Name: Mort Neff films Beaver Island Dawn Patrol and Parish Hall fire, 1961
Start: 1961-07
End: 1961-08
Location: Beaver Island

Mort Neff films Beaver Island Dawn Patrol and Parish Hall fire, 1961

Also Michigan Outdoors Beaver Island film · Mort Neff Beaver Island visit

Draft — sources verified, prose evolving

Locator map: Beaver Island highlighted within the Beaver Island archipelago

Took place at Beaver IslandLocator plate © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0); depths NOAA; names USGS GNIS. How the plates are drawn.

TypeEvent

Dates1961-07 – 1961-08

WithinBeaver Island

ErasModern era

Event

Dates: 1961-07 – 1961-08
Kind: Disaster
Where: Beaver Island
Along road: Main Street
Eras: Modern era
Concepts: heritagetourismcommunity
Within: Beaver Island

Summary

Mort Neff filmed the 1961 Dawn Patrol and Parish Hall fire for the Michigan Outdoors television program, then returned to film the new golf course and Main Street and interview John W. Greene. The Beacon says the film was shown on the program.

Evidence and limits

No broadcast date, recording, transcript, or production log is held here.

Sources

Beaver Beacon, August 1961, “Interesting Island Visitors.”
Reports Mort Neff of “Michigan Outdoors” filming the Dawn Patrol and Parish Hall fire, returning to film the new golf course and Main Street, interviewing John W. Greene, and showing the resulting film on his program. It does not preserve a broadcast date, recording, transcript, or production credit beyond the newspaper account.
data1 · beaver-island-archive · beaver_beacon · 1961-08_Beaver-Beacon
Beaver Beacon, August 1961, held issue PDF, source scan.
The held eight-page issue scan is paired with the OCR source and confirms the published notice or report; it does not expand the source-specific identity, event, or outcome claims.
data1 · beaver-island-archive · scans · beaver_beacon · issues · 1961-08_Beaver-Beacon

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

Cite this article

Beaver Island Archive, “Mort Neff films Beaver Island Dawn Patrol and Parish Hall fire, 1961”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/events/mort-neff-dawn-patrol-and-parish-hall-film-1961/, accessed [date], citing Beaver Beacon, August 1961, “Interesting Island Visitors.” (and 1 further source 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.

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