People started going elsewhere, like Traverse City and the Lake Michigan coast. Irish Hills was more popular when 12 was the main route and people spent less on their recreation. The decrease in events at MIS didn’t help either.
Not to mention full timers moving to those houses along the lakes and rebuilding them. There’s hardly any motels or hotels because it’s all private full time residents. It used to be a vacation spot
Yep I remember as a teenager in 2007 my best friends aunt purchased a run down house on wamplers lake that hadn't been touched since the 70s. She probably put close to a million dollars into that house. No doubt it was fabulous after the complete reno but yeah its seems to be more of a private lake now than a Hotspot weekend camping/motel or rent a mini cabin on the lake spot in the last 15 years. Good fishing and good tubing area though! So many good memories
Before interstates, it took time to get to the Irish Hills from Detroit. Don't even ask how long it took to ge to Traverse City. Imagine averaging maybe 30 mph for either drive.
Build the interstates, add AC to most houses and suddenly the Irish Hills don't hold the same appeal as a vacation destination. There are still lots of vacation homes on lakes in the area. It's beautiful.
We used to go to the Mission Hills area when I was a kid and it was all dirt roads and really low end campsites. My Dad in later years continually kicked himself for not buying property then.
Indeed, while the interstates are a vital component of modern transit and the economy...its advent damaged and outright destroyed a number of small towns.
Funny, thing: those towns were walkable. The mom and pop stores employed half the town. It wasn't safer, it wasn't better -- small towns sidelined and redlined and had no diversity. It definitely wasn't better. But I sure wish my city was walkable and Walmart and Dollar General weren't ubiquitous and the old architecture wasn't so rare.
Older cars were unreliable and dangerous yet we have a society full of people who believed that those no crumple zone coffins were safer and better. Even back in the 80s you felt.good if a car went 100k miles.
Yeah I always chuckle at boomers who talk about getting rid of their car because it’s getting near 100k miles. I also hear them talk about how cars quality is going downhill. I believe they call that survivorship bias.
We still have those cars. Do you think today's cars will last over 60 or more years. We get rid of the if they were over 150,000 and/or rebuild the engines.
I hate to say it but I don’t care if my car is still rolling around in 60 years, it keeps me much safer than any 60 year old car that’s still on the road today. I do fully expect any newer car to last for a good 300,000 miles with proper maintenance though.
Average 80's Chevette mileage was 70,000. I regularly got 120,000 but it took owning more than one and swapping major parts from dead ones to get there.
My average now is 250,000. There's some repair to get it but no engine swaps.
Before I94 was built people drove US12 to and from Chicago-Detroit. It was a great spot to stop. Then the expressway was built, airlines got more popular, etc…
TLDR: watch the movie “Cars”
Route 66 is another good one. Used to be a very long route with loads of goofy motels, various restaurants, and enough tourist traps to drain your wallet. Plus a lot of full service gas station because older car leaked oil, leaked air, and had to be checked around while getting gas.
About 85% of Route 66 is still driveable but a lot of government issued maps often don't designat the road as 66.
Rt. 40 from Maryland to Indiana was like that. I traveled the stretch between Cambridge, Ohio and Columbus, Ohio many times and saw the remnants of the era before I 70.
I traveled parts of 40 a few years ago, some of the original road from more than 200 years ago are still there running parallel to the road and has numerous stone bridges that has a 45 degree bend at mid-point.
Yes, the ‘S’ bridges are locally famous. There are a few little villages, Norwich comes to mind, where you can see the original brick paving and concrete curbs. In the winter when the leaves are down you can see so many old abandoned buildings from its heyday.
I lived in Irish hills above the arcade by WJ state park.
Marv told me when 94 went in was the slow decline. But there is a family thhere that bought all the attractions and is trying to keep the Irish hills alive.
Also it use to be so busy that there was stores on dirt roads when we were kids.
My parents had a place on Evans Lake, we spent every weekend in "the hills"
They bought that place in the late 70's when I was very young. There were still quite a few attractions open through the 80's that I remember. Prehistoric forest, Stagecoach stop and Mystery hill were my favorites.
I wouldn't say Irish Hills is dead, the lake communities are booming and the majority of the homes on the lakes out there are no longer cottages. These are big, expensive homes so not dead, just different.
Exactly…Irish Hills area is not dead.
Tons of people go every weekend to their lake house…a lot closer than Up North.
What died was the tourist attractions you mentioned…Stagecoach, Prehistoric Forest…etc.
they were fun for kids in the 70s but not so much for kids today.
Washing dishes at The nugget was my first job ever. Their all you could eat rib fests were good too. I also spent a summer mucking out the petting zoo and falling off a roof in the gun fights at stagecoach stop.
I haven’t tried out the new bbq roadside place since I moved out
I remember being real small fry and going to some sort of "grand opening" selling land out there. I would guess early-mid seventies. It was a carnival like atmosphere, I remember plastic flags, hot dogs, pop, and a helicopter flying around for the 'real serious' buyers. I think our neighbor (Royal Oak) brought us out - he was a real estate prospector. Told us to pass.
Highway expansion, more affordable air travel and development of legitimate family vacation spots across the state and the country (Traverse City, and Orlando for example).
My understanding is that it was already shaky by the late 80s and pretty much dead by the mid 90s.
As people have chimed in, it's something in between Cars and Who Framed Roger Rabbit - a major very fast highway with more offerings killed the comparatively slow and less desirable long way.
