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Marginal swamp forest with tip-up mounds on the Charles Dodge Sanctuary. Photo by Bill Collins.

The TLC purchased the Charles Dodge Sanctuary in the 2022 State land auction. The Sanctuary was formerly part of the Port Huron State Game Area and is covered by an extensive swamp forest interspersed with low upland sand ridges covered by a northern forest community of Red Maple, Paper Birch, and Eastern White Pine. The Sanctuary is located in an area of well-document Painted Trillium occurrence, a Michigan Endangered wildflower that is now recorded only from Saint Clair County in all of Michigan. Although this preserve is just a very small piece of the Black River valley, the TLC thought it appropriate to honor Port Huron botanist Charles K. Dodge, who over a century ago, advocated for protection of the valley as a nature reserve. Maybe this small preserve will lead to a bigger preserve but every piece of nature is now important.

Charles Keene Dodge served as City Attorney of Port Huron, and later, as a Circuit Court Commissioner and City Controller. In 1893, Dodge was appointed Deputy Collector of
the United States Customs Office in Port Huron, and largely retired from legal practice, which afforded him much more time to pursue his true interest of botany. He eventually collected about 40,000 plant specimens, now held by the University of Michigan Herbarium. Among many works in his lifetime, in 1900, Dodge published Flora of St. Clair County, Michigan and the Western Part of Lambton County, Ontario. In 1911, Dodge wrote the Flora of the County section of History of St. Clair County by William Jenks, and took this opportunity to lament the loss of native habitat in the area even then. In the same publication, Dodge proposed the creation of a large “… public
reservation of 3,000 or 4,000 acres in one piece for St. Clair county” to preserve native flora and fauna of the region. He wrote, “The very best place for such a proposed reservation in this county is in the township of Clyde where Mill Creek joins Black River”.

This is the present location of the Port Huron State Game Area.