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Website designed, written and constructed by Dan Aument
Another unforgetable character first came to Ottawa Beach in 1886 when he was 35 years old. J. Boyd Pantlind came to Ottawa Beach to look at the brand new Hotel Ottawa and immediately made plans to own and operate this resort hotel. After the turn of the century, he first leased and in 1913, he bought the hotel from the financially strapped Pere Marquette Railway. The Pantlind family lived in a cottage built adjacent to the hotel annex atop the bluff overlooking the main hotel and Macatawa Bay. Mr. Pantlind either bought or leased this cottage from Charles Heald of the Pere Marquette Railway.
Mr. Pantlind's success as a hotel operator may be seen in this advertisement from a 1907 Michigan resort guide. Pictured are the Morton House and Hotel Pantlind in Grand Rapids and the Hotel Ottawa. His granddaughter Katherine Pantlind Whinery and her family lived in the cottage next door to the Pantlind cottage on lot 33, built in 1902 by Marietta Ives.
Click here to see the contents of a rare advertising brochure developed by Mr. Pantlind announcing the 1916 season of the Hotel Ottawa. You’ll see some rare views of the Hotel Ottawa interior and enjoy delightful verbal hyperbole which practically names Ottawa Beach as THE center of the universe!
Pere Marquette rail service to Ottawa Beach was discontinued in 1914 and the Ottawa Beach Hotel burned in November of 1923 and was not rebuilt.Click here for fire aftermath photo plus other Ottawa Beach photos from the James Johnson Archive
J. Boyd Pantlind's son Z. Fred Pantlind was a member of the State Park Board and he urged the State to buy the Lake Michigan beach front property and put a state park there. In 1925, the Pere Marquette sold the Lake Michigan beach property, a separate parcel from the property platted as West Michigan Park, to the state of Michigan to become Holland State Park. This photo looks north east from the beach in the new state park and clearly shows several cottages on Terrace Avenue, the upper
Holland State Park opened in 1928 and has always been one of the State's most visited - and profitable -parks. This early view in the park looks to the south.
Click here to see the first of two additional pages of photos of the park taken between 1930 and 1950.
The history of Ottawa Beach - Page Twelve
