Harbor Country

Images of America: Michigan

by Robert Mueller, RoseAnna Mueller

The eight villages of Southwest Michigan's Harbor Country-Michiana, Grand Beach, New Buffalo, Union Pier, Lakeside, Harbert, Sawyer, and Three Oaks-have evolved from a group of humble frontier communities into a vacation mecca. Just 90 minutes from Chicago, Harbor Country's unspoiled beaches, marinas, antique shops, and shady country lanes have offered a weekend refuge to weary urbanites for years. The New York Times once called Harbor Country "the Hamptons of the Midwest," perhaps because the area draws Chicago's illuminati to its shores. Yet most of the region's first settlers were lumbermen, farmers, fishermen, and railroad workers, and Harbor Country's rustic, small-town ambience remains as their legacy. Through nearly 200 vintage photographs, this book documents the history of Harbor Country and its many roles throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Once an aspiring Great Lakes port, then briefly a railroad center, as well as a lumbering community that supplied the timber to build Chicago, Harbor Country is revealed as an area with rich history and everlasting appeal.

128 pages, Paperback

First published December 5, 2002

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Staying at Dad's home in East Dundee, IL while his wife is in Mississippi has given me the opportunity to read several volumes from the Images of America series, a clever publishing enterprise devoted to regional photobooks. All the titles Dad has were given him by my younger brother, Fin Einar, and all concern areas on or very near the Southwest coast of Lake Michigan, an area first visited by my great-great grandparents in the early 20th century.

Unlike many of the books in this series, Harbor Country (a name recently coined by businesspeople for outsiders, virtually unused by locals), covering as it does several towns, has more text than is customary, brief introductions being given for each area in addition to the captions to the photographs that dominate the volume.

Our family cottage was actually walking distance north of Warren Dunes State Park, the northernmost area discussed, but my brother used to live in Sawyer, and his former wife and daughter still live there. Still, because the towns discussed lie between Chicago and the old cottage, all are quite familiar.

Carl Sandburg, who lived for fifteen years just south of Warren Dunes, was a friend of the family, our nextdoor neighbor being his family pediatrician and my paternal grandfather having been a collegue of his both in the Chicago newspaper business and in the Socialist Party. Dad has photos he took of Sandburg while he was attending the marriage of Margo Zimmer at the aforementioned neighbor's home and remembers the author singing and reading some of his stories to the local kids.