Epworth Heights is a private summer community located on the Lake Michigan shore north of Ludington, Michigan, in the United States. Founded in 1894 by a group of Methodists as the Epworth League Training Assembly, it continues to operate as a domestic nonprofit corporation under Michigan's Summer Resort and Assembly Associations Act 39 of 1889. [1] It is formally known as The Epworth Assembly, Inc.
The summer resort known as Epworth Heights (now Epworth Assembly) was founded in 1894 as The Epworth League Training Assembly. Epworth began as a Methodist training camp on the shores of Lake Michigan. The mission statement drawn up read as follow: “Established 1894 for the purchase and improvement of grounds to be occupied for summer homes, for camp meetings, for meetings of assemblies or associations and societies organized for intellectual or scientific culture and for the promotion of the cause of religion and morality.” [2] [3]
An agreement between The Citizen's Development Company of Ludington, The Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad, and The Epworth Training Assembly, was signed on May 6 of that year. By mid-July, a mere ten weeks later, the Hotel, Auditorium and classrooms that had been hastily built were ready for the first session, July 18 to August 5. Families camped in tents on the sandy beaches and enjoyed the programming as well as the lakeside vistas. [4]
It was decided that leasing plots of land to allow for the building of cottages would be a good way to raise money and assure a future for the venture. For five dollars a year, a member of the assembly could purchase the right to build a cottage on his leasehold. Several cottages were built in 1895; by 1909, there were close to 100. These were not year-round cottages, but simple wooden structures built along walks that lined the Lake Michigan shore. [5]
The Chautauqua programs began in 1896 and continued until 1924, but were replaced with other speakers of a spiritual or cultural nature. Over the years, the number of cottages has grown to over two hundred, each named by the family holding the lease. Cottages are also available for rent, but there are many requirements for renting including three letters of reference from lease-holders. [6]
Shorewood–Tower Hills–Harbert is a census-designated place (CDP) composed of several small unincorporated communities in Chikaming Township of Berrien County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 1,249 at the 2020 census. The CDP is limited to Chikaming Township, although some of the communities extend into southern Lake Township. All of the communities are located either upon or just east of the dunes on the shore of Lake Michigan. Most of the communities lie west of Interstate 94, although the CDP includes a small area east of the freeway up to Sawyer, Michigan. The township is a popular resort destination.
Ludington is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat and the largest city in Mason County. The population was 7,655 at the 2020 census.
The Bay View Association of the United Methodist Church, known as Bay View, is an example of two uniquely American community forms: the Methodist camp meeting and the independent Chautauqua. Designed for the first purpose in 1876 as the county's only romantically-planned campground, and adapted for the second from 1885 to 1915, Bay View constitutes a well-executed ideal Victorian summer community that has remained in continuous operation since its foundation.
Lakeside is a private community and census-designated place in Danbury Township, Ottawa County, Ohio, United States, on the shores of Lake Erie. It was formed in 1873 by members of the Methodist Church and remains a church-affiliated vacation resort and United Methodist Annual Conference site. It is one of only a few continuously operating Independent Chautauquas that persist in the 21st century. Located just west of the village of Marblehead, the community is approximately one square mile in size. The entire community is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Lakeside Historic District.
Britannia is a group of neighbourhoods in Bay Ward in the west end of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is located on the Ottawa River across from Aylmer, Quebec, adjacent to its namesake, Britannia Bay, north of Richmond Road, west of the Kichi Zibi Mikan and east of Boyce Avenue. The total population of this area was 6,692 as of the 2016 census. The area constituted a municipal ward from 1973 to 1994.
Mount Tabor is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) established as a self-governing Methodist camp meeting in what is now Parsippany–Troy Hills, in Morris County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.
Central Oak Heights is an association of cottage owners on 45 acres (0.22 km2) of wooded land in Kelly Township, Union County, Pennsylvania in the United States. It was founded in 1909 as a religious campground and retreat by the Bible Conference Society of Central Pennsylvania of the United Evangelical Church.
