Michigan Conservation Commission Beaver Island Deer Closure Order, 1938

Legal instrument

Date: 1938-09-09
Eras: Modern era
Concepts: conservationwildlifeanimalsgovernanceenvironmentheritage

Summary

The Charlevoix County Herald reprinted a State of Michigan Conservation Commission order signed and ordered published on September 9, 1938. The order prohibited hunting, taking, or killing wild animals or birds during the open deer season in St. James Township on Big Beaver Island for five years beginning November 15, 1938.¹

The document supplies the legal basis and geographic description behind the closure later discussed in the July 1938 newspaper report. It names P. J. Hoffmaster as Director of the Department of Conservation.¹

Evidence and limits

The issuance date is the order’s signed-and-published date; November 15, 1938 is the stated effective date. The held reprint does not establish the precise expiration-day convention, the underlying investigation file, or whether the order was amended, superseded, or enforced in a particular case.

Open questions

Where is the original 1938 order or the Department of Conservation file?
Did the five-year restriction end automatically, or was it renewed or amended before the 1938 reopening report?
What were the exact legal boundaries of Town 39 N., Range 10 W. in the contemporaneous order?

Read the document

8 pages, rendered from the held scan.

Michigan Conservation Commission Beaver Island Deer Closure Order, 1938 — p. 1 — Page 1 of 8State of Michigan, Order of the Conservation Commission — Deer — Certain Area Beaver Island, signed and ordered published September 9, 1938; reprinted in Charlevoix County Herald, October 9, 1942.Open the page image · Download this page

All 8 pages

Sources

State of Michigan, Order of the Conservation Commission — Deer — Certain Area Beaver Island, signed and ordered published September 9, 1938; reprinted in Charlevoix County Herald, October 9, 1942.
Direct reprint of the order: five-year closure beginning November 15, 1938, covering deer hunting in St. James Township, Town 39 N., Range 10 W., Big Beaver Island; signed by P. J. Hoffmaster as Director, Department of Conservation. No public copy of this file is known; the archive holds one and can provide it on request.
charlevoix · Charlevoix_County_Herald_1942-10-09
Charlevoix County Herald, October 9, 1942, raw issue OCR.
Held raw OCR preserves the printed legal order independently of the normalized Markdown rendering.
charlevoix · issues · Charlevoix_County_Herald_1942-10-09 · Charlevoix_County_Herald_1942-10-09_djvu
Project research record for Beaver Island conservation orders, 1938–1952.
Keeps the deer order’s issuance date, effective date, five-year duration, township/range area, and limits on enforcement or population outcomes in structured form. No public copy of this file is known; the archive holds one and can provide it on request.
kb_research · beaver_island_conservation_orders_1938_1952

Added 1 August 2026 · revised 3 August 2026. Recent changes

Cite this article

Beaver Island Archive, “Michigan Conservation Commission Beaver Island Deer Closure Order, 1938”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/documents/beaver-island-deer-closure-order-1938/, accessed [date], citing State of Michigan, Order of the Conservation Commission — Deer — Certain Area Beaver Island, signed and ordered published September 9, 1938; reprinted in Charlevoix County Herald, October 9, 1942. (and 2 further sources listed on the page).

Last revised 2026-08-03. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.

BibTeX for “Michigan Conservation Commission Beaver Island Deer Closure Order, 1938”RIS for “Michigan Conservation Commission Beaver Island Deer Closure Order, 1938”