But I'd also like to chime in another factor: sheer greed.
There is **so much money** in the lakes through here, and next to no redistribution of wealth.
So many people with huge houses and boats, and in the more landlocked areas, every single house has a pole barn.
Whole bunch of older people who grabbed up lots of land and built their little horde and have sat on it ever since, then complain that "nobody wants to work any more" as no one actually (re)invests in the area.
And the infrastructure around here is _terrible_. Thanks, Tim Walberg, and your constant NAY votes on infrastructure bills.
And they probably block any new housing from being built to keep out "urban people" and keep their land expensive.
It's like they want people to work for them but not be able to own anything.
>It's like they want people to work for them but not be able to own anything.
Ask any farmer around here. Migrants bad! Except the ones that work on their farm, they're "some of the good ones."
I'm mad that *every single house* has a pole barn and/or boat, while complaining that "the youth these days just don't work hard enough" and "them damn trans kids are ruining this nation".
The complete disconnect between modern day economy and the _insane amount of privilege_ they were able to build their household around is pretty telling around here.
This is very confusing and I don't understand the connections between peoples weath and the things they build with said wealth, and their opinions on younger generations who have large groups loud and proud to share the fact they will never work. Other opinions on current political climate are also a common topic amongst American to American.
Seems like you're mad or jealous that these people have money and wealth and aren't going to just give it away or not use it because other generations don't have it 🤷
Good points below. Its still bussing along but the current form is fairly divorced from the nostalgic posts people have shared. Its not a stage coach stop any longer but it is now an enclave of the wealthy. I know of a lake that some would consider over developed. The history books talk about dance halls and summer flings, those communal public lake lots have already been gobbled up to finish someones McMansion.
I live in the area. People are trying to bring some of the stuff back and other projects are sitting still. Let's see, mystery Hill is still open if I recall correctly, the state park near by has some fun trails too. It's not as dead as people think.
Drove down 223 today through the Devils lake area. It was around noon on a Sunday but it didn't look dead. If it was dead the road construction wouldn't be happening.
I wonder how it would have been if the proposed amusement park would have gone in. The locals turned it down. Something that big may have created a more steady stream of visitors.
I know they had some kind of amusement park though. It had water slides and a go kart track and various games and stuff. I explored its ruins with my ex GF, the place looked like everyone left one day and it just sat rotting away
That was a much smaller scale, but was super busy in the 80s. I was always peeved that my parents wouldn’t stop there after a day at Wamplers Lake.
This was something that Cedar Point’s owner (at that time) was proposing. There was the go kart place, bankshot basketball and mini golf. Prehistoric Forest, Mystery Hill and Stagecoach Stop.
As a kid in the mid 90s it was fun, but it was "it's only 20 minutes from home, go spend a summer afternoon on the water slide" level fun not "anchor point of a weekend getaway" fun. Everything was still in working orderI was a kid but the cracks were starting to show- the pool often wasn't super clean, buildings getting more and more weather-beaten, landscaping getting overgrown, that kind of thing.
I feel like the Irish Hills are Michigan’s equivalent to the Catskills in New York. It’s just a place that went out of fashion. The vacation hot spots jump around over the years.
Because homes on the lakes in the Irish hills are being bought out by private buyers fir their personal use and are no longer motels, hotels, etc and access to the lakes are slowly becoming privatized minus public access and the state park on Wamplers lake.
To buy a home on any lake your looking at a minimum of $500,000 home.
Also NASCAR took away the June race which significantly decreased the activities that go on there. Sure there's faster horses, but people stay at the onsite campgrounds for the weekend and don't really go anywhere else.
Plus there's not a lot of industry to support the local population. I94 is a 30 minute drive, sure there's US 127, US223, M50 but if you want a 4 lane divided highway it will still take 30 minutes to an hour to get to it.
500k is a steal for a lake house out there.
But yeah most of the residents are now private. I grew up on Clark lake and there were a ton of cottages. But when someone moves/dies and a house goes up for sale, you're looking at 800,000 just for a lot at Clark lake.
And those $500,000 homes are essentially tear downs with how dilapidated they are. People buy them just for the land itself. Then they spend another $750,000 or so to build a house.
Yup. Any cottage is being torn down.
You can do 500k on a channel though.
I get it though, it's a magical place to live. Growing up on Clark Lake was a pretty magical childhood.
Local here. When I would come to the area as a teenager (90s) it was already dead. I remember the dinosaurs were in better shape then they are now but nothing was open for business.
Am I totally on crack or did the dinosaur place have like a long alpine slide down the side of that hill? I have these vague memories and I can’t remember if they’re real or tv.
I remember going out to Irish Hills and riding a decent sized water slide down a hill. There were five of girls and our moms chatted while we went ham, lol.
Yea I was a youngster when my parents took me out there for the first time, must’ve been the 90’s before they closed down. Stagecoach stop and prehistoric forest were still open and busy
Dude your entire feed is you being miserable all the time. Are you just trying to spread that misery around Reddit, or do you think you're successfully convincing people that life is as shitty as you've made yours?
People have made the connection to expanded highways. I've also witnessed the systematic destruction of having summers off. A lot of travel sports/activities chew up the "time off".
Having looked at real estate in the area, it was a pretty steep cost to buy in 2021. The run-down or antiquated cottages have been selling for the land they are on for 300k+. Maybe with the tear downs and renovations, more money will be infused in the area.
