Mooreville and Park House

Location: 888 Holland Street, Saugatuck
Date: 1857 (house)

H. D. and Tamar Moore House & Park looking toward Mt. Baldhead, 1880 engraving

Horace D. Moore came to Michigan in 1855. The following year he purchased many acres of pineland and built a sawmill just north of the village of Saugatuck where a small creek enters the Kalamazoo River. The creek is sometimes called Goshorn Creek after it origins, and sometimes known as Moore’s Creek, for its destination. In addition to the mill the settlement included some housing for the workers and a company store and was known informally as Mooreville. The Moore family built a large home near the mill on the road to Holland which is pictured in an 1880 Allegan County history and called Park house because the family kept tame deer in an improvised park. In 1879 Susan B. Anthony, in her role as an advocate of the vote for women, and temperance, visited Saugatuck and stayed here with the Moores. By 1885 the mill had closed and Moore sold the home to James Riley who turned it into the Park Hotel. Today it is the Park House Bed & Breakfast.