Reed City's Westerburg Park: ballfields, a BMX track, and a river to fish

For a town of a few thousand people, Reed City keeps an unusual amount of green space, and Westerburg Park is the workhorse of the bunch. It runs about 46 acres and serves as the main ball complex for the whole region — baseball and softball diamonds, basketball courts, two picnic pavilions, a playground — the place the town shows up when there’s a tournament or a summer event.

Two things set it apart from the standard rec park. One is the BMX bike park, a dirt course of jumps and berms where kids spend whole afternoons earning scraped shins. The other is the Hersey River, which slides along the edge of the property with fishing access right there — so a kid can pedal the BMX track until they’re tired and then go drown a worm in the river without leaving the park. Few small-town parks let you do both before lunch.

That mix fits the town’s whole personality. Reed City sits where the White Pine Trail and the Pere Marquette State Trail cross, and the state liked the place enough to give it an official “Pure Michigan TrailTown” designation — recognition that this is a town built around getting outside on foot, on a bike, on the water. From the trailhead downtown you can ride scenic miles west toward Ludington, east toward Bay City, or north to Cadillac.

So Westerburg isn’t an island. It’s one stop in a town stitched together with trails and river, where the playgrounds and the bike track and the rail-trail crossing all seem to lean in the same direction: out the door. Pack a fishing rod with the ball glove and you’ve understood the place.