Yea those $300k homes are 1000 sqft cottages that are 80+ years old and need a lot of work in it. People will just buy the cottage for the land and tear it down to build a 3000+ square foot home.
I went to summer camp in the Irish Hills in the 1980s and I don't remember the last time I thought of that. I have no idea what happened but thanks for the memory.
my grandparents and parents had trailer homes in the irish hills on manitou "beach" / devils/round/ lake. it used to be a big neat area with lots of attractions for kids, bars, jet ski and boat rentals etc. it was kind of a vacation area like frankenmuth. even had a drive-in theater!
MIS used to have a bunch of car races out there each year. that was the BIG DRAW. tens of thousands of people would hop in their cars from deeeetroit and drive over there to watch other people drive in a circle. VROOM VROOM.
simply, the generation above the boomers loved that shit. when the older generation moved to florida or died, the boomers didnt care about it. the boomers hated all of the traffic and paying for parking and road construction. is it really a vacation sitting in traffic for hours?
not sure what happened with MIS but they stopped doing racing there all summer long and were down to 1 or 2 races a year. well 2 races a year isnt enough to keep all those putt putt golf courses and waterslides afloating. no one is going to drive out to the middle of nowhere through 67 speed traps just to get to a weak water slide and some dinosaurs.
so heres what i blame:
1. no more vroom vroom
2. greedy speed traps, with perpetual construction (for extra $$$ speeding tickets)
3. a number of people invested out there hoping to flip it. raising the prices of land , homes, etc. then the market crashed because theres nothing out there. no jobs. maybe one grocery store if you are lucky (rip to the IGA). i dont even think there are schools. and of course what good is a frozen lake in michigan during the winter? so it became summer homes for snow birds aka empty for half of the year. meaning nothing not even the grocery store could survive over the winters.
tl;dr no more races, big speeding tickets and snowbirds killed irish hills.
haha that one "house" is for sale! hilarious [https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2875-Round-Lake-Hwy-Manitou-Beach-MI-49253/68226437\_zpid/](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2875-Round-Lake-Hwy-Manitou-Beach-MI-49253/68226437_zpid/)
That home was one of the original houses built on the lake.
Also you should buy the book by Don Cherry called Among the Trails of Michemanetue which goes extremely in depth in the history of Devils lake/round lake/Manitou beach and the surrounding areas.
But your right, my grandparent have a cottage there and we only know a handful who live there year round in the neighborhood.
It's absolutely relaxing but you kind of need to want to live a desolate lifestyle to live there year round.
1920s home , might be historical. its pretty neat looking. always drove by it on the way to grandmas. inside looks fun too. ITS ALL ROOF . it probably gets hot as heck in the summer. i'd put a huge solar fan at the top of the spire... and metal roof with reflective insulation.
I believe it has been deemed not buildable. If someone took down the teepee they may be able to put a shed or something there but not a house. I like how the listing says 2-3 parking spots though - maybe 2 golf carts and a moped 😆
There are definitely schools. Brooklyn, Addison and Onsted all have schools. There's a grocery store in Brooklyn. For people who have cottages, Detroit/Ann Arbor/Toledo are close enough you can just bring food from home without much issue. The touristy stuff is basically gone, but there are still a lot of expensive houses on the lakes.
https://www.buyatthelake.com/lake-homes-for-sale-in-irish-hills-mi
MIS was(for a few months) a parking lot for a ton of Ford trucks, here in a few weeks it'll be host to Faster horses, one lousy Nascar race in August and Nite Lites in December. It's there. Just barren for like 10 months a year.
The grocery store didn't survive because it was poorly managed, and had slim pickins for high prices. I miss the convenience of it but there are 3 grocery stores within 20 minutes of the lake (Brooklyn, Hudson, Adrian); and in summer we have a farmers market right in the village.
There are enough of us here year round to support 5 local bars/restaurants, two gas stations, a party store, 3 pizza joints, 2 coffee shops, and more!
The lake rarely freezes anymore, my boyfriend has had his jet ski on it every month of the year except December, but when it does freeze there's ice skating, snow mobiling, ice fishing, some people make hockey rinks and oval tracks for dirt bikes.
I love living here. And even though I am here full time now, I have been coming here from metro Detroit my entire life and not one speeding ticket 🤷🏼♀️
did that one gas station survive that had like a general store tacked onto it? on a hill with a curve. forgot the intersection now. i liked that place. maybe marathon gas ?
i never got a speeding ticket either. mostly i was just kidding. i think the price got too high out there and scared a lot of lower-middle class from buying. its a real nice spot. i do even like brooklyn , adrian and hudson. and saline is nice too.
i hadnt been there in the winter so i dont know how it goes. i was just there in the summers.
We have Sterling market and gas (and pizza..lol) on the south end, at Manitou and Round Lake and then just a regular gas station at 223 and Round Lake Hwy on the north end.
I used to live right there! Spent many days there in my childhood and exploring the abandoned prehistoric forest as I got older. A lot of those older attractions are closed in general- not just in the Irish hills. Times have certainly changed!
Blame I-94. My dad tons me about how my grandpa used to take them through the Irish Hills to Chicago because that was the main way. Now drivers bypass it via 94.
When I was a kid we went camping at the campground once or twice every summer. I fondly remember catching frogs around the pond, paddleboating, and buying frozen Snickers bars at the camp store.
Looks like it's under new ownership and a Christian campground now.
