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Website designed, written and constructed by Dan Aument
The beach front property west of the Hotel Ottawa and extending north from the channel for about 1,300 feet was the bathing beach for the hotel and most of the cottage owners. The Chicago and West Michigan Railway owned this desirable chunk of land and the C&WM RR built and maintained this bath house there on the lake michigan shore probably until the state purchased the property and developed Holland State park there.
An additional improvement in 1901 was the installation of an electric light plant which provided power for the hotel and the cottages. The red brick building on Ottawa Beach road just west of the US Coast Guard Station housed this electric light plant and later, the water pumping equipment. An elaborate system of wells and water mains supplied water to the hotel and to the cottages in the resort. This water distribution system remained in service until the mid 1980‘s when the resort connected to the Park Township water distribution system.
This postcard of passengers arriving at the Pere Marquette station and post office shows the electric power generating building in the background. The facility was coal fired, and the tall smoke stack was necessary to minimize the smoke fumes reaching the cottages up on the sand dune bluff which are hidden by the train in this view.
The history of Ottawa Beach - Page Nine
