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DOWAGIAC — Dr. Charles Burling remembers it like it was yesterday. 

The Dowagiac native recalled a conversation he had with an uncle as a youth about his goals and dreams.

“Growing up, I had an uncle who said the Burling family are just workers. Don’t plan on being anything big in this community,” Burling said. “I don’t know if he said that as a challenge or if it was to instill in me to strive to be my best, but I thought ‘you’re wrong on that one even though you were a good fisherman.’”

Burling, now a retired dentist and former city councilmember, was honored with the dedication of Burling Park Wednesday.

Friends, family and colleagues celebrated Burling’s achievements at the newly-established park at the dedication ceremony. The park, located on Riverside Drive, features a newly established overlook and access to the Dowagiac Creek.

“This is just an incredibly great day for us and an opportunity not only to open up a new park and bring access to people to this waterfront that haven’t had access before, but also to name it after Chuck Burling and all that he has brought to the community as well,” said Dowagiac City Manager Kevin Anderson.

The park dedication is the latest in city efforts to create public access to the flowing waters of the  Dowagiac Creek at all locations where streets and flowing water intersect.

“We started to take a look at the water, and we have Heddon Park and Rudy Park but there’s not a park here that has access, there’s not a park on Cass Avenue that has access, there’s not a park on the corner of Lowe and Pokagon that has access,” Anderson said. “How can that be improved and how do we interact with those and all of a sudden the vision starts to come forward for the community – a vision that says every time there’s Road across water. We are going to create access to this life, sustaining force that runs right through the middle of our community.”

‘Incredibly humbled and honored’

Burling, a 1968 graduate of Dowagiac Union High School, graduated from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry in 1976 and opened the offices of Charles Burling D.D.S. in Dowagiac in 1978. He provided his services to the community for more than four decades before retiring in 2017. After serving for many years as a Chairman of the City of Dowagiac’s Planning Commission, Burling was appointed to serve on the city council in 2003 and served as one of Ward Three’s Councilmembers until 2019.

Burling said he was overcome with several emotions upon learning the park would be dedicated in his name.

“It was a combination of being incredibly humbled and honored and surprised,” he said. “I know I had put a lot of work in on Schuur Park and I was tickled by what they did for Bob; he was quite a city servant and we will miss him. The opportunity to put a family name on something, especially something this beautiful, is special.”

While serving as councilmember, Burling pursued initiatives aiming to enhance the quality of life of the citizens of Dowagiac which can be seen in his efforts to nurture the following projects to fruition:  

• The funding of improvements to homes in neighborhoods and Downtown.  
• The redevelopment of Commercial Street entry to the downtown.  
• The redevelopment of the former middle school into the Donald D. Lyons Health Center and new single family homes.  
• The relocation of the Dowagiac Area History Museum.  The purchase and continuing development of Russom Park.  
• The purchase and continuing improvements at Schuur Park.  
• The purchase of a blighted block across from City Hall and the development of the James E. Snow Building.

Dedication to Dowagiac

Mayor Don Lyons thanked Burling for choosing to invest in Dowagiac during a time of economic upheaval in the city and for his efforts to improve the quality of life in his hometown.

“He could have easily picked another community, a community with a bright future, a community that was truly a modern age community but he didn’t,” Lyons said. “He said, no, I’m coming back to Dowagiac. I’m going to put a stake in the ground and I’m going to make this a better community and with that, he put incredible amounts of energy into everything he turned his mind to, whether it was his practice, whether it was just church, his family, or healthcare in general with his long involvement with Borgess-Lee Hospital. There’s no place that you can turn in this community and not see Chuck Burling’s fingerprints on it. 

“We all owe Dr. Burling an incredible vote of  thanks and appreciation for coming back to this community, being one of the first people in his generation to say, ‘I’m going to do everything within my power, to take this community into a bright new age.’”

The dedication means much to Burling, who has had a strong attachment to the creek since his youth.

“We had a road that accessed the creek and it opened up a new and amazing environment for me to learn about nature, to watch the serenity of the water and to watch the fish,” he said. “My love for that river really started to grow in those early ages and is still very real today.”

Burling thanked those in attendance as well as his late father, who would have turned 98 last Friday.

“I’m not the man that I currently am, nor do I have the values that I have, without a father that instilled that in me,” he said. “I thank the city for naming Burling Park. I look at this as not so much what I’ve done but what I have accomplished with the values my father instilled in me. As Bob Schuur said when they dedicated his park, he wished his mom were there. I wish my dad were here; Friday, he would have been 98 years old. Happy birthday, dad. Thank you.”