MONROE - One of the city's most troublesome eyesores, which happens to sit on Michigan's only battlefield, finally will be demolished next year, thanks to a deal that will be announced today near an abandoned paper mill.

State officials will announce a $1.4 million grant in the upcoming budget that will be used to carefully demolish and clean up contamination at the former Jefferson Smurfit East Mill pulp plant near the intersection of East Elm Avenue and North Dixie Highway.

Funding for the grant is from the Clean Michigan Initiative.

The plant, which is more than 85 years old and closed in 1995, was built on land that was once the original 1789 Frenchtown Settlement and the site of one of the bloodiest land battles of the War of 1812: the River Raisin Massacre.

“That place has hindered the growth of our city,” said Monroe Mayor C.D. “Al” Cappuccilli. “A lot of people that drive into our city ask us when that monstrosity will come down, and now it's finally coming down.”

Approximately 300 Americans died on or near the site on Jan. 18 and 22, 1813.

While the plant itself sits on 30 acres, the deal surrounding its ultimate destruction involves a total of 350 acres owned by Homrich, Inc., which also owns the former paper mill.

The complex deal calls for Homrich to donate the 30-acre plant site to the Monroe County Historical Society for its ultimate preservation and archeological study. In addition, Homrich and the city each will donate half its ownership of a 160-acre wetland east of I-75 to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, which will attach it to the adjacent Sterling State Park.

The remaining 160 acres then will be developed or sold by Homrich, Inc., for future commercial and industrial redevelopment, city officials said. The value of the 30-acre plant site is estimated at between $750,000 and $1 million.

Jim Tischler, Monroe's director of community development and planning, said negotiations on the deal have been a “long and arduous process” that began just two weeks after the paper mill closed in September, 1995.

“We got into a whole bunch of issues, but the biggest hurdle was the fact that we're dealing with not only Michigan environmental law but federal environmental law,” at the site, Mr. Tischler said. “We spent the better part of two years discussing the process with [state and federal government environmental agencies].”

January will mark the 190th anniversary of the historic conflict that dramatically changed the balance of power in the Great Lakes until Oliver Hazard Perry defeated the British in the Battle of Lake Erie in September, 1813.

The day after the final battle in Monroe, Shawnee and Potawatomi warriors returned to the battle site, killing those who remained on the field, including 52 British soldiers.

Of 623 American soldiers in the battle, 33 made it back to Fort Meigs in what is now Perrysburg.

The entire Frenchtown settlement was burned and lost to history until archeologists discovered the remains of its puncheon walls during digs in 1998 and 2000.

Archeologists have expressed an eagerness to return once demolition begins to study what evidence of the former settlement might lie below the plant and an adjoining parking lot, believed to be the locations of at least some of the approximately 14 structures that were inside the settlement's walls.

“We've been looking forward to that for several years,” said Dr. G. Michael Pratt, professor of anthropology at Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio, and discoverer of the location of the Battle of Fallen Timbers in Lucas County.

Dr. Pratt participated in the 1998 and 2000 digs near the plant that determined much of the settlement's former geography.

“It's great to see that after pretty much seeing it built over and destroyed by modern construction to recognize, there's still quite a bit of likely evidence there. We should be able to get a real understanding and ability to determine what was on that site and interpret that site to the public” once demolition begins, he said.

The River Raisin Massacre, though a terrible defeat for American forces, became a recruiting tool and a rallying cry for later battles in the War of 1812, Dr. Pratt said.

First Published May 10, 2002, 12:06 p.m.