Clinch Park – Trains, boats, Zoo Animals and the little city

n this episode of "Mike Dell's World," host Mike Dell discusses Clinch Park in Traverse City. He starts with some light-hearted comments about himself, joking that he has a Dorito chip under his hat. The main topic is Clinch Park, a public park located along West Grand Traverse Bay. Mike describes its amenities, including a large beach, splash pad, concessions, and access to the municipal marina, along with its popularity for walking, biking, and waterfront viewing. Mike reminisces about Clinch Park's history, mentioning that it used to house the Clinch Park Zoo, which focused on local Michigan wildlife instead of exotic animals. He shares that the zoo began in the early thirties and was a favorite childhood destination. He provides background on the miniature city attraction within the park, initiated by local civic leader Con Foster during the Great Depression, which included scaled replicas of downtown buildings. Mike recalls that the miniature city was active until 1973 and later moved some of its models to the Music House Museum in Acme, Michigan. The conversation shifts to the park's miniature steam train, which offered rides around the zoo until 2007. Afterward, he describes the marina's features, noting the availability of boat slips and facilities for visitors. He then talks about the removal of the zoo and aquarium in 2007 and how they were replaced by a splash pad, which faced several issues shortly after its installation. Mike further discusses changes in the park, including the removal of other structures, such as the coal fire electric plant, to expand open spaces. He mentions that the Clinch Park has become a central waterfront area, ideal for outdoor activities and close to downtown Traverse City. He points out that the park is a great spot to watch airshows during the Cherry Festival. In concluding the episode, Mike says he will return for another podcast the next day but is unsure of the topic. He wraps up by calling it a podcast and signs off.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Mike Del's World number four nineteen
for 11/13/2025.
I think it's time for Mike Del's World.

(00:35):
There it is.
Some people say that under that hat, Mike
Dell has a chip in his head.
Unfortunately,
it's a Dorito.
And I don't even like Doritos. Anyway, good
morning, good afternoon, good evening, whatever the case
may be. Today, I'm gonna be talking about
Clinch Park
in Traverse City.

(00:56):
And Clinch Park, I I I guess the
definition
isn't
super,
intuitive.
I I guess that's the right way of
putting it.
But according to
the Brave Browser
search,
Clinch Park is a public park located along

(01:17):
West Grand Traverse Bay in Traverse City, offering
a large beach, a splash pad, concessions,
and access to the city's municipal
marina.
The park is traversed by the TART Trail.
That's the Traverse Area Recreational
Trail System,
making it a popular destination for walking, biking,
and waterfront viewing or

(01:38):
year round.
It also features a well maintained grounds, shaded
public
picnic areas, a clean restrooms, and a shallow
swimming area suitable for children.
Yeah. So, anyway, I'm not gonna go into
the ratings of the park, but Clinch Park's
always been kind of the focal point of

(01:58):
the
downtown,
waterfront
area of Traverse City. It's on West Grand
Traverse Bay.
Of course, I said that in the beginning,
but
I remember it as the zoo.
You know, when I was a kid, there
was a zoo there.
The Clinch Park

(02:18):
Zoo,
you know, had an aquarium,
had, you know, animals
pretty much just, you know, local to
Michigan.
They didn't have, you know, like elephants and
monkeys and zebras and all that stuff. It
was,
you know, buffalo, deer,

(02:39):
you know, different birds, different,
you know, different rodents and whatnot that were
local to Traverse City, but the zoo is
always kind of the, you know, a cool
place to go when we were little kids
and,
you know, even a little later on, it
was it was quite
interesting.

(03:00):
But one of the things that the, you
know, the the park
started, like, in the early thirties or at
least that's when
things started happening there. I believe the zoo
was started in 1930
or so.
I'm kinda looking through some of my factoids
here,
but
they

(03:22):
also had a thing called the Miniature City,
and that started in
the early thirties, it says, but,
it had the park place. And the park
place was built in 1930.
But,
let's see. Where's the Miniature
City
on my list of stuff? Yeah. The idea

(03:42):
for the Miniature City, sometimes called the Mini
City or Miniature Traverse City,
was in the early
nineteen thirties. It was largely driven by Con
Foster,
and he was a local
booster and civic leader
who wanted to create a distinctive attraction for
Clinch Park, partly as a way of providing

(04:04):
work during the Great Depression.
And my piano teacher and
and for a short time violin teacher,
Mozelle Bennett Sawyer, and she was in her
nineties when I, you know, when I was
a kid in the seventies.
But her father,
actually built a lot of these miniature buildings.

