- Intersects
- Font Lake Road · Hemlock Trail · Tamarack Trail Court · White Cedar Trail
- Coordinates
- 45.7485° N, 85.5513° WGoogle Maps: Tamarack TrailDownload KML
- Eras
- Modern era
- Concepts
- transportationtoponymy
- Within
- Beaver Island archipelago
Summary
Tamarack Trail is a named road on Beaver Island’s current OpenStreetMap map.
One held way carries that name, and its geometry is the whole route: about 704
m. It meets four other named roads, listed under intersects_road. Despite
the name, this is a platted street in the Port St. James subdivision rather
than a recreational trail: it carries “Trail” as a street suffix alongside
neighboring courts and drives — Hemlock Trail and White Cedar Trail run
parallel to it under the same pattern — and it is not tagged with the
trails concept for that reason (see Trails and trail-making).
Evidence and limits
The name and the alignment are what mappers last entered, and OpenStreetMap is
volunteered work rather than a survey: it settles neither the right-of-way nor
who maintains the road. Where the name came from is a separate question. Plats,
road-commission minutes, and island memory answer that one. Put an older
spelling from any of them into alt_names or former_names, with the source
that attests it.
Access and ownership
No source held here documents who platted Tamarack Trail or dedicated the
right-of-way. The current county parcel snapshot places its lots’ legal
descriptions under “PORT ST. JAMES #8,” and, like White Cedar Trail,
the road-name field carries no “(PVT)” private-road flag — unlike
Chipmunk Trail, which the same snapshot marks private. That is
consistent with public status but is not itself an ownership record, and no
Charlevoix County Road Commission item naming Tamarack Trail specifically has
been found, in contrast with the 1998–99 seasonal-road record held for White
Cedar Trail. The street address form also shifted in the sources: business
advertisements gave “27700 Tamarack Road” through 1997–98, while classified
real-estate ads from December 2000 on give “Tamarack Trail Road.” Both may
describe the same street under different published forms, but no source
confirms it, so alt_names here carries “Tamarack Road” as a documented
variant rather than a settled equivalence.
Open questions
- When was the “PORT ST. JAMES #8” plat recorded, and by whom, establishing Tamarack Trail’s original dedication?
- Do “27700 Tamarack Road” (1997-98 advertisements) and “Tamarack Trail Road” (2000 onward) name the same street under different published forms, or two distinct addresses? No source held here confirms the equivalence.
If you can answer any of these, or correct anything above, the archive wants to hear it — see Corrections.
Documented associations
These source-backed records provide context for the mapped route:
- Port St. James Tamarack Trail lots — January and February 2001 Beaver Beacon classified advertisements offered two wooded, perked, powered lots in Port St. James on Tamarack Trail Road at $9,500 each. The map point is the current Tamarack Trail route point, retained as an approximate road-level locator because the listing does not identify lot numbers or a plat. This is a source-qualified…
Research status
The local newspaper and website corpus contains exact-name mentions in 42 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.
Maps for this place
These Atlas plates provide regional context. They do not establish a precise boundary, current ownership, access right, operating status, or field condition.
- EnvironmentSoils, wetlands, hydrography, and terrain
- GeologyGeneralized geology and landforms
- HydrologyMapped water and wetland context
- AccessMapped routes, facilities, and protected areas
- Land surveyPLSS geometry and historic GLO patent-location context
Sources
- Current mapped road name 'Tamarack Trail'; grouped OSM way ids: 17753861. This is a volunteered map record, not a surveyed right-of-way or proof of historical naming.osm · roads
- An electrical-contracting business advertisement gives the address '27700 Tamarack Road, Beaver Island MI 49782.' The same ad, same address, recurs monthly through at least mid-1998. This is the earliest dated form of the street name found in the corpus and predates the 'Tamarack Trail Road' form below by about three years; it does not by itself prove the two names denote the identical stretch of road rather than a rebuilt address.data1 · beaver-island-archive · beaver_beacon · 1997-04_Beaver-Beacon
- The earliest dated appearance found of a recurring classified ad for 'PORT ST. JAMES-2 wooded lots, on Tamarack Trail Road'; the same ad repeats monthly into 2002 (see place/tamarack-trail-port-st-james-lots-2001 for the January-February 2001 instances).data1 · beaver-island-archive · beaver_beacon · 2000-12_Beaver-Beacon
- Described in this archive: Current named-feature and property join records.Current parcel rows carry the road-name field 'TAMARACK TRL', without the '(PVT)' private-road flag the same snapshot gives Chipmunk Trail (see place/chipmunk-trail), and legal descriptions reading 'PORT ST. JAMES #8 LOT n'. It is not a title search or ownership record.county · charlevoix · parcels_arcgis · 2026-08-01 · island_parcel_attributes
Added 2 August 2026 · revised 16 August 2026. Recent changes
Cite this article
Beaver Island Archive, “Tamarack Trail”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/places/tamarack-trail/, accessed [date], citing OpenStreetMap contributors, roads via Overpass API, retrieved 2026-08-01 (ODbL 1.0). (and 3 further sources listed on the page).
Last revised 2026-08-16. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.