1st Annual Summer Picnic with the Muskegon County Elected Officials at Pat's Road House

Welcome to Muskegon County's Fairchild Park

Located in Beautiful Muskegon Township, Fairchild Park, broke ground in November of 1974 as Brookhaven Park. The park is in a beautifully wooded area that joins Brookhaven our own Medical Care Facility's with roots tracing back to the year 1883 and Pine Grove Manor a Senior Housing Community. That park was later renamed in honor of County Commissioner Alfred C. Fairchild one of the original Commissioner at the groundbreaking in 1974 and the father of our current Registrar of Deeds Mark Fairchild.

Fairchild park has lain dormant for many years, over gown with weeds and brush, walkways covered with dirt and mud, unusable and neglected. Years ago vandals destroyed the pavilion and the benches, drug usage and sales plagued the area, vagrants and fires were common place, County and Township police and fire departments and the parks department finally gave up on the park.

Now those issues have been resolved and many walkers enjoy the surrounding areas and this will open a whole new area for Pine Grove Manor residents as well as residents of Brookhaven as one of the walkways is easily assessable from their backdoor and is wheelchair accessible all the way to the main pavilion area. The Park is also open to the public but is not lighted after dark.

 Getting to today would not have happened with out 3 gentlemen from Pine Grove Manor, Oliver Kirksey, Dennis Berry and Ken McKinnon, who knocked on the door on Muskegon Township Supervisor Dave Kieft asking about the Park and why it had been abandoned and if anything could be done. Supervisor Kieft  who makes every effort possible for the residents of Muskegon Township contacted me for answers from the County and as you know from the previous post and pictures it was not a pretty picture.

But what were we to do? Residents of the Township and the County had ask for our help and we could see the possibility to help them and others too, so we rolled up our sleeves and made a few calls and today with  help from the County, the Township, volunteers, Brookhaven and Pine Grove Manor, we cleared brush, trimmed weeds, shoveled dirt, cut back thorns, removed trees, hauled off trash and made an over grown unusable area back into a beautiful place to walk, listen to birds sing, pick a few wild sweet blackberries, and enjoy a quite walk in nature, we brought Fairchild Park back to the people of Muskegon County.

We still have a few things on our wish list that need to be done, but the Park is open, please  stop out and enjoy.

 

County Commissioner Susie Hughes & 

Muskegon Township Supervisor Dave Kieft

 

The work got under way at 8:30am this morning just 12 days after our first trip into the woods to see what was hiding back there, and yes that's rain on my car as we started this morning but our spirits weren't dampened by it at all.

 

 

Welcome to Fairchild Park 

 

Our wish list includes, benches as the walkways already have areas set back for them, some weed killer for the joints in the pavilion area, ant killer and stump remover for the flower boxes where we removed some trees, and flowers for the flower boxes in the spring. If you have any of these items you would like to donate please give me a call.

Susie Hughes

231-343-4092