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5.0 out of 5 stars
A beautiful memento of vacations Up North, March 13, 2008
This review is from: Vintage Views of the Charlevoix-Petoskey Region (Hardcover)
Ever since I was four years old, my family would spend a week nearly every summer vacationing on the Little Traverse Bay in northern Michigan. The towns of Petoskey, Harbor Springs, and Charlevoix are famed historical summer resorts where the rich of Chicago and St. Louis used to summer to escape the heat and dust of the city.
In Vintage Views of the Charlevoix-Petoskey Region, the authors have lovingly compiled countless ephemera of that bygone Victorian era, including postcards (both photos and transcriptions of the original messages), railroad posters, private photographs, railroad and ferry tickets, schedules, and more.
The first part of the book is dedicated to Charlevoix the Beautiful, long famed for its Belvedere Golf Club, grand hotels (the Belvedere, Beach Hotel, Chicago Club), and its sailing. Also mentioned are the charming boulder cottages designed by Earl A. Young, also called "Hobbit houses" due to their fairytale appearance. There are charming articles about the scandalously underdressed girls in bathing suits who are "brown as Indians" from 1921, postcard messages, and lesser-known bits of the past such as Charlevoix's Auto Camp and the Ironton Ferry.
Beaver Island also merits a chapter, including the fascinating legacy of a failed Mormon colony and revolt in 1856. James Jesse Strang crowned himself as "king" of Beaver Island, and after his assassination at the hands of irate followers, the remaining Mormons fled and Irish immigrants settled the island. Due to the verdant landscape and large number of Irish, Beaver Island is nicknamed "America's Emerald Isle." Some of the boats that serviced Beaver Island (it's a three-hour ferry ride from Charlevoix) are named and explored. The island's Irish-American musical legacy is also explored, as are the island's lighthouses.
East Jordan, the "Rainbow City of the North," is also given its own chapter, as is Boyne City (best known for its ski resorts) and Walloon Lake. However, the chapters that speak most deeply to me are the ones that are devoted to Emmet County, land of the Ottawas. Petoskey was home to thirteen grand hotels, although the last one remaining is Stafford's Perry Hotel (many were wooden and were consumed by raging fires). The Grill Cafe, a haunt of young Ernest Hemingway, is still in business as the City Park Grill. Much of Petoskey's marketing, particularly in the '50s and onwards, revolved around Odawa (Ottawa) Indian culture, and numerous "Indian plays" and crafts were marketed to tourists.
Bay View, Michigan's Chautauqua, is a late-Victorian summer colony on the edge of Petoskey that's populated with small cottages. There are many fine artifacts relating to Bay View featured, including a city map and features on the defunct swimming pool and bowling alley. Other features on northern Michigan towns such as Conway, Oden, and Cross Village are equally illuminating. Even having grown up in Michigan, I learned many new facts about a region that I've been visiting my entire life.
The layout of the book looks like a vintage scrapbook or photo album, with eye-catching layouts of ticket stubs, postcards, and other memorabilia. The whole production looks and feels expensive, and is the perfect souvenir for those who've visited and fallen in love with northern Michigan.
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