Every family has their skeletons, every town their ghosts. For Saugatuck, that ghost is Singapore. I found the history and the mystery to be part of the charm of this quaint beach town. Saugatuck seems to know the draw is there too; the historical marker in front of the Village Hall simply fuels the legend behind the lore.
Doesn't this building just make you want to be a history buff?
Who doesn’t like a good story, one with just enough lore to allow the legend to take on mythical proportions? I couldn’t stop digging into the past once I read that historical marker;
which is what it would take today to truly uncover the mystery – a lot of digging.
which is what it would take today to truly uncover the mystery – a lot of digging.
Singapore was once a bustling lumber town located just north of Saugatuck on the banks of Lake Michigan.
Web image of historical city of Singapore, Michigan, circa boom years.
New York speculator Oshea Wilder was the brains (and bucks) behind the brawn on which this sawmill town was built, his hopes of a port city to rival that of Chicago or Milwaukee the impetus for his doomed investment in 1836.
The bustling waterfront city existed for almost half a century as a busy port and shipbuilding town that also churned out upwards of 300,000 board feet of lumber a month courtesy of the three sawmills harvesting the abundant White Pine covering the surrounding land. From all over America, Canada and Europe immigrants arrived via Singapore’s port, an Ellis Island of sorts for the Great Lakes. Paved roads provided access to the shipyard, sawmills, a hotel, a general store, a cemetery and a wildcat bank, all just miles up the Kalamazoo River from Saugatuck, known then as the Flats.
The bustling waterfront city existed for almost half a century as a busy port and shipbuilding town that also churned out upwards of 300,000 board feet of lumber a month courtesy of the three sawmills harvesting the abundant White Pine covering the surrounding land. From all over America, Canada and Europe immigrants arrived via Singapore’s port, an Ellis Island of sorts for the Great Lakes. Paved roads provided access to the shipyard, sawmills, a hotel, a general store, a cemetery and a wildcat bank, all just miles up the Kalamazoo River from Saugatuck, known then as the Flats.
It was boom or bust in the days of America’s rapid growth. Fate often has a final say in the matter, right alongside man’s greed. As fate would have it, two fires in 1871, the great fire of Chicago and a second similarly devastating fire in Holland, Michigan were more than this busy
mill town had to give. With their lumber completely depleted, the forests just behind the sand dunes completely decimated, the boom went bust; the several hundred residents went elsewhere, many to nearby Saugatuck and Douglas; Mother Nature began licking her wounds.
She licked and licked for the next four years, the west winds off Lake Michigan throwing sand for salve up into the now barren land just beyond Lake Michigan’s shores where the homes and saw mills and stores once bustled with activity. With no trees to stop the erosion, the sands dunes began their march inland, covering what once was Singapore.
By 1883 the abandoned town was reportedly partially buried beneath the drifting sand. When a new river channel was built in 1906, reports continued to surface about the nearby cottages half-buried beneath the sand.
mill town had to give. With their lumber completely depleted, the forests just behind the sand dunes completely decimated, the boom went bust; the several hundred residents went elsewhere, many to nearby Saugatuck and Douglas; Mother Nature began licking her wounds.
She licked and licked for the next four years, the west winds off Lake Michigan throwing sand for salve up into the now barren land just beyond Lake Michigan’s shores where the homes and saw mills and stores once bustled with activity. With no trees to stop the erosion, the sands dunes began their march inland, covering what once was Singapore.
By 1883 the abandoned town was reportedly partially buried beneath the drifting sand. When a new river channel was built in 1906, reports continued to surface about the nearby cottages half-buried beneath the sand.
Web image, early 1900's. The sands of time have had the last word when it comes to Singapore.
Today several large, oddly shaped sand dunes just north of the river channel on the now privately owned land that once marked the location of the village of Singapore fuel the fire that feeds the mystery behind the history. It’s not a stretch to presume beneath those dunes sits remnants of Michigan’s own Pompeii.
Just behind the tug boat are the suspicious hills that hint of another time and place.
Apparently time does heal all wounds when it comes to the shifting sands of Lake Michigan. The ghosts are another story all together, one with a life of their own.
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