- Intersects
- Beaver Lodge Drive
- Coordinates
- 45.7493° N, 85.5267° WGoogle Maps: Chipmunk TrailDownload KML
- Eras
- Modern era
- Concepts
- transportationtoponymy
- Within
- Beaver Island archipelago
Summary
Chipmunk Trail is a named road on Beaver Island’s current OpenStreetMap map.
One held way carries that name, and its geometry is the whole route: about 186
m. It meets one other named road, recorded under intersects_road. Despite
the name, this is a platted subdivision street rather than a recreational
trail: it carries “Trail” as a street suffix in the Robin Woods plat, the way
a neighboring court or drive might, and it is not tagged with the trails
concept for that reason (see Trails and trail-making).
Evidence and limits
The name and the alignment are what mappers last entered, and OpenStreetMap is
volunteered work rather than a survey: it settles neither the right-of-way nor
who maintains the road. Where the name came from is a separate question. Plats,
road-commission minutes, and island memory answer that one. Put an older
spelling from any of them into alt_names or former_names, with the source
that attests it.
Access and ownership
The Charlevoix County parcel snapshot carries Chipmunk Trail with a “(PVT)” private-road flag, which the same snapshot does not apply to the nearby Port St. James ways such as White Cedar Trail. Its parcels’ legal descriptions read “PLATTED 95 ROBIN WOODS LOT n,” placing the road inside a plat named Robin Woods rather than Port St. James. A November 1993 St. James Township Board item names Chipmunk Trail directly: surveyor Sherm Chamberlin presented plat adjustments that included a 10-ft public walkway “along Lot #10, from Chipmunk Trail to water’s edge,” to be deeded to the public, and the Board accepted the plat with those adjustments. That establishes a public walkway easement reaching the road, not public ownership of the road itself. No source in the archive records who platted Robin Woods, when, or whether the road was ever formally dedicated; the county’s current classification is the only ownership evidence held.
Open questions
- When was the Robin Woods plat itself recorded, and by whom? The “95” in the county’s legal-description shorthand (“PLATTED 95 ROBIN WOODS LOT n”) is not decoded here — is it a 1995 recording year, a liber/page number, or something else?
- Was Chipmunk Trail ever formally dedicated to the public, or has it always been the private road the county’s current “(PVT)” flag records? No source held here addresses a dedication.
- Was the 10-ft public walkway easement from Lot #10 to the water’s edge, approved by the Township Board in November 1993, ever actually deeded and built?
If you can answer any of these, or correct anything above, the archive wants to hear it — see Corrections.
Documented associations
These source-backed records provide context for the mapped route:
- E & S Publishing — E & S Publishing was a business name recorded at 26625 Chipmunk Trail on Beaver Island. A 2006 Charlevoix Courier assumed-name notice lists Stephen A. Hagerman as the registrant. The filing supplies an address and business name but no publication history, operating dates, or evidence that the address was a public storefront.
Research status
The local newspaper and website corpus contains exact-name mentions in 14 file(s). Those files are research leads; the relation layer is added only when the surrounding source text establishes that the record involves this road.
Maps for this place
These Atlas plates provide regional context. They do not establish a precise boundary, current ownership, access right, operating status, or field condition.
- EnvironmentSoils, wetlands, hydrography, and terrain
- GeologyGeneralized geology and landforms
- HydrologyMapped water and wetland context
- AccessMapped routes, facilities, and protected areas
- Land surveyPLSS geometry and historic GLO patent-location context
Sources
- Current mapped road name 'Chipmunk Trail'; grouped OSM way ids: 17761944. This is a volunteered map record, not a surveyed right-of-way or proof of historical naming.osm · roads
- St. James Township minutes report that the Charlevoix County Planning Commission requested clarification of the Robin Woods Plat's zoning (Lots 1-7 Commercial, Lots 8-9 Harbor District) and that the rezoning as presented was accepted. Chipmunk Trail's parcels lie within Robin Woods per the county parcel legal descriptions (below); this item dates the plat's zoning review but does not itself name the road.data1 · beaver-island-archive · beaver_beacon · 1993-08_Beaver-Beacon
- Reports that surveyor Sherm Chamberlin presented adjustments to the Robin Woods Plat (three added lakefront lots zoned R-1, one added lot zoned Harbor District), that a 10-ft public walkway along Lot #10 ‘from Chipmunk Trail to water’s edge’ was to be deeded to the public, and that the Township Board accepted the plat with adjustments. This is the earliest dated source naming Chipmunk Trail found in the corpus; it establishes only the walkway easement, not the road's own ownership.data1 · beaver-island-archive · beaver_beacon · 1993-11_Beaver-Beacon
- Described in this archive: Current named-feature and property join records.Current parcel rows carry the road-name field 'CHIPMUNK TRL (PVT)' -- the county's own private-road flag -- and legal descriptions reading 'PLATTED 95 ROBIN WOODS LOT n' for the six parcels fronting it. This identifies the plat as 'Robin Woods' and the road as privately maintained in current county records; it is not a title search or a recorded road-dedication document, and the '95' in the legal-description shorthand is not decoded here.county · charlevoix · parcels_arcgis · 2026-08-01 · island_parcel_attributes
Added 2 August 2026 · revised 16 August 2026. Recent changes
Cite this article
Beaver Island Archive, “Chipmunk Trail”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/places/chipmunk-trail/, accessed [date], citing OpenStreetMap contributors, roads via Overpass API, retrieved 2026-08-01 (ODbL 1.0). (and 3 further sources listed on the page).
Last revised 2026-08-16. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.