60. Village Pump House
This Craftsman-style building housed Saugatuck’s first municipal water system that provided clean, reliable water and made the fear of fire less a part of daily life. The system was engineered in 1904 by John Watson Alvord, principal engineer of the Chicago Water System, and, conveniently, a summer resident of Shorewood on the Douglas Lakeshore. Water drawn from wells at the foot of Mount Baldhead was pumped by gasoline engines in the Pump House to a 100,000-gallon reservoir at the top of Lone Pine Dune (the next dune north of Mt. Baldhead). The gravity-fed water flowed through pipes laid under the Kalamazoo River to the buildings and hydrants in Saugatuck.
In 1910, the Pump House building was doubled in size to make space for the village’s first electricity-generating station. By the 1950s, with water and electric service relocated elsewhere, the building fell into disrepair. In the 1970s, the Dr. William Shorey family of Chicago restored the structure for use as a summer cottage.
Since 1994, the building has housed the award-winning Saugatuck-Douglas History Museum. An accessible garden ramp was added in 1995. The brick Wilson entry pavilion was dedicated in 2001 in honor of James “Stan” Wilson, the museum’s first graphic designer.
The Saugatuck-Douglas History Museum is by Mt. Baldhead Park at 735 Park Street in Saugatuck.
