Nautical Graveyard on Stony Island

[Lowell]

Stony Island has intrigued me in my fly-overs of the Detroit River islands for it sunken barges and boats. Has anyone been there?


Some history... "Stony Island was originally Potawatomie Indian territory used for hunting and fishing. After being deeded to the Macombs of Grosse Ile in 1781, it became part of a railroad-ferry river crossing between Canada and the U.S. for the Canadian Southern Railroad during the late 1800s. During the 1930s, the island was used as a center of operations to create the Livingston Channel, and then later as a base for dredging the shipping channel [by Dunbar & Sullivan Dredging Company who ceased operations in 1987].

A small residential community existed on the island during this time. These homes no longer exist, however, abandoned machine shops and several sunken non-motorized barges remain. The Island is currently a part of Grosse Ile Township and is a residentially zoned area. No utilities are available, however."

This map posted by MikeG some time back shows the bridge from the mainland and rail line.


I also found these two ruin porn tours.
Stony Island, Detroit's Boat Graveyard [[Pt. 2)

Stony Island, Detroit's Boat Graveyard [[Pt. 1)


I find it interesting that it is zoned residential and would seem like a charming place to live, once cleaned up, however I believe there is the better intention is to return it to nature as part of the Detroit River Conservancy project.

I wonder if there will be an effort to pursue Dunbar Sullivan to clean up the mess they left behind.

[jiminnm]

Lowell, it is unlikely there is anyone to pursue. Story on the web said they ceased operations in 1987, and the states says that the corporation dissolved in 1995 [[probably until lingering lawsuits were resolved).
http://www.dleg.state.mi.us/bcs_corp...?id_nbr=605805

[PCN]

After the Livingston Canal was completed, a number of houses were dragged across the ice to Grosse Ile. I lived in one of those houses at the corner of E. River and Elba. During prohibition the house was a speakeasy. R.E. Olds owned Elba Island and did not drink. He bought the house and his gardener lived there for many years.

[wilderness]

This links states it was purchased by the DNR to conserve the wetlands in 1997:
http://riccawu.mnsi.net/story3.html

[Hermod]

The former rule for barges [[and power boats) that had reached the end of their useful lives and were not worth scrapping was to just put them in a marshy area and let them sink and rot. This was the fate of many, many fishing boats and barges in Chesapeake Bay and surrounding waters and there are major expensive cleanups going on there now.

Closer to home, the marshy areas of the St Clair Flats were littered with derelict craft [[I don't know how much they have been cleaned up in recent years).

[nailhed]

Lowell, I'm curious as to what makes my write-ups on Stony Island so ruin porny [[as opposed to, for instance, what DetroitYes itself documents)? That's pretty dismissive.

I like to think that I avoid the well-worn and easily identifiable path of simple "ruin porn," by offering straightforward, detailed documentation of the places I go, as well as in-depth historical context. It would be a hard argument to make that I photograph ruins for exploitative, "pornographic" reasons when my website has such a small audience, and has none of the conventional flashy HDR photos of lonely chairs, or gaudy watermarks whatsoever. Take for instance this recent post: http://www.nailhed.com/2015/03/ancie...om-forest.html ...tell me that's a ruin porn tour.

Anyway, I doubt that Stony Island will be cleaned up by Dunbar & Sullivan, or reopened for residential zoning. Last summer when I was there I noticed that there were fresh pink ribbons placed to demarcate a wetland boundary. The west end of the island is also a massive heron rookery. If anything, this island is about to be designated a wildlife refuge and made off-limits to people, sort of like Sugar Island.

For what it's worth last year I also located and photographed several ruins from the old workers' shanty village that were there deeper into the island's interior, but I haven't gotten around to typing up that blog post yet, as I mentioned in Part 2. Perhaps now I will move it to the front burner...

[Lowell]

Nailhed, welcome to DetroitYES and I apologize for the off-handed use of ruins porn for your wonderful tours. The term has become a bit of a non-offensive slang term, but I should have made that clearer. My comment was not meant to be dismissive. On the contrary I am congratulatory. I very much enjoyed the tours and thank your for posting them. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

The term 'ruins porn' has come full circle to be acceptable, even complimentary, ironic slang among the local photographic community, sort of like how queer has among the gay community, as in 'I was ruins-porning the Packard plant when...' As the author of the Fabulous Ruins of Detroit I would be the last person to criticize someone finding wonder and meaning in ruins.

In particular, the fact that you add context and history further enhances and elevates your tours as opposed to the simple-minded 'aint' it awful' or no context.

For those who have not seen the tours I highly recommend them:
Stony Island, Detroit's Boat Graveyard [[Pt. 2)

Stony Island, Detroit's Boat Graveyard [[Pt. 1)

Same for the whole Nailhed site which as been added to our Detroit Links page.

[RickBeall]

NailHed, your pictures, history and little adventure in all our's unknown backyard was fascinating! What a great little adventure!

[wilderness]

I also enjoyed the fantastic pics. Many thanks to NailHed for all the effort, and to Lowell for finding the pages.

[nailhed]

Lol sorry for the confusion then. Thanks for the add, and thanks for reading!

For what it's worth, the original title of my site was "ruinporn.com" or something like that, to be sarcastic. But I quickly decided that it was a bad idea to have the word "porn" in my url haha.

Should have the Stony Island Part 3 up soon.

[nailhed]

Part three is posted:
Stony Island, Detroit's Boat Graveyard [[Pt. 3)

as well as a very much related sequel about other small islands in the vicinity:
Island Hopping