Iron County Seeks Outside Manager for Cooks Run Fish Hatchery Property

The Iron County Board of Commissioners has formally opened the door for outside management of a portion of the Cooks Run Fish Hatchery property in Stambaugh Township, approving a Request for Proposals at its March 10 meeting, with responses due in June.

The 122-acre former fish hatchery was built as a Public Works Administration project during the Great Depression and has been owned by Iron County since 1961. The former fish hatchery was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. The site sits off Cooks Run Road, about 14 miles west of Iron River in Stambaugh Township.

The 122-acre site includes fish rearing ponds, a small coffer dam, several outbuildings and a log caretaker cabin that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The property last operated as a fish hatchery in 2013, when Dino Giannola of Watersmeet Trout Hatchery used it for one season after it had sat idle for several years.

The RFP's arrival marks a new chapter in a long-running debate. The future of the county-owned property has been the topic of discussion at county board meetings for many years. Due to a reverter clause in the deed, the property cannot be transferred to private ownership or it reverts back to the state of Michigan. However, the county can have logging done on the land.

Timber has been a persistent point of contention at Cooks Run. County Forester Brock VanOss said previously that if the timber there is not harvested much of it will die off and be lost, and noted he had previously marked timber on the property but canceled the sale due to public backlash and concerns about the cabin. A 2024 habitat study commissioned by the Iron County Watershed Coalition complicated that calculus further: the study concluded that no restoration efforts will be needed and that the wetlands and riparian forest should be protected from forest harvest and other invasive activities. Biologists Jesse Gabbard and Dean Premo said they would like to see Cooks Run stay unlogged and perhaps become a recreational and educational area.

The phrase "as harvest plans shift" in the headline of initial coverage signals that the RFP's approval is connected to those ongoing timber deliberations, though the precise nature of any plan changes awaits further documentation from county officials.

The county does not receive any state funding to maintain the property. The county's hands are also tied by a reverter clause in the deed that states the state of Michigan is allowed to take back the Cooks Run property if it goes to a private entity and is not maintained for public use. That legal constraint means whoever responds to the RFP would need to keep the property accessible to the public as a condition of any management arrangement.

The Iron County Board of Commissioners office in Crystal Falls can provide the full RFP document, submission instructions, and information about any pre-proposal site visits. The proposal deadline falls sometime in June; the exact date should be confirmed directly with the county.