Bell Townsite

What could be more exciting than viewing a shipwreck? Hiking through a ghost town, maybe? At Besser Natural Area it doesn’t matter, for children are treated to both on the easy, mile-long hike through a rare stand of virgin pine. Jesse Besser was an industrialist and founder of a massive concrete block corporation in Alpena, but in 1966 he gave to the people of Michigan a 135-acre tract of land on Lake Huron, containing a magnificent stand of virgin red and white pine that escaped the swinging axes of lumbermen in the 1800s. The preserve also contains more than a mile of Lake Huron shoreline, including a small cove with a wide, sandy beach lined by towering pines.