, "In the early 1900s South Main Street was named Flint Avenue. It was "The Avenue", a lovely shaded street during the hose and buggy days."

Whoah on the nostalgia -- although the trees seem to have been street-widened away, with Amish about the area, the horse and buggy days never left!

Hoffman St. Bridge

A view from the water of the Hoffman St. Bridge over the Portage River, with a bit of the old abandoned powerhouse showing.

Another bridge to nowhere

This is the abandoned railroad bridge that parallels the Broadway Bridge over the St. Joseph River. I wonder where it used to go? Taken the day of the Bridge Walk.

Three Rivers History Mural (6)

The last view of the mural shows in the background more houses, a church and a bit of downtown. This section is quite damaged. Children are shown in the park, enjoying the Popcorn Stand which is now by the petting zoo. The Popcorn Stand for years provided support - and jobs - for developmentally disabled people.

Three Rivers History Mural (5)

Past the suffragette and the lighthouse, there's a minister (I think - someone will have to write and tell me who this represents), more houses, and a pleasant scene of a modern-day family in the park.

Three Rivers History Mural (4)

More houses are seen in this section of the mural, indicating the arrival of the first development called "Moab" (links to photo of actual monument located on the corner of Constantine and Broadway.) Continuing along we find suffragettes, and next, in the background, Three Rivers' iconic lighthouse. I am not sure about the significance of the baseball team!

Three Rivers History Mural (3)

The next section of the mural shows the arrival of the first US emigrants to the area. They came to farm, and building mills was also high on their list when they saw the abundant water power. Families established themselves. The first recorded settler wedding in Three Rivers was in November, 1830; Mary McInterfer was married to David Winchell. The first school was in the log cabin of the McInterfer family. At this early date, power dams for mills were being constructed on local rivers. A mill is shown at the right of this section of mural, along with the proud owner and his family. On the river is seen one of the "arcs" or flatboats used to ship logs down to the mouth of the St. Joseph River, where they could be picked up by seagoing vessels for export. Boats were also constructed that transported flour and grain to Chicago; the shippers' family names were prominent in the history of Three Rivers - Prutzman, Moore, and Millard. Moore & Millard's first boat for shipping to Chicago was named "Kitty Kiddungo", which has to be a good answer to a trivia question!

Three Rivers' history mural (2)

The next section of the mural shows the arrival of the first traders, mostly French, and the establishment in the late 1600s of the first Christian mission and church along the banks of the St. Joseph River in what is now Three Rivers. The mission is marked by a river trail marker on the St. Joseph River.

Three Rivers' history mural (1)

The first section of the mural shows a Native American man looking west across the undeveloped river. Although no particular people is represented - the figure is only symbolic - the first French Traders and US settlers found that the Pottawatomi had beaten them to the area by 100 years or more. The Pottawatomi were farmers and traders, driven to the area from their original homeland near Detroit by the Iroquois in disputes over valuable fur hunting areas. Other disputes were recorded from oral histories, including the Great Battle for which there is a marker in the park.

The Pottawatomi are the "fire keepers" of the Anishinabe Three Fires Confederacy. The nearby Pottawatomi town of Nottawasepi, now called Mendon, was as large as many US cities in the west at that time. They were settled farmers and were Christian from the 1600s. Many Pottawatomi tried to hang on to their land through filing lawsuits and other legal and political maneuvers, but most lost their land in the tragic "Indian Removal" period spearheaded by still-controversial president Andrew Jackson. Today, most Pottawatomi live in the west, but a few "bands" (family groups) that refused removal - or escaped and returned - remain. One local group purchased a large tract of land about an hour east of Three Rivers, and remain there. There are many interesting - and bloodcurdling - stories about the collision of the US settler and Pottawatomie cultures, but they are a little hard to find. Local historian Sue Stillman in the 1930s wrote in her history of Three Rivers some of the stories, when it was still fairly close to living memory.

Before the Pottawatomie, other peoples lived here, but the archeology record is sketchy (and much of it was plowed under.) The Miami peoples were known to live here, and before them, peoples of the Mississippian Mound Culture. Along undeveloped stretches of river the "wild rice", a staple grain, that they planted may still be found in large tracts. In more settled areas, the emigrant farmers pulled it out, seeing it as blocking navigation - and not knowing what it was.