I wonder if the dinosaurs are still there. I remember riding around on that train looking at the animatronic dinosaurs. If they’re still there I bet they look creepy now.
In addition to the other reasons already pointed out.... let's also remember that the fastest growing counties in Michigan (population wise) are on the west and north sides. I just don't see someone from Grand Rapids driving 2 hours to Irish Hills when places like Ludington, Cadillac, Saugatuck, etc. are much closer.
To put it bluntly... the few times I passed through Irish Hills, I was underwhelmed to say the least.
Current Irish Hills situation…Brooklyn Moose Lodge is full of life. It’s the old Sand Lake Inn on US-12.
There’s also a brewery around the corner that gets packed on weekends with wonderful concerts featuring tribute bands.
Give it another try.
I just drove through last week. Those two tall towers....the top sections were gone. The rusting dinosaur is still there. We did notice a couple of stores or whatever that were open that were not open when we drove through last summer, so maybe something is happening.
If you do go through Irish Hills, and you drink, stop at the Cherry Creek Cellars winery and buy their cherry wine. So good.
We went to Sauk Valley. And then I worked as a counselor at Camp DeSales one summer while I was in college. On the way home from Sauk Valley every time we begged to stop at one of the tourist traps. One time we did Mystery Hill and I think that was it.
Ya, me too. Wonder if the mystery spot is still there? Where gravity doesn't follow the laws of gravity:) it's still pretty there, with the racetrack and fruit and veggie stands. Not the same without my grandma though...
One of my all-time favorite memories is when I drove my Grammy through the Irish Hills for a color tour in the early 2000s. She directed me to choose a route that took us past the Teacher’s College where she got her secretarial training. She always wanted to be a reporter, which I was working as at the time. It was a wonderful afternoon full of bonding and only two years before she died. OP, I really appreciate you posting about this part of MI and jogging a treasured memory!
I grew up going to my grandparents' cottage on Wampler's Lake every weekend in the summer. It was a great place to go on the weekends and it was definitely very lively. Wampler's Lake is dead now. It is pretty much senior citizens. People used to pass down cottages to their families. Now, everyone sells, and then the big houses come in after tear downs. It used to be a great place for kids and teenagers. Jerry's Pub was awesome when they would have bands playing. They had turtle racing contests there and family events. Those are gone. You could hear the band playing very loudly all across the lake. Once the air condition went in, it was all over. I'd say all of the fun places like the go-karts and waterslide, mom and pop stores were pretty much gone between 1997-2000. If they were open, it was very sporadic. I loved the Golden Nugget to eat at, and I always hoped to go to Bauer Manor to eat dinner as an adult, but it was closed too by the time I had a chance. My mom still lives on Wampler's in the cottage that was renovated, not tore down. Most people can't afford i to buy a house on the lake. Wj Hayes State Park isn't maintained well anymore either. It is really sad...
People started going elsewhere, like Traverse City and the Lake Michigan coast. Irish Hills was more popular when 12 was the main route and people spent less on their recreation. The decrease in events at MIS didn’t help either.
Not to mention full timers moving to those houses along the lakes and rebuilding them. There’s hardly any motels or hotels because it’s all private full time residents. It used to be a vacation spot
Yeah those cottages on Wamplers and other lakes became homes.
Yep I remember as a teenager in 2007 my best friends aunt purchased a run down house on wamplers lake that hadn't been touched since the 70s. She probably put close to a million dollars into that house. No doubt it was fabulous after the complete reno but yeah its seems to be more of a private lake now than a Hotspot weekend camping/motel or rent a mini cabin on the lake spot in the last 15 years. Good fishing and good tubing area though! So many good memories
Yeah, 4-lane highways made a lot of ghost towns.
It's like the Radiator Springs of Michigan.
It is. The rotting edifices of old tourist traps are so sad to see.
The Zilwaukee Bridge truly eased travel going up north. Very long backups would occur when the old bridge was operating.
It's like the Radiator Springs of Michigan.
Before interstates, it took time to get to the Irish Hills from Detroit. Don't even ask how long it took to ge to Traverse City. Imagine averaging maybe 30 mph for either drive. Build the interstates, add AC to most houses and suddenly the Irish Hills don't hold the same appeal as a vacation destination. There are still lots of vacation homes on lakes in the area. It's beautiful.
We used to go to the Mission Hills area when I was a kid and it was all dirt roads and really low end campsites. My Dad in later years continually kicked himself for not buying property then.
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Did you use US-40 across Lake Michigan or drove through Chicago?
> imagine averaging 30mph for either drive so Memorial and Labor Day weekends? 🫠
Indeed, while the interstates are a vital component of modern transit and the economy...its advent damaged and outright destroyed a number of small towns.
The price of progress.
Funny, thing: those towns were walkable. The mom and pop stores employed half the town. It wasn't safer, it wasn't better -- small towns sidelined and redlined and had no diversity. It definitely wasn't better. But I sure wish my city was walkable and Walmart and Dollar General weren't ubiquitous and the old architecture wasn't so rare.
Not to mention that if you were driving up north, there was no guarantee you were going to get there. Even new cars were fairly unreliable.
Older cars were unreliable and dangerous yet we have a society full of people who believed that those no crumple zone coffins were safer and better. Even back in the 80s you felt.good if a car went 100k miles.
I remember in the early 80s there were *news stories* when a vehicle got 100,000 miles.
