Michigan is great for lots of reasons. The Motor City put the world on wheels and gave us Motown soul. There's nothing like a hiking or camping trip Up North. We've got great (or formerly great) sports teams. The list goes on and on.
But the greatest reason of all? The Great Lakes. And, of course, all the small beach towns dotting America's “Third Coast” along Lake Michigan.
Visitors and locals alike flock to the countless tourist towns in the hundreds of miles between New Buffalo and Mackinaw City. Every Michigander has their favorite spot along the big lake: Charlevoix, Frankfort, Grand Haven, South Haven, Leland, Ludington – you name it.
But you can’t forget about Saugatuck. It’s an artsy little town near the mouth of the Kalamazoo River lined with small, locally owned shops and restaurants, featuring great beaches and beautiful dunes along the lakeshore.
It used to be one of Michigan’s best kept secrets, but Saugatuck has received plenty of praise in recent years. Various publications have named it “best beach town” or “best weekend getaway,” or any number of high-praise accolades.
USA Today even went as far as naming Saugatuck the “Best Small Coastal Town in America.”
It’s easy to see why, as people come from all across the Midwest and beyond to spend a summer vacation in Saugatuck and the sister city of Douglas. But many of them may not know there was once a town just to the north of Saugatuck that was meant to "rival" the likes of Chicago and Milwaukee as a great lake port.
This is the story of “one of Michigan’s most famous ghost towns” – the buried town of Singapore.
The history of Singapore
By the mid-19th century the likes of Chicago and Milwaukee were becoming bustling port cities on the lake as the country’s population began to grow and move west.
It was America’s wooden age. Virtually everything was built from wood. And on the other side of Lake Michigan from Chicago and Milwaukee sat Singapore.
While it wasn’t nearly as large as the New York land speculators who first settled there in the late 1830s had first envisioned, by the time the 1870s rolled around Singapore was indeed a bustling lumber town.
It was situated at the northernmost bend in the Kalamazoo River’s oxbow – where the river essentially made a 180-degree turn before going out to the lake. A new channel was dug in the early 1900s, closing off the “Oxbow Lagoon” across from the settlement. That area, once home to a thriving Fish Town settlement, is now home to a vibrant art school and residency.
With several mills in town, Singapore was known for shipbuilding, cutting building materials, construction timbers, wooden shingles and more. It even had its own bank and printed its own money. It was one of two so-called “wildcat banks” in Allegan County.
Empty ships would come to the port and depart with a load of wooden goods to go off and help build the Midwest. It was big business in Singapore, with roughly a couple dozen buildings holding a few hundred people.
When the Great Fire destroyed Chicago in the fall of 1871, along with Milwaukee and several other places, including Holland, Michigan and other places across the state, Singapore and neighboring Saugatuck – known as “The Flats” back then, were luckily spared.
Singapore got down to business and shipped off lumber to help rebuild the cities destroyed by the fires.
The demise of Singapore
Dr. Eric Gollannek, the Director of the Saugatuck-Douglas Historical Society, says the period following the devastating fires of 1871 was “an incredibly prosperous time” for Singapore.
“Because there’s all these fires, and it’s America’s wooden age. Every part of a building is coming from a tree in one form or another,” Gollannek told WWJ’s Zach Clark, host of the Daily J podcast.
Singapore was positioned to sell a lot of timber products and construction materials. And they did.
But by 1875 Singapore had run out of timber. It’s likely that the great demand for wood after the fires exhausted the commercially viable standing timber in the Kalamazoo River Valley, according to Gollannek.
With the area almost completely deforested, the powers that be decided to physically dismantle the main mill at Singapore in 1875. It was put onto boats and shipped off to St. Ignace in the Straits of Mackinac, where it would operate at a larger mill complex in the Upper Peninsula for about 20 more years.
So with no more mill and no more lumber, there were no more jobs. No more economic livelihood in Singapore. When the lumber industry left Singapore, so did the people – mostly to neighboring Saugatuck and Douglas.
