Lewis Reimann

Lewis Charles Reimann (1890 – August 20, 1961) was an American author, camp operator, politician and football player. A native of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Reimann played college football for the Michigan Wolverines in 1914 and 1915. He founded the University of Michigan Fresh Air Camp for underprivileged boys in 1921. Six years later, in 1927, he founded Camp Charlevoix which he operated until 1948. In the 1950s, Reimann wrote several books on the history of the Upper Peninsula and the Menominee and Gogebic Ranges. He also ran unsuccessfully as a Democratic Party candidate for the mayor of Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1951, and for a seat in the Michigan State Senate in 1954.

Early life Reimann was born in Michigan's Upper Peninsula in 1890. A descendant of German immigrants, he grew up surrounded by the lumber and mining booms in the Iron River district, In Michigan's 1914 victory over Harvard, Reimann made more tackles than the rest of the Michigan team. An injury limited his playing time during the 1915 college football season; he appeared only briefly in one game.

While attending Michigan, Reimann also became a leader in the "clean athletic movement".

Reimann was also a member of the Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity. He later served as the fourth national president of the fraternity, serving in that role from 1925 to 1927.

Fresh Air Camp and Camp Charlevoix Reimann graduated from the University of Michigan as part of the Literary Class of 1916 and married Pearle Shewell on June 2, 1917, in Genoa, Ohio. At that time, he was employed as the YMCA secretary for Barry County, Michigan. In the late 1910s, he became involved in YMCA camps,

In 1921, he founded the University of Michigan Fresh Air Camp for underprivileged boys. The Fresh Air Camp was located on 4,200 feet of wooded lake front 10 miles north of Port Huron, Michigan. It providing recreation and camp activities under the guidance of Michigan students and alumni for boys from poor homes, the juvenile court, and the detention home.

One author has described Michigan's Fresh Air Camp and similar programs as "the country's first attempts to conceptualize and intervene in the lives of 'at risk' youth populations." Reimann served as the chief counselor and camp director; He first opened the camp in a temporary location in Ironton, Michigan in Charlevoix County. In 1928, he found a site on the shores of Lake Charlevoix. The site had 170 acres and three-quarters of a mile of lake frontage.

Reimann became a consultant for some 150 camps across the United States, In 1958, the University of Michigan Press published Reimann's book, "The Successful Camp."

Author Reimann became known as an authority on the history of the Upper Peninsula and Menominee and Gogebic Ranges. Between the Iron and the Pine contains Reimann's personal reminiscences, local folklore, and descriptions of "memorable local characters". Incredible Seney: The First Complete Story of Michigan's Fabulous Lumber Town (1953), Hurley—Still No Angel (1954), and The Game Warden and the Poachers (1959).

Politics In his later years, Reimann also ran unsuccessfully as a candidate for mayor of Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1951. He ran as a Democrat and was defeated by the incumbent Republican Mayor William E. Brown Jr. He also ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the Michigan State Senate in 1954. He had previously served as a "dry" delegate from Washtenaw County to the 1933 Michigan Constitutional Convention to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution repealing Prohibition.

Family, death and honors In August 1961, Reimann died at his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, following a long illness at age 70. He was survived by his wife, Pearle, a daughter, Mrs. Lawrence S. Smith, and three grandchildren.