Belle Isle: Detroit's Abandoned Paradise

Step onto Belle Isle today and you'll cross a 2,000-foot marble bridge straight into America's most surreal urban ruin. This Victorian island paradise in the Detroit River is covered in garbage, its Olympic-class rowing club stands abandoned, and somewhere in the attic of the Detroit Boat Club, a ghostly child might be watching from the window. But the strangest thing on Belle Isle isn't supernatural—it's a massive marble fountain built by a dead millionaire who absolutely hated Detroit.

In 1910, notorious Detroiter James Scott left his fortune to the city with one cruel condition: build a giant monument to him on Belle Isle, or get nothing. His enemies called him "a vindictive, scurrilous misanthrope," but Scott knew his money would win. His smug face still looks out over the fountain today, laughing at the city that despised him. From the oldest yacht club in America to a six-hole golf course, from Renaissance Revival architecture to styrofoam cups floating in interior lakes, Belle Isle tells the story of Detroit's rise and fall in one surreal, haunted island.

Join us for a tour of America's strangest state park, where you'll lose cell service halfway across the Detroit River and enter a place that feels suspended between 1900 and some distant dystopian future.

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In This Episode:

• Why Belle Isle's 2,000-foot marble bridge leads to a garbage-strewn paradise
• The vindictive millionaire who forced Detroit to build him a monument
• How America's oldest yacht club became a haunted ruin
• The disgraced mayor who replaced 150 zoo animals with plastic poop
• Why your cell phone thinks you've left America halfway across the island
• The six-hole golf course and other surreal Belle Isle landmarks

Key Figures:

• James Scott - Notorious millionaire who left his fortune with a cruel condition
• Kwame Kilpatrick - Disgraced Detroit mayor who closed Belle Isle Zoo in 2002
• Albert Kahn - Legendary architect who designed the aquarium and conservatory

Timeline:

• 1839: Detroit Boat Club established (oldest yacht club in America)
• 1908: Belle Isle Casino built in Renaissance Revival style
• 1910: James Scott dies, leaving money for controversial fountain monument
• 1956: Detroit Boat Club supplies seven rowers to single US Olympic team
• 1990s: Detroit Boat Club forced to leave its historic home
• 2002: Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick closes Belle Isle Zoo
• Present: Island maintained as state park with minimal resources

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