By the mid 1870s, both were incorporated villages with their own shops and inns and industries.
There were additional mills – like the grist mill at what would become the Butler Hotel, a building still in use today in the form of a restaurant – and shipbuilding was still taking place. And there was plenty of agriculture, with the area being known for its fruit farming, so the people of Singapore didn’t have to go far.
With Singapore all but deserted, the area’s beautiful sand dunes had far less protection from the elements. And Mother Nature did her thing.
“The dunes are kind of a fascinating landscape. The sands are always shifting,” Gollannek said.
By the end of the century, without any replanted vegetation or dune grass to stop the process, those shifting sands had buried Singapore.
“It becomes this site of fascination. Because as you go out there, even in the late 19th century, people are observing that there was once this settlement here, but now there’s no trace of it all,” he said.
Much the same way urban legend says Old Lady Leary's cow kicked over a lantern to start the Great Chicago Fire, local legend has it that one man refused to leave his home in Singapore, even as it was slowly buried in the sand. Going in and out of an upstairs window, legend says he stayed until the sand reached the roof.
What remains of Singapore?
While some buildings were dragged out of town or put on rafts and floated up the Kalamazoo – or even slid right down the frozen ice in the winter – to Saugatuck and Douglas, whatever wasn’t moved, salvaged or recycled was left to be buried.
Hypothetically, if you were to take a giant shop vac and suck up all the sand on the north shore, it would reveal the remnants of a once-bustling port town. Gollannek says sand drains very well, so it’s likely that it would have preserved the heavy timber structures quite well.
Over the years, the shifting sands and changing water levels have again revealed parts of buildings and artifacts. But no real extensive archaeology has ever been done, so there’s no telling what exactly was left behind, Gollannek says.
While the settlement itself is long gone, the legacy of Singapore lives on, hiding in plain sight just a mile or so downstream in Saugatuck.
A handful of buildings from Singapore still stand in Saugatuck. The Singapore Bank Building is now a bookstore and art gallery on Butler Street, while a couple houses in the city blend right into their neighborhoods.
The name itself can be seen in various places across town. The Singapore Yacht Club pays homage to the lost city, giving boaters the chance to enjoy the modern treasure the area eventually became.
The site of the settlement is now privately owned. It can’t be legally reached by foot without the owners’ permission, but it can be seen from two popular attractions – the paddlewheel boat, the Star of Saugatuck, and the Dune Schooner Rides.
Does Singapore have a future?
Of course Singapore has a future. No, it will never rise from the ashes and become a city again, but the site itself most certainly has a future.
But what that future looks like is a point of contention. For years, developers have tried to utilize the property. Those efforts date back as far as the 1960s and 70s in the form of a high-rise hotel and event center, according to Gollannek.
Plans in the 2000s for a marina, golf course, stables and shooting range by Oklahoma billionaire Aubrey McClendon
While some private homes have been built on the site north of the Kalamazoo over the years, it’s new plans for a marina and upwards of 20 houses that have locals fighting back.
The proposed site to dig the marina? Right through the buried village of Singapore. The Saugatuck Dunes Coastal Alliance has been fighting to not only preserve the environment, but a piece of important history.
“The proposed marina will destroy the historic site of Singapore. This is why the National Trust for Historic Preservation has named the Saugatuck Dunes one of America’s 11 Most Endangered Places,” the SDCA website says.
The alliance claims the proposed development is in violation of numerous local ordinances and state laws, including local zoning that “clearly states, in no event shall a canal or channel be excavated for the purpose of increasing the water frontage required by this section.”
Patti Beery, a lifelong Saugatuck resident and current owner of a shop in downtown Saugatuck, says it’s been “a nasty conversation for a long time.”
“They’ve been fighting it for years, and I think they will,” she said. “It’s gonna be a good fight. I don’t think I’ll ever see it in my lifetime. I hope I don’t.”
You can follow the alliance's fight to save the Singapore site on their Facebook page.
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