35. Stagecoach Stop

Location: 246 Culver Street, Saugatuck
Date: 1905-present

The front of Reed’s Livery housed the office and carriages, while the back was a 25-stall stable. Travelers boarded stage coaches bound for Holland, Grand Rapids or Allegan. Livery customers rented horses and wagons for local use.

Roger Reed was the last of the stage coach line operators. He built his new station just at the time the automobile was making horse-drawn stage transport a thing of the past. The building was modern for its time — made of fireproof concrete block that looked like stone. By 1914, Mr. Reed had moved into auto repair.

The building has served many purposes since Mr. Reed’s time including as the first location of the American Twisting Company, an Eskimo Pie factory, a cider mill, a roller skate factory and net shed. The west-side courtyard was the village police headquarters and jail. A 1950s-era addition built for the Village of Saugatuck’s fire trucks, was remodeled as Restaurant Toulouse. Today it houses the Noble Twist Taphouse.

The site was placed on the Michigan Register of Historic Places in 2007.