- Intersects
- West Side Road
- Coordinates
- 45.6668° N, 85.5892° WGoogle Maps: Young James TrailDownload KML
- Eras
- Modern era
- Concepts
- trailstransportationtoponymy
- Within
- Beaver Island archipelago
Summary
Young James 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 1.8 km. It meets one other named road, recorded under intersects_road.
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 establishes formal ownership or a legal right-of-way. The one dated record of use — a 1993 building-permit notice for a pole building at 24940 Young James Trail in Peaine Township — is consistent with the road serving individually owned residential parcels off West Side Road, but it is an address record, not a title or plat document. No motorized-use designation is documented, and there are no designated public ORV trails on Beaver Island in any case.
Open questions
- Was the road named for a specific “Young James,” and if so, who was he? No source held here identifies him.
- Is Young James Trail a public road or a private access serving the residential parcels off West Side Road? No Road Commission record has been found under this name.
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:
- Pole building permitted at 24940 Young James Trail, 1993 — A 1993 Charlevoix Courier building-permit notice listed Burris Masonry to construct a pole building for Margaret Moy at 24940 Young James Trail in Peaine Township. The notice establishes the reported address and planned construction, but not the permit date, exact parcel geometry, or completion.
Research status
The local newspaper and website corpus contains exact-name mentions in 6 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 'Young James Trail'; grouped OSM way ids: 17760462. This is a volunteered map record, not a surveyed right-of-way or proof of historical naming.osm · roads
Added 2 August 2026 · revised 16 August 2026. Recent changes
Cite this article
Beaver Island Archive, “Young James Trail”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/places/young-james-trail/, accessed [date], citing OpenStreetMap contributors, roads via Overpass API, retrieved 2026-08-01 (ODbL 1.0)..
Last revised 2026-08-16. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.