The Way it Was…
...At the Grand Bay Port Hotel
by Al Eicher

During the past two years I have written two articles in The Lakeshore Guardian that mentioned the Grand Bay Port Hotel of the "Gay 90s" period. Some of the loyal readers of "The Way It Was" have inquired and want to know more about this luxury hotel built in Bay Port on Wild Fowl Bay. So here's the rest of the story!

In 1885, two men from Saginaw, Jesse Hoyt, owner of the new S T & H railroad and William Weber, a lawyer, were in the planning stages of building a resort hotel in Bay Port. Mr. Hoyt's railroad actually came to the Bay Port area because of the stone quarry business and the potential to haul farm produce as farmers cleared more land. The Bay Port area was also developing a fishing industry. The area, at this time, was recovering from the great 1881 fire that came through the middle of Huron County and cleared a lot of land for farm development.

The Corporation of Jesse Hoyt and William Weber bought up land along the shoreline, some reports indicate as much as six miles of shoreline were eventually purchased. In 1886, this majestic hotel was built on a bluff, less than a block away from the railroad passenger station. The hotel was sheltered by the many giant oaks and white pine trees growing along the shoreline. The hotel was designed and built to provide "The Best of Everything", according to its brochure! Remember, this is the beginning of the Gay 90s.

This three-story grand hotel was 225 feet long and 125 feet wide. It was constructed using the best in prime wood framing materials. Oak and maple floors and the finest hardwoods for wood trim detail. There were no elevators in the hotel. People had their choice of six different stairways to the second floor. By today's standards there were very few bathrooms...few if any in the rooms. The restrooms and bath were dedicated to a central location on each level.

The guests of this 117-room hotel could stroll on the wide verandas located on the three sides of this waterfront structure. The veranda was actually 475 feet long. Wealthy patrons, who wanted bigger rooms, could stay on the third floor, which offered 28 larger suites with a spectacular view of the islands in Wild Fowl Bay and Pointe Charity to the north. Pointe Charity today is known as Sand Point.

Room rates for the weekend were $8 to $12, including all meals. The weekly room rate per person was $2. There were two dining rooms, one of which could seat 150 guests. Twenty-seven dining room "serving girls" as they were called, waited on the patrons. Four cooks and their helpers worked in the big kitchen. The kitchen and carving room had large skylights. Mr. A.B. Lee, a local meat market owner and butcher, delivered whole hind quarters of beef and choice cuts of pork to the hotel kitchen, sometimes daily.

Mr. Lee sold a lot of meat during July and August and especially when the convention crowds came for a week or more.

The hotel also had a host of chambermaids to service the 117 rooms. Bellhops catered to the guests arriving and departing. Drivers provided dray services and handled horse and buggy rides along the trails plus getting guests to and from the railroad station. The bellhops also handled baggage coming in, from people who arrived by boat. You may wonder how it would be possible to arrive near the hotel on a boat? In those days the water was deeper and the hotel had a 1,200 foot dock to accommodate guests arriving by excursion boats, private yachts and sailing ships. The bellhops kept busy running errands, baggage handling and making trips to and from the telegraph office. Telephone service was not available at that time.

The location of this resort hotel, in a beautiful wooded setting, soon attracted thousands of visitors each summer. The swimming beaches and picnic areas in the pine groves were just a few of the added attractions. There was also a one-third mile oval race track for bikers, which was a fashionable sport at the time. Patrons could also use the bowling alley, casino, billiards room and dance pavilion.

The hotel had a Grand Ballroom with skylights. The dancers during a waltz or fox trot could look at the stars on a clear summer night. There were also Saturday afternoon dances in the pavilion. Dance bands came in from Saginaw and Bay City for the Friday and Saturday night crowds. The original Fred Gunsel Orchestra for many years was known to perform in the Grand Ballroom. You might wonder if they danced by candlelight or gas lanterns. Not at this hotel, they were the first in the area to have a Delco lighting generator, which provided electricity to the hotel. There were many large ornate brass lighting fixtures hanging in the dining rooms, kitchen, parlor, hotel lobby, reading room and in the Grand Ballroom. Electric lights were in all the first floor hotel rooms. The hotel also had an electric fire alarm system to ring the bell.

The round trip fare by train from Saginaw to Bay Port was 50 cents in 1892. The first morning train from the Potter station in Saginaw left at 7:30 AM and arrived 90 minutes later in Bay Port. On summer weekends trains left the station every half hour to accommodate the crowds from Saginaw and Bay City going to Bay Port. Train service on a summer weekend, from Bay Port to Saginaw was also very good... you could get an evening train at 6 PM and every hour after up to 11 PM.

If you wanted privacy and didn't want to stay in the hotel proper, you could rent one of the 15 small cottages on the shoreline, in the pine groves. It was like having your own "honeymoon cabin". Cottage guests had to come to the hotel dining room for meals. There were also bathhouses on the beach to change into or rent a bathing suit. Rentals were available for small sailboats and rowboats at the beach concession stand.

The hotel also featured spacious lawns and beautiful floral gardens sprinkled throughout the 44-acre site. There was also a "lover's lane" identified as one of the many nature trails. The hotel had one more attraction, which brought many people to Bay Port. There was a "flowing well", by the hotel, delivering the most pure spring water around. Another well was in the basement of the hotel having a depth of 328 feet. Good water for drinking was not easy to find as there were many salt wells in Huron County, especially at Caseville, Port Austin and Harbor Beach. Since the hotel had such good water, a business was established. The S T & H railroad carried large quantities of this pure water on a regular schedule. The Bay Port Hotel had a daily standing order to ship 20 gallons of water to the Bancroft Hotel in Saginaw. The water was sometimes promoted as a cure for preserving good health.

Once a year for a 12-day period in early September, the "Cincinnati Club" would reserve all 117 rooms for their convention. The 300 or more guests were big eaters and big spenders. They also brought their own liquor by train. The bellhops and chambermaids would average tips of about $25 for the 12-day period. The convention crowd was most welcomed, certainly by the bellhops who received only $7 a month in pay from the hotel. The hotel provided the bellhops with room and board for their services, therefore the low pay. Tips for the bellhops and chambermaids were expected due to their low wage. The hotel each year also catered another convention group of grocery store owners from the Saginaw and Bay City area.

It was a sad day in the late summer of 1907 when the hotel was closed and the building was dismantled board by board. The lake levels had dropped to extreme low levels. The bathing beaches were now weed infested. Excursion boats could not come in to the hotel dock. The Wallace Stone Company had to shut down their lake barge shipments of limestone, which operated out of a channel one mile north of the hotel.

Martin Meyers was a grocery store owner and town historian at Bay Port. In fact, I delivered milk to his store in the early 1950s. He tells the story of working at the hotel site as a young man, when it was dismantled. He and others were paid $5 for four days work to remove paneling, lighting fixtures, the stairways, plumbing fixtures and the hardwood lumber plus the trim and flooring materials. All of these items were auctioned off. Several homes and farmhouses around Bay Port have doors and stairways plus furniture from this grand Bay Port Hotel...and That's The Way It Was!

Al and Dave Eicher provide television production services to corporations, ad agencies, and nonprofit organizations. They also create Michigan town histories and offer lecture services on a variety of Michigan History Events. You may contact them at 248-333-2010; Email: info@program-source.com; Website: www.program-source.com; Address: PSI, P.O. Box 444, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48303.