(04:25):
There were,
let's see. Construction
began in 1931,
city workers building
scale replicas of downtown buildings.
Many of the models were quite detailed,
built from original blueprints
of the full scale structures. The miniature city
included around a 100 pieces
buildings

(04:46):
according
to
the source. Now
the miniature city was there, I wanna say,
into the eighties.
I don't remember
when
it when it let's see here. Let's,
look a little more on my factoid sheet
here.
The original installation was near Clinch Park at

(05:07):
the Southern shore off of Grand Traverse Bay.
1953,
when the Grandview Parkway opened, the mini city
was moved to another section of the park
to accommodate the new infrastructure. Yeah. Grandview Parkway,
by the way, is a,
divided
boulevard, I guess, would be or a parkway.
Yeah. I guess,

(05:28):
that that,
that makes sense.
But,
it
kinda separates
downtown
from the waterfront.
It wasn't
that way originally. It was all part of
the thing, but,
yeah, the Grandview Parkway now cuts through

(05:50):
between,
the Boardman River and downtown
and and the waterfront.
But,
so, yeah, it was moved. The mini city
ceased operations in 1973.
Jeez. I think
I think I've been there after that, but
I don't know.
Maybe it was that long ago because, yeah,

(06:11):
it's been a
long time.
And after removal from Clinch Park, the collection
of models was sold for or or transferred.
In 1983,
the city sold the collection to the Music
House Museum in Acme. The Music House Museum,
has some of the original buildings from the

(06:31):
Mini City
and
some are stored and, a few are displayed.
I've been out to Music House in a
while.
But, for example, the original Saint Francis Church
and the Pere Marquette Railroad Station models are
are shown
at the Music House Museum. You have to

(06:52):
go out there. I haven't been out
to Music House in quite a while.
That's a whole another thing I could talk
about.
But anyway, it's it. That was kind of
a neat thing. Another neat thing was a
train,
and the the train was a little miniature
steam train.

(07:12):
And
I guess I'm tied to it a little
bit because I worked for
a printing company here in Traverse City, and
one of the magazines we printed was live
steam,
and that's for,
hobbyists that build
real steam engines.
And this train, I don't believe I don't

(07:32):
believe I know when
exactly the train
was
built or put into
use, but you could get a train ride
around the Clinch Park Zoo. They had little
miniature train tracks. I mean, not miniature. It
was big enough for kids to ride on
and even adults

(07:53):
and like four or five cars and and
all that stuff. And
and it was really neat. You get a
little thing. So, you know, some of the
city employees
were
steam engine
train engineers.
And,
let's see. I'm trying to think I think
I had this on my, on my sheet

(08:14):
here.
Anyway,
no. Don't
don't have that in there. I don't think
but, anyway, the the train was pretty cool,
and that was taken out,
I believe, in 2007.

(08:35):
And it was,
brought out to the
Steam Engine Showgrounds
in Buckley, Michigan. They have a big steam
engine show every year in the summer,
and I guess you can still,
ride on the,
what used to be the city of Traverse
City, I think was the name of the
the train.

(08:56):
Anyway, you can still ride on it out
there at the, Buckley Steam Engine Grounds during
the steam engine show
every year. But, yeah, it was 2007
when that was taken out.
Clinch Park is also the, marina, the municipal
marina for Traverse City.
So, you know, there's a lot of boat

(09:16):
slips in there, plus there's some transient boat
slips. So if you're cruising around the Great
Lakes in your
yacht or your,
you know, sailboat or whatever,
sometimes you can get a mooring there at,
at the Clinch Park Marina,
and you can get fuel and,
you know, they have a clubhouse

(09:37):
and
and, you know, we, those that live there
or or not live there, but have a
boat slip there, you know, also have access
to power
and and sewer and all that stuff that,
you do at marinas.
So it's and it's still a going thing.
In fact, they expanded it not too many
years ago and put up a new brake
wall.

