Dancing At Water’s Edge

Location: Shores of Lake Kalamazoo, Saugatuck
Date: 1890s-1930s

Saugatuck was one of the Midwest’s most visited places to dance—a phenomenon that was underway a decade or so even before the construction of the huge dance hall named the Big Pavilion. The East Shore Pavilion was the first large public dance pavilion, located at the site which is now Wicks Park. Most large resorts and hotels had dance floors of their own, such as the Pokagon Inn, Saugatuck’s first large hotel (built in 1899 and destroyed by fire in 1902), which advertised dancing in the water’s edge pavilion and dancing on the rooftop of the hotel.