Pier Cove

Location: Ganges Township, Lakeshore Drive, 1 mile south of M-89
Date: 1849

Pier Cove, 1896

This early lakeshore settlement (ca. 1849) with piers extending into Lake Michigan was platted in 1859 and grew to include a post office, Methodist church, hotel, store, over a dozen houses, several warehouses for fruit storage, and two mills (one for lumber and one used as a grist mill). The Greek Revival Methodist parsonage (1860) still stands at 2347 Lakeshore Drive. The hotel stayed open until 1875, and stories tell of one night in 1871 when 101 couples danced in the hotel hall. In addition to fruit and milled lumber, exports included tanbark and cordwood. A regular steamship schedule provided transport for summer cottage residents to and from Chicago. Eventually, widespread clear-cutting of the local woods left the area barren and a victim of blowing sand and erosion. Well-known Chicago landscape designer O. C. Simonds (Morton Arboretum, Graceland Cemetery, parts of Lincoln Park) started major experimentation with land restoration in the 1890s. Simonds introduced new plant varieties and modes of dune stabilization on his property; now a nature preserve, the 100-acre Pier Cove Ravine arboretum is open to the public. The “Orchard House” is an 1855 Greek Revival farmhouse that O. C. Simonds acquired in 1889 for use as a summer cottage.