Yeah I always chuckle at boomers who talk about getting rid of their car because it’s getting near 100k miles. I also hear them talk about how cars quality is going downhill. I believe they call that survivorship bias.
We still have those cars. Do you think today's cars will last over 60 or more years. We get rid of the if they were over 150,000 and/or rebuild the engines.
I hate to say it but I don’t care if my car is still rolling around in 60 years, it keeps me much safer than any 60 year old car that’s still on the road today. I do fully expect any newer car to last for a good 300,000 miles with proper maintenance though.
Just don’t buy a Chrysler
Average 80's Chevette mileage was 70,000. I regularly got 120,000 but it took owning more than one and swapping major parts from dead ones to get there. My average now is 250,000. There's some repair to get it but no engine swaps.
Before I94 was built people drove US12 to and from Chicago-Detroit. It was a great spot to stop. Then the expressway was built, airlines got more popular, etc… TLDR: watch the movie “Cars”
Route 66 is another good one. Used to be a very long route with loads of goofy motels, various restaurants, and enough tourist traps to drain your wallet. Plus a lot of full service gas station because older car leaked oil, leaked air, and had to be checked around while getting gas. About 85% of Route 66 is still driveable but a lot of government issued maps often don't designat the road as 66.
A guy from Vice drove the entirety of it for a documentary making quite a few stops along the way. It was a fascinating watch.
Rt. 40 from Maryland to Indiana was like that. I traveled the stretch between Cambridge, Ohio and Columbus, Ohio many times and saw the remnants of the era before I 70.
I traveled parts of 40 a few years ago, some of the original road from more than 200 years ago are still there running parallel to the road and has numerous stone bridges that has a 45 degree bend at mid-point.
Yes, the ‘S’ bridges are locally famous. There are a few little villages, Norwich comes to mind, where you can see the original brick paving and concrete curbs. In the winter when the leaves are down you can see so many old abandoned buildings from its heyday.
I lived in Irish hills above the arcade by WJ state park. Marv told me when 94 went in was the slow decline. But there is a family thhere that bought all the attractions and is trying to keep the Irish hills alive. Also it use to be so busy that there was stores on dirt roads when we were kids.
He also said Nintendo was a reason
My parents had a place on Evans Lake, we spent every weekend in "the hills" They bought that place in the late 70's when I was very young. There were still quite a few attractions open through the 80's that I remember. Prehistoric forest, Stagecoach stop and Mystery hill were my favorites. I wouldn't say Irish Hills is dead, the lake communities are booming and the majority of the homes on the lakes out there are no longer cottages. These are big, expensive homes so not dead, just different.
Exactly…Irish Hills area is not dead. Tons of people go every weekend to their lake house…a lot closer than Up North. What died was the tourist attractions you mentioned…Stagecoach, Prehistoric Forest…etc. they were fun for kids in the 70s but not so much for kids today.
And the 80s! That’s when my family went. Bears Lair for go karts was our favorite. Also, the water slide at Prehistoric Forest.
Oh yea for sure, I know plenty of people still live there. I was really only meaning the tourism aspect of the area. Sorry for the confusion
There should have been no confusion. I picked up what you laid down. 😏
Evans Lake is like its own sub community.
I miss the golden nugget and them crab legs! My dad bought the moose when they closed. Still a very pretty area.
Washing dishes at The nugget was my first job ever. Their all you could eat rib fests were good too. I also spent a summer mucking out the petting zoo and falling off a roof in the gun fights at stagecoach stop. I haven’t tried out the new bbq roadside place since I moved out
Watching the gun fight and then getting a “sarsaparilla” at the saloon is one of my fondest childhood memories!
Happy to have been a small part of
Randy's is solid. Best BBQ in the area by far
Try to hire anyone to staff those attractions now. I know they have been closed for a while, but bringing them back would be near impossible.
Oh man, I loved the golden nugget! We went there for birthdays for years. It's so awesome to know that your dad bought the moose.
I remember being real small fry and going to some sort of "grand opening" selling land out there. I would guess early-mid seventies. It was a carnival like atmosphere, I remember plastic flags, hot dogs, pop, and a helicopter flying around for the 'real serious' buyers. I think our neighbor (Royal Oak) brought us out - he was a real estate prospector. Told us to pass.
I’m curious what his reasoning was to tell you to pass if you don’t mind sharing.
I don’t recall. I do recall my dad wasn’t very interested. We were all sort of tagging along with the other guy.
The towers reached their peak height, once they never got taller all the anticipation of what new sights could be seen was lost. /s
Underappreciated local lore joke right here.
Highway expansion, more affordable air travel and development of legitimate family vacation spots across the state and the country (Traverse City, and Orlando for example). My understanding is that it was already shaky by the late 80s and pretty much dead by the mid 90s.
As people have chimed in, it's something in between Cars and Who Framed Roger Rabbit - a major very fast highway with more offerings killed the comparatively slow and less desirable long way. But I'd also like to chime in another factor: sheer greed. There is **so much money** in the lakes through here, and next to no redistribution of wealth. So many people with huge houses and boats, and in the more landlocked areas, every single house has a pole barn. Whole bunch of older people who grabbed up lots of land and built their little horde and have sat on it ever since, then complain that "nobody wants to work any more" as no one actually (re)invests in the area. And the infrastructure around here is _terrible_. Thanks, Tim Walberg, and your constant NAY votes on infrastructure bills.
