FeedsA walk in the past
New trail filled with historical details of Maybury Sanatorium
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Jordan Buzzy (above, center) directs volunteers at Maybury State Park on Sunday.A new wrought iron entranceway near a parking lot at Maybury State Park is the first indication that the paved trails nearby didn’t just spring from the ground.
Further along the shady walkways are several markers—a dozen in all—that detail the history of the park, which was once a sprawling facility where tuberculosis patients were sent.
Anyone interested in that history can visit the Maybury Sanatorium History Trail, which is now ready for the public. The Friends of Maybury State Park will host a ribbon cutting there on Saturday.
George McCarthy, president of the friends group, said it was the unique history of the site that spurred the organization—and the recently formed Northville Township Historic Commission—to come up with a way to inform the many walkers, bikers and horseback riders that visit the park about its past.
“We were concerned that the history would be forgotten if we didn’t initiate something,” he said.
Jennifer McFall, a former township resident who has since moved to Missouri, started the campaign, which attracted help from several volunteers.
The Maybury Sanatorium operated on the site of the current state park from 1919-1969. At one time it served people who were diagnosed with tuberculosis at a time when there was no real cure for the disease. Northville Township was relatively sparsely populated back then—development was decades away from the fringes of western Wayne County.
“People didn’t talk about it much,” said McCarthy of the sanatorium. “Now it’s not such a scary thing.”
McFall and other members of the organization researched the site and found people who had worked there, patients who had been sent there and doctors that treated them. Through oral histories and other historical documents, they put together the 12 markers that tell about the old hospital facility.
“The markers contain photographs, descriptions of patients and employees and their lives at the sanatorium, and the purpose of each building,” said Jerry Mittman, vice-president of the Friends of Maybury.”
The project was funded in larger part through the American Lung Foundation, according to McCarthy. They were approached for funding about two years ago and, while they didn’t contribute directly to the project at that time, they offered up a special Christmas ornament that could be sold as a fundraiser.
The project also received grants from REI, a sports outfitter store on Haggerty and Six Mile roads, and through the Northville Roadrunners club.
Volunteers have helped bring the project to fruition, too. Sunday Jordan Buzzy, an Eagle Scout candidate from Troop 36 out of South Lyon, brought several volunteers to the site to install the historical markers.
“It sounded interesting to me,” he said of the project. “I like history and I like Maybury.”
The ribbon cutting will take place at 9 a.m. on Saturday. Anyone interested should enter through the Eight Mile Road entrance and go the parking lot on the left.
