Cruise Through History – A Singapore Ghost Story

About the Event

Cost: $50

All aboard! Join the Saugatuck-Douglas History Center on the Star of Saugatuck for a guided historical boat tour along the Kalamazoo River, exploring the ghost town of Singapore on September 29!

Your guide, History Center Director Eric Gollannek, will lead you on a journey back in time, 150 years ago to the day when the lumber mills at Singapore closed for good. It was on September 29, 1875, that the lumber schooner OR Johnson and tugs Flora and Saugatuck sailed out of the harbor bound for St Ignace and the Straits of Mackinac, carrying with them the historic mill equipment removed from Singapore. Reassembled in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Singapore’s mill machinery found new use as part of the Mackinac Lumber Company, cutting the white pine of the Great North Woods from 1875 to 1892. While Singapore ceased to exist as a village after 1875, it quickly took on mythic status as a ghost town and “Michigan’s Pompeii,” a transformation that continues to fascinate to this day.

The one-hour and thirty-minute sailing on the Star of Saugatuck will allow attendees to see history where it happened, offering views of the site of Singapore, the modern river channel opened in 1906, and, weather permitting, a short trip into Lake Michigan. Learn more about the facts and fictions surrounding Michigan’s lumber town and how it came to become one of Michigan’s most famous ghost towns.

Space is limited, and tickets are available online for $50 per person. Each attendee will receive one drink ticket for a free beverage (beer, wine, or NA drink). Drinks and concessions will also be available for purchase on board during the tour experience.

Tickets for this event support the Saugatuck-Douglas History Center.