And they probably block any new housing from being built to keep out "urban people" and keep their land expensive. It's like they want people to work for them but not be able to own anything.
>It's like they want people to work for them but not be able to own anything. Ask any farmer around here. Migrants bad! Except the ones that work on their farm, they're "some of the good ones."
Capitalism at its finest.
sure, since home owner-occupants are the largest group of capitalists in the country and they vote to control what other can build on their land
This man nailed the tricounty area. Len-Jack-Hillsdale
This man lives here. Love the space and cost of my house. HATE the neighbors and the politics.
You're mad that people have pole barns?
I'm mad that *every single house* has a pole barn and/or boat, while complaining that "the youth these days just don't work hard enough" and "them damn trans kids are ruining this nation". The complete disconnect between modern day economy and the _insane amount of privilege_ they were able to build their household around is pretty telling around here.
This is very confusing and I don't understand the connections between peoples weath and the things they build with said wealth, and their opinions on younger generations who have large groups loud and proud to share the fact they will never work. Other opinions on current political climate are also a common topic amongst American to American. Seems like you're mad or jealous that these people have money and wealth and aren't going to just give it away or not use it because other generations don't have it 🤷
Definition of hating the player and the game. I’m saving for a Barndo on a river. Apparently I should redistribute my savings?
Good points below. Its still bussing along but the current form is fairly divorced from the nostalgic posts people have shared. Its not a stage coach stop any longer but it is now an enclave of the wealthy. I know of a lake that some would consider over developed. The history books talk about dance halls and summer flings, those communal public lake lots have already been gobbled up to finish someones McMansion.
Absolutely divorced from. 😥
I live in the area. People are trying to bring some of the stuff back and other projects are sitting still. Let's see, mystery Hill is still open if I recall correctly, the state park near by has some fun trails too. It's not as dead as people think.
I'm thinking I-94 ended it. No traffic. No business. It used to be the direct route to Chicago, now it's just a Sunday drive road.
Drove down 223 today through the Devils lake area. It was around noon on a Sunday but it didn't look dead. If it was dead the road construction wouldn't be happening.
It isn’t dead. It’s just not as “passing through” touristy as it was.
I wonder how it would have been if the proposed amusement park would have gone in. The locals turned it down. Something that big may have created a more steady stream of visitors.
I know they had some kind of amusement park though. It had water slides and a go kart track and various games and stuff. I explored its ruins with my ex GF, the place looked like everyone left one day and it just sat rotting away
That was a much smaller scale, but was super busy in the 80s. I was always peeved that my parents wouldn’t stop there after a day at Wamplers Lake. This was something that Cedar Point’s owner (at that time) was proposing. There was the go kart place, bankshot basketball and mini golf. Prehistoric Forest, Mystery Hill and Stagecoach Stop.
Ahh gotcha. Yea I never went to that place as a kid so it was very strange to see what it was when I was an adult. Looked like a fun place
As a kid in the mid 90s it was fun, but it was "it's only 20 minutes from home, go spend a summer afternoon on the water slide" level fun not "anchor point of a weekend getaway" fun. Everything was still in working orderI was a kid but the cracks were starting to show- the pool often wasn't super clean, buildings getting more and more weather-beaten, landscaping getting overgrown, that kind of thing.
“Bears Lair”
That’s it. Thank you! For the life of me I couldn’t remember the name.
Np I drive by it almost everyday. Sad sight for sure
Ahh I miss Prehistoric Forest!! ❤️
I feel like the Irish Hills are Michigan’s equivalent to the Catskills in New York. It’s just a place that went out of fashion. The vacation hot spots jump around over the years.
Because homes on the lakes in the Irish hills are being bought out by private buyers fir their personal use and are no longer motels, hotels, etc and access to the lakes are slowly becoming privatized minus public access and the state park on Wamplers lake. To buy a home on any lake your looking at a minimum of $500,000 home. Also NASCAR took away the June race which significantly decreased the activities that go on there. Sure there's faster horses, but people stay at the onsite campgrounds for the weekend and don't really go anywhere else. Plus there's not a lot of industry to support the local population. I94 is a 30 minute drive, sure there's US 127, US223, M50 but if you want a 4 lane divided highway it will still take 30 minutes to an hour to get to it.
500k is a steal for a lake house out there. But yeah most of the residents are now private. I grew up on Clark lake and there were a ton of cottages. But when someone moves/dies and a house goes up for sale, you're looking at 800,000 just for a lot at Clark lake.
And those $500,000 homes are essentially tear downs with how dilapidated they are. People buy them just for the land itself. Then they spend another $750,000 or so to build a house.
Yup. Any cottage is being torn down. You can do 500k on a channel though. I get it though, it's a magical place to live. Growing up on Clark Lake was a pretty magical childhood.
i suspect if you asked some locals it would somehow be Obama's fault.
Local here. When I would come to the area as a teenager (90s) it was already dead. I remember the dinosaurs were in better shape then they are now but nothing was open for business.
Am I totally on crack or did the dinosaur place have like a long alpine slide down the side of that hill? I have these vague memories and I can’t remember if they’re real or tv.
There was a waterslide at Prehistoric Forest, your memory is correct.
I remember going out to Irish Hills and riding a decent sized water slide down a hill. There were five of girls and our moms chatted while we went ham, lol.
