Johnny Martin’s Trail

Road

Coordinates

45.6343° N, 85.5475° WGoogle Maps: Johnny Martin’s TrailDownload KML

Eras

Modern era

Concepts

trailstransportationrecreationModern eratoponymy

Within

Beaver Island

Media

Beaver Island History Map, 1978 revision

Summary

Johnny Martin’s Trail is named in the 2015 map, the Peaine trail-description packet, and current OSM. The map line is the two named OSM segments retrieved 2026-08-02. It is the archive’s clearest example of a lost trail: walkers who tried it in 2017 turned back after losing the markers, a township proposal to reopen the impassable middle section was still awaiting a state permit three years later, and a 2024 visitor report says the same stretch is still flooded by beavers.

Official map: Greene’s Lake / Johnny Martin’s Trail (BITA, July 2019). The sheet’s warning about seasonal wet ground is historical map guidance; the route-condition evidence below is separately dated.

What the route was

The trail runs west from East Side Drive on the county road “Here’s Thuja” through an old gravel pit, then southwest on a smaller two-track through a former beaver pond, where it crosses a large culvert. Past that point the township’s own guide calls it “really wet, with water running down the road much of the year,” and says the trail “theoretically” connects through swampy ground to Middie Perron’s Trail.

Map status

Geometry is mapped from current OSM and simplified for display. Pending update: replace or verify the volunteered line with a current township/DNR track and record the next retrieval date.

History

The middle section has been recorded as impassable for at least a decade. Peaine Township asked the Charlevoix County Road Commission in 2014 to open an impassable roughly 3/4-mile section with three culverts, two gates, and gravel, contracted by the township and pending a Michigan DEQ permit; as of a May 2017 Northern Lake Michigan Islands Collaborative meeting, that permit was still pending. In August 2017 a party attempting the trail reported giving up halfway after losing the trail’s red-dot markers in very wet ground, and a Beaver Island Archipelago Trails Association-linked reply placed reopening it “high on the Beaver Island Archipelago Trail Association’s list, but low on the State’s” priorities. A 2024 forum reply still directs visitors away from the trail, saying beavers keep the meadow flooded past a hand-cleared crossing of the dam.

A July 2019 BITA trail sheet instead describes “the Greene’s Lake Trail, also called Johnny Martin’s Trail” as a 5.5-mile through route from East Side Drive to West Side Drive via Government Tower Trail and Camp 3 Trail — a different shape than the short dead-end route in the township’s narrative guide. See Evidence and limits.

Access and ownership

The trail crosses state land at least in part: the 2014 Road Commission minutes describe it as providing “access to properties” as well as recreational use, and the 2017 collaborative discussion of its culvert involved a Michigan DEQ permit, consistent with regulated wetland or waterway crossing on public or quasi-public ground. No source in the archive gives a complete ownership picture along the route’s full length, and no source establishes a formal public right of way; use is documented through volunteer effort and township road-commission requests, not a recorded easement.

As walked in 2019. a walked account contributed in 2019 turns west off East Side Drive about 1.25 miles south of Hannigan’s Road, on a road with no street sign but a seasonal road sign and Beaver Island Birding Trail marker #16. Parking is at a gravel pit about a third of a mile in; the trailhead is about 0.1 mile beyond, where the road meets the road to the Coyote Land Company. That is the only named landholder on this approach in any source held here, and the archive has nothing else on it.

The account judges the trail beyond the meadow overgrown, uneven and likely underwater in spots early in the season, with downed trees that could make it impassable — and advises reaching Greene’s Lake Trail from its western end instead if that is the point of the walk.

Evidence and limits

Published: named on the 2015 map, in the township’s narrative guide, and in a 2019 BITA sheet. Walked: only as failed or partial attempts — the 2017 party that turned back, and 2024 visitors warned off past the beaver dam; the archive holds no successful end-to-end account. Mapped: two current OSM ways, simplified for display, geometry_status: mapped, though these are volunteered geometry rather than a surveyed line and their correspondence to the ground described above is unconfirmed.

The 2019 BITA sheet’s “Greene’s/Martin’s Trail” and the township guide’s “Johnny Martin’s Trail” may be the same route under two publishing traditions, or two routes that share a family name and pass near each other — see the January 3, 2025 Peaine Township Planning Commission minutes, which keep “Johnny Martin’s Trail” (under trails) and “Buddy Martin’s Trail” (under roads/emergency access) as two separate capital-improvement line items, showing the township itself distinguishes at least two Martin-named routes. Which one the 2017 forum poster and the 2010 “Buddy Martin’s Trail” closure report describe is not established.

Documented associations

No source-confirmed non-road entity is linked yet. Exact-name research leads remain in scripts/audit_road_links.py; a name collision is not treated as a road association.

Research status

The local newspaper and website corpus contains exact-name mentions in 0 file(s). Those files are research leads; the relation layer is added only when the surrounding source text establishes that the record involves this road.

Added 2 August 2026. Recent changes