The Muskegon River Watershed is one of Michigan’s largest at over 2,700 square miles, and the river, with headwaters in the Higgins/Houghton Lakes area of Roscommon County, is the state’s second longest. The South Branch of the Muskegon River flows through the City of Muskegon’s Richards Park and continues another quarter mile before emptying into Muskegon Lake. In the mid to late nineteenth century, Muskegon received logs gathered from across the watershed and floated downriver, and Muskegon lumber was said to have helped rebuild Chicago. Richards Park, named in 1941 for Muskegon County Parks Commissioner Wright W. Richards, occupies the site of a former sewage treatment plant. During the early 2000s, funds from NOAA Coastal Marine American Recovery and Reinvestment Act restored half an acre of emergent/upland habitat, half an acre of open water wetlands, 390 feet of natural shoreline, and removed 1 acre of fill.