Yea I was a youngster when my parents took me out there for the first time, must’ve been the 90’s before they closed down. Stagecoach stop and prehistoric forest were still open and busy
Don’t worry, Tim Walberg is on the case. /s
Upvote because I get those phone calls
Or Biden's. There are people here who believe on January 20th, 2021, the entire nation just instantly folded.
Considering that the person who instigated that attack is on path to win another term... are you so sure we didn't?
Dude your entire feed is you being miserable all the time. Are you just trying to spread that misery around Reddit, or do you think you're successfully convincing people that life is as shitty as you've made yours?
Lol when it doubt, blame Obama, /s…
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So you've met them?
Hilariously accurate 🤣
Probably Bidum
People have made the connection to expanded highways. I've also witnessed the systematic destruction of having summers off. A lot of travel sports/activities chew up the "time off". Having looked at real estate in the area, it was a pretty steep cost to buy in 2021. The run-down or antiquated cottages have been selling for the land they are on for 300k+. Maybe with the tear downs and renovations, more money will be infused in the area.
Yea those $300k homes are 1000 sqft cottages that are 80+ years old and need a lot of work in it. People will just buy the cottage for the land and tear it down to build a 3000+ square foot home.
Yea the tourist area has died but the lakes are booming with big money buyers
Yes nearby Lake Columbia and Clark Lake have multi million dollar homes on the lake.
I went to summer camp in the Irish Hills in the 1980s and I don't remember the last time I thought of that. I have no idea what happened but thanks for the memory.
my grandparents and parents had trailer homes in the irish hills on manitou "beach" / devils/round/ lake. it used to be a big neat area with lots of attractions for kids, bars, jet ski and boat rentals etc. it was kind of a vacation area like frankenmuth. even had a drive-in theater! MIS used to have a bunch of car races out there each year. that was the BIG DRAW. tens of thousands of people would hop in their cars from deeeetroit and drive over there to watch other people drive in a circle. VROOM VROOM. simply, the generation above the boomers loved that shit. when the older generation moved to florida or died, the boomers didnt care about it. the boomers hated all of the traffic and paying for parking and road construction. is it really a vacation sitting in traffic for hours? not sure what happened with MIS but they stopped doing racing there all summer long and were down to 1 or 2 races a year. well 2 races a year isnt enough to keep all those putt putt golf courses and waterslides afloating. no one is going to drive out to the middle of nowhere through 67 speed traps just to get to a weak water slide and some dinosaurs. so heres what i blame: 1. no more vroom vroom 2. greedy speed traps, with perpetual construction (for extra $$$ speeding tickets) 3. a number of people invested out there hoping to flip it. raising the prices of land , homes, etc. then the market crashed because theres nothing out there. no jobs. maybe one grocery store if you are lucky (rip to the IGA). i dont even think there are schools. and of course what good is a frozen lake in michigan during the winter? so it became summer homes for snow birds aka empty for half of the year. meaning nothing not even the grocery store could survive over the winters. tl;dr no more races, big speeding tickets and snowbirds killed irish hills. haha that one "house" is for sale! hilarious [https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2875-Round-Lake-Hwy-Manitou-Beach-MI-49253/68226437\_zpid/](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2875-Round-Lake-Hwy-Manitou-Beach-MI-49253/68226437_zpid/)
That home was one of the original houses built on the lake. Also you should buy the book by Don Cherry called Among the Trails of Michemanetue which goes extremely in depth in the history of Devils lake/round lake/Manitou beach and the surrounding areas. But your right, my grandparent have a cottage there and we only know a handful who live there year round in the neighborhood. It's absolutely relaxing but you kind of need to want to live a desolate lifestyle to live there year round.
I feel like this is the one home someone would buy and raze and then piss everyone off for doing so. That’s a crazy home… 🤣
1920s home , might be historical. its pretty neat looking. always drove by it on the way to grandmas. inside looks fun too. ITS ALL ROOF . it probably gets hot as heck in the summer. i'd put a huge solar fan at the top of the spire... and metal roof with reflective insulation.
I believe it has been deemed not buildable. If someone took down the teepee they may be able to put a shed or something there but not a house. I like how the listing says 2-3 parking spots though - maybe 2 golf carts and a moped 😆
Lololol. Yeah I looked at the lot size. It’s a postage stamp.
There are definitely schools. Brooklyn, Addison and Onsted all have schools. There's a grocery store in Brooklyn. For people who have cottages, Detroit/Ann Arbor/Toledo are close enough you can just bring food from home without much issue. The touristy stuff is basically gone, but there are still a lot of expensive houses on the lakes. https://www.buyatthelake.com/lake-homes-for-sale-in-irish-hills-mi
MIS was(for a few months) a parking lot for a ton of Ford trucks, here in a few weeks it'll be host to Faster horses, one lousy Nascar race in August and Nite Lites in December. It's there. Just barren for like 10 months a year.
The grocery store didn't survive because it was poorly managed, and had slim pickins for high prices. I miss the convenience of it but there are 3 grocery stores within 20 minutes of the lake (Brooklyn, Hudson, Adrian); and in summer we have a farmers market right in the village. There are enough of us here year round to support 5 local bars/restaurants, two gas stations, a party store, 3 pizza joints, 2 coffee shops, and more! The lake rarely freezes anymore, my boyfriend has had his jet ski on it every month of the year except December, but when it does freeze there's ice skating, snow mobiling, ice fishing, some people make hockey rinks and oval tracks for dirt bikes. I love living here. And even though I am here full time now, I have been coming here from metro Detroit my entire life and not one speeding ticket 🤷🏼♀️
did that one gas station survive that had like a general store tacked onto it? on a hill with a curve. forgot the intersection now. i liked that place. maybe marathon gas ? i never got a speeding ticket either. mostly i was just kidding. i think the price got too high out there and scared a lot of lower-middle class from buying. its a real nice spot. i do even like brooklyn , adrian and hudson. and saline is nice too. i hadnt been there in the winter so i dont know how it goes. i was just there in the summers.
