Community leaders who were around at the time of Berrien County’s purchase of Silver Beach are remembering how it came together. Following the death this week of longtime LECO President Robert Warren, he’s being remembered as the person who sold the land to the county. Dick Schinkel was on the county parks board at the time when the deal was proposed in 1991. He tells us Warren held off on selling the land while the county sought a state grant to afford it.
“If it wasn’t for Bob Warren and [former Berrien County Parks Director] Randy Rood and the parks board and the Natural Resources Trust Fund, we would probably be looking at condominiums today,” Schinkel said. “It’s because of them that we have Silver Beach. The Warrens also gave us a number of funds to help with the infrastructure of the park, too.”
Schinkel says it was huge for the county to get its hands on that large of a stretch of Lake Michigan shoreline. Now, Silver Beach is Berrien County’s most popular attraction. It had 728,500 visitors last year.
