Since Interlochen was brought up a couple of breads ago, thought a reminder about its other history might be appropriate:
Summer, 1967: Epstein attended Interlochen Center for the Arts, a music camp for kids, 15 miles southwest of Traverse City, Michigan. In later years (1994) he would donate a rental lodge on the property with the stipulation he could use it 2 weeks out of the year. He visited Traverse City with Ghislaine Maxwell. As it happens, there was another millionaire in those days, in Michigan, engaging in the sort of activities in which Epstein would later engage.
Francis D. Sheldon, as well as having a house in Ann Arbor, also owned an island he had purchased in 1960, 19 miles off the coast of Leelanau Peninsula, with miles of dirt trails. Shelden had once been a Michigan Air National Guard airman and had an airstrip in which he could come and go as he liked in privacy on North Fox Island. In 1975, he opened his charity, Brother Paul's Nature Camp, a summer camp on the island for disadvantaged boys with cottages in the midst of the thick trees, with promises of "remedial tutoring, counseling, temporary lodging, boarding retreats, and emergency care for runaways" as well as hiking, swimming, and nature lessons among other children. Sheldon operated a child pornography ring on the island, and "sponsors" would receive such for their donations, among whom were wealthy or influential people visiting the island. Had he been running a blackmail/extortion operations also? Police investigated in the 1970's after a number of kidnapping and child killings in Oakland County in 1976 and 1977 northwest of Detroit, but Sheldon had disappeared. Another high powered partner in crime was caught and suspected in at least 3 of 4 murders of kidnapped children suspiciously died in 1978. Authorities ruled it a suicide. Was he eliminated because he had incriminating information on many important people? The survivors spoke of entrapment and child pornography. Although Epstein wasn't in Michigan after the camp opened, he was in Michigan when he was about 14 years old at Interlochen, after Sheldon had owned the island for some time and Sheldon had already been well on his way to running child pornography in the Detroit area in the '60s. Shelden had come from old Michigan blood, a descendant of lumber baron, Russell Alger, who was also the 20th governor of Michigan and secretary of war the McKinley Administration. Shelden was a Yale graduate, and had a master's in geology from Wayne State, and was the heir of a large trust fund.