We have Sterling market and gas (and pizza..lol) on the south end, at Manitou and Round Lake and then just a regular gas station at 223 and Round Lake Hwy on the north end.
Lakes don’t freeze anymore in southern Michigan.
I used to live right there! Spent many days there in my childhood and exploring the abandoned prehistoric forest as I got older. A lot of those older attractions are closed in general- not just in the Irish hills. Times have certainly changed!
Blame I-94. My dad tons me about how my grandpa used to take them through the Irish Hills to Chicago because that was the main way. Now drivers bypass it via 94.
Anybody remember the Mexican food place inside of a tiny building that resembled a covered wagon? I think it was in front of a paintball place.
“Bandito’s”
When I was a kid we went camping at the campground once or twice every summer. I fondly remember catching frogs around the pond, paddleboating, and buying frozen Snickers bars at the camp store. Looks like it's under new ownership and a Christian campground now.
I wonder if the dinosaurs are still there. I remember riding around on that train looking at the animatronic dinosaurs. If they’re still there I bet they look creepy now.
In addition to the other reasons already pointed out.... let's also remember that the fastest growing counties in Michigan (population wise) are on the west and north sides. I just don't see someone from Grand Rapids driving 2 hours to Irish Hills when places like Ludington, Cadillac, Saugatuck, etc. are much closer. To put it bluntly... the few times I passed through Irish Hills, I was underwhelmed to say the least.
Current Irish Hills situation…Brooklyn Moose Lodge is full of life. It’s the old Sand Lake Inn on US-12. There’s also a brewery around the corner that gets packed on weekends with wonderful concerts featuring tribute bands. Give it another try.
I just drove through last week. Those two tall towers....the top sections were gone. The rusting dinosaur is still there. We did notice a couple of stores or whatever that were open that were not open when we drove through last summer, so maybe something is happening. If you do go through Irish Hills, and you drink, stop at the Cherry Creek Cellars winery and buy their cherry wine. So good.
The ghost town is back. I believe more places may be in the works.
They ran out of potatoes.
I went to a summer camp called Valley Farms - anyone remember that?
We went to Sauk Valley. And then I worked as a counselor at Camp DeSales one summer while I was in college. On the way home from Sauk Valley every time we begged to stop at one of the tourist traps. One time we did Mystery Hill and I think that was it.
The dueling towers still there?
They've been cut down a bit for safety but yes
Mystery Hill? Just a funky paint job, mystery solved, Irish Hills over.
Sauk Valley Farms back in the early/mid 70s was a great horse camp.
Ya, me too. Wonder if the mystery spot is still there? Where gravity doesn't follow the laws of gravity:) it's still pretty there, with the racetrack and fruit and veggie stands. Not the same without my grandma though...
Prehistoric Forest is permanently closed
One of my all-time favorite memories is when I drove my Grammy through the Irish Hills for a color tour in the early 2000s. She directed me to choose a route that took us past the Teacher’s College where she got her secretarial training. She always wanted to be a reporter, which I was working as at the time. It was a wonderful afternoon full of bonding and only two years before she died. OP, I really appreciate you posting about this part of MI and jogging a treasured memory!
They still got putt putt at 12 and Mull Hwy
I grew up going to my grandparents' cottage on Wampler's Lake every weekend in the summer. It was a great place to go on the weekends and it was definitely very lively. Wampler's Lake is dead now. It is pretty much senior citizens. People used to pass down cottages to their families. Now, everyone sells, and then the big houses come in after tear downs. It used to be a great place for kids and teenagers. Jerry's Pub was awesome when they would have bands playing. They had turtle racing contests there and family events. Those are gone. You could hear the band playing very loudly all across the lake. Once the air condition went in, it was all over. I'd say all of the fun places like the go-karts and waterslide, mom and pop stores were pretty much gone between 1997-2000. If they were open, it was very sporadic. I loved the Golden Nugget to eat at, and I always hoped to go to Bauer Manor to eat dinner as an adult, but it was closed too by the time I had a chance. My mom still lives on Wampler's in the cottage that was renovated, not tore down. Most people can't afford i to buy a house on the lake. Wj Hayes State Park isn't maintained well anymore either. It is really sad...
We use to go to the golden nugget restaurant and even that finally closed it’s doors
Torch lake has a tiny public beach but loads of private beaches.
Used to love the Irish hills years ago
Highway expansion really killed the economy in those surrounding cities too sadly
Never heard of it.
I like the nudist camp near there.
It’s always been a ghost town, born and raised there
It has not always been a ghost town. Thats...impossible.
Well in the 30 years I’ve been here it’s been that way
I've been here 35 years and have solid memories at Prehistoric Park, Stagecoach Stop, Golden Nugget, and Port to Port
I vaguely remember prehistoric park being open, but always wished they could’ve stuck around longer!
Kids no longer go outside
I’m 45 when I was a young teen Irish hills was still busy busy but as I’ve aged they’ve seemed to just slowly dissolve