OVPA Blog

The 6th Fairway of the Omena Golf course looking east toward the sand green Courtesy Omena Historical Society Omena lacked for almost nothing in the 1920’s. It had “swimming, sailing, fishing, motoring, dancing, and tennis” according to an old Sunset Lodge ad. What it did not have was a golf course. Several Omena men wanted more than boats and model T cars to tinker with on warm summer afternoons. So they got permission in 1924 from John Santo, owner of a scrubby pasture between Mougeys Lake and the property line of Smiths Orchard to build one there. After the first… Read More »

Charles Kehl was a young man just 27 years old who had just gotten married the previous fall, a newly-wed. There was a baby on the way. He had everything to live for. But he was a sailor. “Forest fires had been breaking out all over the Grand Traverse region that unusually warm, dry spring of 1891. The air was filled with wood smoke, flying cinders, and burning leaves that fell for many hours.” writes Larry Wakefield. “At night, the sky was red with flames in every direction. In Traverse City fire came over the hill behind the asylum and… Read More »

The body of Miss Deborah DeCostello, aeronaut, who drowned in Lake Michigan October 1st, was found Saturday by Joe Black on November 6th”, reported the Empire Journal in 1920. Female daredevil Deborah DeCostello, 27, had come to Empire to entertain as part of the county fair. She was to jump from the bi-plane wearing her parachute (which were unheard of then) on the 29th and 30th of September but was unable to because the weather was very bad as it sometimes is in September. Even though she was offered $400 NOT to jump after the fair had ended, she insisted… Read More »

Ernie Barth and his sister Irene in 1936 or 37. This is the oldest known photo taken inside the Barth store according to Ernie’s son Wayne, who donated this photo. Around the turn of the 20th century, Paul and Christina Barth had a son who would grow to be the future of the Omena Country Store. Little Ernie Barth was one of four children. He and his sister and brothers, Robert, William, and Irene, grew up very much a part of the life of the store and the village. Ernie goes off to War When he was a young man… Read More »

Barth store and home circa 1915-1925 – Courtesy Omena Historical Society Once upon a time, when big steamers pulled up to the docks in Omena and horses and wagons met them to carry their cargo to the local stores, stores sold all the things which the people could not grow or make themselves, and only that. Fresh meat and produce were brought in by the local farmers to trade for shoes, cloth, cooking utensils, hardware and many other things that they couldn’t produce themselves. Orders were filled over the counter, the store keepers measured and weighed and wrapped the purchases…. Read More »

Omena was not the only little town in the county to have failed businesses. On our Facebook page last February 19th we told about Bidleman’s Gas Station which was only in business from 1935-1939. We also talked about Queenie Smiths Brothel which was only in business for a year, 1949-1950. And don’t forget the little church that couldn’t make it, Omena Congregational Church which struggled off and on from 1886 to 1931 which I posted about on August 10, of this year. But there was a nearby business that failed not once but three times, leaving its waste products in… Read More »

Martha Rule, Janet Graph, and Jack Stevenson on the beach with their dog. Courtesy Omena Historical Society The people of early Omena and surrounding areas loved their dogs. At least most of them did. Dogs went everywhere with their owners: the beach, the store, the train station, and they didn’t seem to be kept behind fences or on leashes. Dogs in Mrs. Dougherty Kitchen! Mrs. Dougherty had mixed feelings about dogs, especially when large packs of them ran rampant through her kitchen while she was trying to cook. “Maria Dougherty was at the mercy of every traveler and visitor, expected… Read More »

Dr David Goodale, MD, was brought to Traverse City in 1853 mainly to manage the large boarding house of Hannah and Lay, a large company needing housing for its employees. He soon realized he was needed as a physician, being the only doctor in residence in the village. Courtesy Grand Traverse Legends, by Robert E Wilson Sickness was unknown to most of us,” wrote Amalia Kropp in the Bohemian language used by the people of North Unity on the western side of Leelanau County in 1856. “There wasn’t any doctor here to begin with, but if anyone got sick, we… Read More »

If you wanted to get a large pie, say 3 feet in diameter, into a car for a trip to the President of the United States at his summer residence, how would you do it? If you were Frank Burkhart, Tom VanPelt’s Great Grandfather, and the car was, say, a 1926 Lincoln, you could just flip up the windshield and slide it in! And you could ask your son, Hugh, to drive it on the uncertain early roads of 1926 and deliver it to the President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, at his summer residence. Wallace Keep, who had… Read More »

Nels and Alvin Fredrickson planting potatoes by machine in the early 1920’s. Randa Fredrickson Collection, A History of Leelanau Township. Before cherries, there were potatoes. Children had a two week “vacation” from school in the fall to help dig them. They were loaded onto wagons and hauled by horses to warehouses near the docks in Omena, Sutton’s Bay and Northport, where long lines waited their turn to get unloaded. Potato buyers ran along these lines shouting their price offerings. Sometimes there was trouble. The Leelanau Tribune of September 17, 1875 reported the following, “Monday evening, Mr. E. P. Taylor drove… Read More »