Tent Cottages

Location: Park Street near Mt. Baldhead, and Area Wide
Date: 1890s-1930s

The 1890s brought a new back-to-nature leisure space into existence: the tent and the campground for young and old. By the early 1900s the wooded sand dunes between the Kalamazoo River and Lake Michigan had become a virtual “white city” of camp tents. Camping areas along Park Street and Lakeshore Drive acquired wooden platforms upon which large tents were erected each spring, often for a particular family. Many of these platforms later came to serve as the floor of a permanent cottage.