(09:59):
But, yeah, a lot a lot of big
yachts come in there.
If they don't come in completely, they moor
outside
in the bay and
and come in by dinghy.
But again, you know, there was a zoo
there. And then, you know, more more recently,
they took out the zoo,
and I believe that was also in

(10:23):
2007.
Let me,
alright. So yeah, the
1930s
could try a small
zoo and aquarium and other attractions.
Let's see what else is in here for
the zoo.
There's a few.
Yeah. The the zoo also,

(10:45):
got taken out in 2007.
I don't know what they did with all
the animals. I can't imagine they just opened
the cages and let them go, but
you never know.
But the zoo is no longer there and
the aquarium is no longer there,
But, what they did do is they put
in a
splash pad. What do they call it? The

(11:07):
park's waterscape.
And, you know, it's right on the beachfront,
and it's it was just one of those
concrete pads with water shooting up and kids
run through it. Kind of like the sprinkler
or whatever.
The,
kind of the the funny
thing about the splash pad is they had
a whole lot of issues.

(11:30):
In July 2013, the splash pad had to
be shut down after a sewer pump station
failure
caused sewage to back up into the underground
reservoir feeding the water feature.
Diversion
The diversion system that was supposed to protect
the facility failed
and the construct or the

(11:53):
contamination
potentially
exposed children to human waste. That's not great,
but in 2014,
they got it figured out, but
they figured out that there was 18 major
design flaws and construction flaws, and
and, they did get that
good, you know, they got that all set

(12:16):
in early twenty sixteen, a settlement
discussion
around a lawsuit
and all that. So and and there's a
store here in Traverse City called Roy's General
Store. I think I mentioned it before.
And the sign lady puts out funny signs,
and
and I believe there was something in there

(12:36):
about,
if you need any plumbing parts such as
to fix your splash pad, you know, come
to Roy's or something like that. It was
quite funny and made
made the local news and a lot of
social media around it, but that was back,
like I said, 2013,
2014,

(12:57):
stuff like that. But
but Clinch Park's still quite the thing. And
now, you know, when they took
they took out the, Morgan McCool plant there
at,
at that location
and,
came up with the open space. I guess
that's part of the park.
And then later on, they took down the

(13:17):
coal fired electric plant and expanded the open
space. So,
you know, Clinch Park's quite
a quite quite a thing and, you know,
it's kind of fun to walk out on
the break wall. You can
you can go out there and
check that out. Like I said, there's a
boat launch
there as well and parking for your boat.

(13:39):
If you wanted to put your boat in
the water there, you can.
So it's kind of a a nice
attraction.
There's also a museum there. There was a
museum there, the Con
Foster Museum. You remember Con Foster from also
pushing for the miniature city,
but he had a a museum there. And

(14:00):
that building,
when it ceased to be a museum,
turned into
a
little independent
movie theater
called the Bijou by the Bay,
and that was all part of the Traverse
City Film Festival,
which is no longer.

(14:21):
But,
so now I just heard on the news
tonight they're looking for a new use for
the Kahn Foster
Museum building,
but that's right on the edge of the,
what used to be the zoo
at the park proper, and then it's between
there and the beach.
And there's also a tunnel that goes from,

(14:44):
I don't I guess I don't remember exactly
where it goes. I think there's like
a bridge
over the river and then there's a tunnel
that goes under the parkway to get to
the park and that's still a thing.
And when I was a kid, we used
to ride our bikes through there because the,
Tarte Trail, the Bark Bike Trail,

(15:06):
went through the tunnel.
And,
it was a, you know,
a way safer way of going across the
parkway to get to the beach.
But, yeah, and I'm sure I'm missing all
kinds of things about Clinch Park, but,
it's,
like I said, it's kind of the main
waterfront
in Traverse City and, you know, a lot

(15:27):
of the municipal land and
county land and everything runs all along
that whole stretch of beach from what used
to be the Holiday Inn, now called the
Delamar Hotel on West Bay,
and it goes all the way down to
the intersection of M 22,

(15:49):
M 72,
and the Parkway.
That whole stretch is public beach.
And there's volleyball courts, there's, you know, swimming
areas, and a lot of people, you know,
in the summertime
mow their boats right offshore along the beach.
So there's usually a bunch of boats there

(16:10):
in the summertime.
It's,
it's a very nice,
nice little area, especially you don't be in
right close to downtown like that.
So it's easy walking distance for
people visiting Traverse City.
And those of us that live here, we
sort of avoid it like the plague in
the summer.

(16:30):
Mostly. Mostly. It's also the best place to
watch the air show for the Cherry Festival
because center
center of the air show box is there
at the open space right next to Clinch
Park Marina. So,
if you can
get yourself
down there for the airshow, that's the best
place to watch it.

(16:52):
And with that, we'll call this a podcast.
We'll catch you tomorrow. I'm not sure what
I'm doing tomorrow, but I will do a
podcast tomorrow.
Catch me
later.