A Flushing subdivision that never got built is now 130 acres of riverfront trails

The land along the Flint River off North McKinley Road was drawn up on paper as house lots — a subdivision meant to bolt onto the existing Brentwood neighborhood. In 1992 the township supervisor, Granville Auker, looked at the plat and floated a different idea: leave the houses off and make it a park. The township did, and roughly 130 acres of riverbottom got to stay wild.

What grew there is one of the better stretches of public riverfront in the county. More than a mile of boardwalk threads the low, wet ground so you can walk over marsh and floodplain without sinking in. Three miles of groomed trails climb up into the drier woods, and a tall observation deck looks out over a prairie and the river bend. A half-mile of paved trail keeps it open to wheelchairs and strollers, and there’s kayak access for anyone who’d rather see the Flint from the water.

A lot of the small comforts came from teenagers earning Eagle Scout rank — the picnic tables, the trail benches, the birdhouses, a cedar flagpole, even the prairie observation deck itself. The Community Foundation of Flushing chipped in benches and accessible tables. It adds up to a park built in pieces by the people who use it, which is roughly how it began.

It’s open dawn to dusk, free, and quiet enough that you’ll hear sandhill cranes more often than traffic. Stand on the deck at dusk in spring and watch the river slide past land that was one signature away from being a cul-de-sac.