LANSING - The site of Michigan's first nuclear power plant will be remembered with a historical marker as the only physical reminder of the plant that stood at Big Rock Point in Charlevoix.

The state Historical Preservation Office plans to erect the marker at a roadside park in Charlevoix overlooking Big Rock Point on Little Traverse Bay. The site took its name from a Native American meeting point, said Laura Ashlee, publication and historical marker coordinator at the office.

"The plant was named after literally a big rock that sits out in the water," said Ken Pallagi of Consumers Energy, which built and operated the plant from 1962 to 1997. "It was used for centuries as a navigational aid by Native Americans.

"They would travel via birch bark canoe, and when they saw Big Rock, they used it as a gathering point and spend a couple days there before continuing their journey across the Bay to Harbor Springs," he added.

One side of the marker will explain the power plant, while the other side will describe the history of Big Rock Point.

Ashlee said, "This has been an exciting project because we dealt with such different subjects on one marker."

"Typically if we have two different texts on the marker, they relate in some way. In this case we covered two very different subjects on one marker," she said.

The marker is the first the state has erected for a nuclear power plant.

"Consumers Energy applied for Big Rock Point," said Ashlee. "We rely on people to tell us why a site is deserving, show historical research, provide photographs and the historical significance to Michigan."

Individuals or organizations must donate the cost of the markers. Consumers Energy paid $3,150 for the one at Big Rock Point, said Ashlee.

No dedication date has been set.

More than 1,500 markers across the state designate homes, farms, commercial buildings, churches, event locations, bridges and graves as historical sites.

"We even had one marking a shipwreck, with the marker underwater, but it broke away and we have yet to replace it," said Ashlee.

Big Rock Point provided electricity for Charlevoix from 1962, when it became Michigan's first nuclear power plant, until 1997, when the antiquated reactor was "scrammed," or shut down, for the last time as nuclear control operators, Andy Loe and Chuck Metzger, pressed two big red buttons, said Pallagi.

 "Big Rock Point was Michigan's first and the nation's fifth commercial nuclear power plant," said Pallagi. "It really was the ground floor of nuclear power in the United States."

Early on, it served as a research and development plant to find how to efficiently generate power, which helped shape nuclear power today.

Today, little remains at the site. The day after it was decommissioned, plant cleanup began, which was finished in August 2006, said Pallagi.

An above-ground storage facility, housing the spent fuel rods, is the only structure remaining.

"The dry fuel storage facility sits on a 107-acre piece of property near the former site of the plant," said Pallagi. "The fuel is in a 20-foot concrete-and-steel structure about the size of a basketball court."

The US. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has deemed the rest of the area safe for public use.

"You could build anything on the site," said Pallagi. "A playground, a school, a park, anything. If you went out there today, all you would see is a green field."

No firm plans have been set for the eventual use of the site.

Over its 35-year run, the plant enjoyed several milestones, including operating for 343 days straight without a shutdown in 1977, a world record at the time, according to Consumers Energy.

In 1993, it became the longest running plant in the United States when it surpassed the previous record of 30 years, 92 days, set by the Yankee nuclear plant in Rowe, Mass.

The site was designated in 1991 a nuclear historical site by the American Nuclear Society because of its contributions to the nuclear and medical industries.

For 11 years, the plant provided cobalt 60, a radioactive material, once commonly used for cancer therapy, said Pallagi.

Michigan has three operating nuclear power plants: Donald C. Cook Nuclear Power Plant near Buchanan; Fermi Nuclear Power Plant near Detroit; and Palisades Nuclear Power Plant near South Haven.