West Branch anchors Ogemaw County almost exactly where I-75 crosses the middle of Michigan's northern Lower Peninsula, a modest county seat whose surrounding countryside includes a genuinely substantial state recreation area that began its existence not as public land at all, but as one wealthy Detroit auto executive's private hunting retreat.
A Motor Baron's Hunting Retreat
Harry Mulford Jewett, president of the Paige-Detroit Motor Car Company and successful enough in the auto industry to have an entire automobile brand named for him, purchased a substantial tract of land near West Branch in the 1920s specifically to create a private hunting and fishing retreat, naming the property Grousehaven after the game birds that drew him to it in the first place. Jewett's retreat remained private family property for roughly two decades, a quiet countryside escape from the pace of Detroit's booming automotive industry during the same years that industry was reshaping the entire state's economy.
Following Jewett's death, the Michigan Department of Conservation purchased Grousehaven from his widow in 1945, renaming it the Rifle River Area and initially using the property as a field laboratory for fish and game research rather than opening it immediately to public recreation, a scientific use that reflected the same conservation-minded state government philosophy driving reforestation and wildlife management efforts across Michigan during the same postwar decades.
From Research Station to State Park
The Michigan Parks Division formally acquired the property in 1963, converting Jewett's former private hunting ground into the Rifle River State Recreation Area, which today spans roughly 4,449 acres of forest, river, and connected lakes open to camping, fishing, and hiking for any visitor willing to make the short drive out from West Branch's modest downtown. The transformation from millionaire's private retreat to public recreation area gives the park a genuinely layered history that most visitors paddling its stretch of the Rifle River today have little reason to suspect.
West Branch itself functions primarily as the practical gateway and supply hub for visitors headed into the recreation area, its position directly on I-75 making it an easy, convenient stop for travelers moving between southern Michigan and the state's northern lake country, a role the town has settled into comfortably regardless of whether visitors linger downtown or simply pass through on their way to Jewett's former hunting grounds.