White Pine Village

The George Petersen Sr. Admission Building is the main entrance to White Pine Village. It is the admission area and has a gift shop, the main office, Mason County Historical Society Research Library, and the coordinator of the village services. The library has history books, photographs, scrapbooks, documents, maps, and old newspapers.[5] The genealogy department has material that originally came from the main Ludington library. The archived materials include Mason County family histories, obituaries, and cemetery records.[5] The library also has historical business records of past companies of Mason County. There is an on-line research database to help historians find the various library materials' location within the building.[4] The general public can use the library for a fee.[22]

The Burr Caswell farmhouse was built in 1849; it was Mason County's first frame building.[23] In 1855, the bottom part of the house was converted to accommodate government use and served for five years as the first Mason County Courthouse.[24] Caswell, the first permanent white settler in Mason County, was born with the given name Aaron Burr after the United States vice-president. He was the county's first probate judge and later became a keeper for the Big Point Sauble lighthouse.[25] The farmhouse was also Mason County's first store and first jail.[15]

The Mason County, rural, one-room school was built in the 1890s. It was relocated to White Pine Village in 1973.[26] The exhibit was prepared by the Retired Teachers of Mason County with the help of volunteers. The exhibit represents a typical Michigan school of the late 1800s, where it was common for children to walk two miles (3.2 km) to attend school. School children groups often experience the school for the day and do activities that their nineteenth-century contemporaries would have done.[27] The school is completely restored to its original condition.[28]

White Pine Village doctor's office is a building from nearby Custer, Michigan, built in the early 20th century. It housed Dr. Dogood's practice of 1916 and Dr. Blanchette's practice of 1917–47. The building was moved from Custer and restored as part of the outdoor museum.[29][30]

Rose Hawley was instrumental in founding Historic White Pine Village.[31] She also contributed to developing out four museums in downtown Ludington.[31] One museum in her name and its entire collection was moved in 1994 from Ludington to White Pine Village. The Rose Hawley museum originally opened in 1951. In 1960 the contents were moved to a larger facility and again in 1986.[32] The White Pine Village building has on display the original, third-order Fresnel lens from Big Sable Point Lighthouse.[33][34]

The fire engine, which was made in 1937, is loaned to White Pine Village by Mike McDonald, a fireman who worked for the Ludington Fire Department from about 1959 to 1995.[11]

Thomas Burns and his wife Mary lived in this farmhouse.[11] It came with eighty acres (32 ha) of land and the total cost was $1,190 in 1880.[11] They had four sons and five daughters.[11] Early-1900s food is cooked and served on special events at the farmhouse.[35][36] It is typical of late-nineteenth-century Michigan farmhouses.[37]

The Siddon Print Shop museum building is the third log building erected on the village premises. It was previously the 1880s Siddon Post Office building that was located on Townline Road in Mason County, Michigan.[38] The post office was disassembled and the logs were shipped to White Pine Village, where a new foundation was prepared for reassembling.[38] After it was rebuilt a new roof was added to the building. The other two log buildings at the pioneer village are the General Store and Trapper's Cabin, which are clustered together with the print shop.[39]

In 2001, after the Coast Guard Station in downtown Ludington moved to more modern facilities, The Mason County Historical Society negotiated to acquire the original location as an extension representing maritime history.[40] The station was purchased by the city and became part of White Pine Village. It shows the history of S.S. Badger, Big Sable Lighthouse, and North Pier Lighthouse.[41]

The museum building houses the personal collection of lumberman Abe Nelson of Ludington. He was born in Norway and his family moved to the United States when he four years old. Paul Bunyan was his idol, so he made items larger than normal.[11] The museum has an antique lumber camp pancake griddle and a brand used to mark logs owned by the Cartier Lumbering Company. The functioning 1901 Port Huron sawmill[42] is powered by a Huber tractor with a Ludington-made Stearns engine.[43] (see video demonstration in Illustrations)

An early 20th-century lumber camp in Victory Township was donated to house the museum. The two 100-year-old buildings were moved from their original location to White Pine Village.[44] The buildings, a blacksmith shop, and a cooking shanty were originally constructed by John G. Peterson, a local lumberman.[45] Michigan logging wheels that were used to drag logs out of the woods are displayed on the grounds.[45]

The Max K. Rahn building houses the White Pine Village Car Museum. In 1994, Pere Marquette Township, in which White Pine Village is located, submitted a grant application to the Michigan Equity grant program for $20,000 for the car museum project.[46] The building size is about fifty-five feet (17 m) wide by approximately one hundred and sixty feet (49 m) in length. Several automobiles, including a 1917 Detroit Electric and a 1924 Model T-Ford, are displayed there..[47][48] There is also related antique car paraphernalia and an old gasoline pump.[49]

The blacksmith shop is a recreation of Abe Nelson's past business. He was a railroad blacksmith in the Mason County area. The blacksmith shop often has a working blacksmith dressed in period bib overalls making iron items like horseshoes and fireplace pokers.[50]

The Mason County Horological Society coordinated the making of the Village Time Museum.[51] The building housing the "Clock Shop" was constructed in 1990,[8] and officially opened on June 1, 1991. On display are several antique clocks and machines for making watches from the Star Watch Case Company, a watch manufacturer in Ludington for over 50 years.[52]

The contents in this building are those of the former Pentwater Post Office, which moved to a new location in 1972. Guy VanNortwick owned the contents and was its postmaster from 1956 until his death in 1974. He wanted the items to be given to a museum.[11]

The hardware building is a replica of the 1920s William Anderson Hardware Store formerly on South Madison Street in downtown Ludington.[53] The contents are original and displayed as they were in 1978, as verified from a photograph taken when the store closed.[54]

The chapel was constructed by the village staff; it is from several architectural styles used in rural Mason County churches. The window in the narthex was financed by Scottville United Methodist Church. The sanctuary window, a memorial to an early Ludington pharmacist, and a Calvary cross were a gift from Grace Episcopal Church in Ludington, Michigan. One of the organs in the chapel was built around 1860 by the Star Organ Company. Riverton Township St. Paul United Methodist donated their steeple to the museum when they upgraded to another.[11]

The Museum of Music building displays the 100-year history of Scottville Clown Band as its main theme. Scottville is a town twenty miles (32 km) west of White Pine Village. The building also displays old instruments, music equipment, and antique radios.[11]

The Cole’s General Store museum is the second log building at White Pine Village. The log cabin was the home of Henry Clay Cole and his wife Olive Beebe when they owned eighty acres (32 ha) in Summit Township of Mason County, Michigan. It was relocated to the outdoor museum grounds in 1975.[55][56]

This is the first log cabin at White Pine Village. It was originally constructed by William Quevillon, a French trapper, during a hunting trip in Mason County around 1850.[16][57][58] Quevillion moved his family to his new home in 1852 from Grand Haven, Michigan,[16] and used the house concurrently as a family home and post office.[58] He became postmaster of Mason County in 1855 and his house became the first authorized county post office, delivering mail four times a year and processing about twenty-five letters a month.[16] He lived there with his wife Catherine and four children.[59] The cabin was owned by three other gentlemen after Quevillon, and was then donated and moved to the White Pine Village outdoor museum in 1969.[60]

Re-enactments of The American Civil War are held each summer.[69] About thirty-six reenactors demonstrate camp living from time to time. This includes soldiers playing baseball, medical procedures like amputation, cannon firings, and rifle shooting.[70] Ceremonies include flag raising and lowering.[71] The annual re-enactment event is known as the Penfield Civil War Muster and involves Michigan Light Artillery batteries.[72][73]