Epworth originally referred to Epworth, Lincolnshire, a town in England that was the birthplace of John Wesley and Charles Wesley, early leaders of the Methodist religious movement. The town's name has since been used for other places and institutions affiliated with the Methodist denomination of Christianity.
Camp Tosebo, on the south shore of Portage Lake in Onekama Township, Michigan, was established in 1912 by Noble Hill, the headmaster of the Todd Seminary for Boys in Woodstock, Illinois, as one of the first summer camps in the United States. The name of the camp is an acronym derived from the school's name, TOdd SEminary for BOys, and meant to sound like a Native American Indian word. The camp was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.
The Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad (F&PM) is a defunct railroad which operated in the U.S. state of Michigan between 1857 and 1899. It was one of the three companies which merged to become the Pere Marquette Railway.
The Ludington and Northern Railway, also known as the Dummy Train, or the L&N, is a defunct railroad which operated in Mason County, Michigan between 1902 and 1982. At a length of 2.79 miles (4.49 km), it was for decades the shortest operating common carrier railroad in the state.
Lake Buel is a 196-acre (0.79 km2) great pond in Berkshire County, Massachusetts just south of Route 57 and east of Great Barrington. It is surrounded by over one-hundred summer homes and a few dozen year-round homes in about a dozen separate, tight-knit neighborhoods, each with its own private or semi-private road. The roads do not interlink.
Red Park is an unincorporated summer resort area of Onekama Township, Manistee County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located on the south shore of Portage Lake at 44°21′07″N86°14′34″W, between Wick-A-Te-Wah on the West and next to Camp Tosebo.
SS Spartan is a railroad car ferry on Lake Michigan owned by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) from 1952 through 1979. It alternated routes from Ludington, Michigan, to Milwaukee, Kewaunee, and Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
Wilderness Park is a 1,472-acre (596 ha) mostly-public conservancy located in southwest Lincoln, Nebraska. The park is the largest in Lincoln and is separated into several branches. S 14th St, a north-south street dissects much of the south end of the park.
Mexico Point State Park is a 122-acre (0.49 km2) park on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario in the town of Mexico in Oswego County, New York. The park is located at the mouth of the Little Salmon River.
Nelson Ludington was a nineteenth-century American businessman, lumber baron and banker. Born in Ludingtonville, New York, he made his fortune in the Midwest based on resource exploitation: lumber, iron ore and copper.
Stearns Hotel is a historic hotel in Ludington, Michigan, in the United States. Built in 1903 by Justus Stearns, a leading businessman in Ludington ranging from banking, lumbering, mining and many other endeavors throughout the Midwestern United States. The Stearns Hotel opened on July 1, 1903. For the first five years H.S. Read, a well known and accomplished hotel manager in Northern Michigan, was contracted to manage the building. It was known for being one of the finest furnished hotels in the area. It is remembered as being one of the first hotels in West Michigan to have in-room plumbing, phones in every room, automatic sprinklers throughout the hotel, and bath in nearly every room, which made it a high end hotel for its time. When built the hotel held 90 rooms within its three-story structure. The hotel had a beautiful front entrance with a porch. Much like today, the hotel advertised to have a beautiful bridal room.
William Albert L. Rath was a German-American businessman and politician living in the United States who helped develop Ludington, a harbor town on Lake Michigan in Mason County, Michigan. He was in the lumber business and also was involved in banking and other businesses. He was mayor of Ludington for one term and a member of the town's board of trade and board of aldermen as well as the county's board of supervisors. He is memorialized in Ludington by a street, a building, and a mural.
Richard H. "Dick" Sloan was an American college athlete and swimming coach best known for his fourteen-year tenure at Ohio State University from 1975 to 1989. From 1968 to 1975, he coached both tennis and swimming at Kenyon College where his team won seven consecutive Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) Championships.