Idlewild is an unincorporated community in Yates Township, located just east of Baldwin in southeast Lake County, a rural part of northwestern lower Michigan. During the first half of the 20th century, it was one of the few resorts in the country where African-Americans were allowed to vacation and purchase property, before discrimination was outlawed in 1964 through the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The surrounding area is within Manistee National Forest. The community encompasses Lake Idlewild, and the headwaters of the Pere Marquette River extends throughout the region.
Called the "Black Eden of Michigan",[2] from 1912 through the mid-1960s, Idlewild was an active year-round community and was visited by well-known entertainers and professionals from throughout the country.[3] At its peak, it was one of the most popular resorts in the Midwest and as many as 25,000[4] would come to Idlewild in the height of the summer season to enjoy camping, swimming, boating, fishing, hunting, horseback riding, roller skating, and night-time entertainment. When the 1964 Civil Rights Act opened up other resorts in many states to African-Americans, Idlewild's boomtown period subsided.
Though not quite a "ghost town" as claimed in the book Ghost Towns of Michigan, Chapter 7,[5][6] the population was under 1,000 in 2019,[7] and numerous buildings were vacant. The Idlewild African American Chamber of Commerce,[8] founded in 2000 by John O. Meeks, continues to promote existing local businesses and seeking new ones. It is also striving to attract more visitors to the area, with events and other strategies, in hopes of resuscitating the once lively town.[9]
Establishment (1912–1920s)
Idlewild was founded in 1912. During this period, a small yet clearly distinguishable African American middle class – largely composed of professionals and small business owners – had been established in many urban centers, including several in the American Midwest. Despite having the financial means for leisure travel, racial segregation prevented them from recreational pursuits in most resort destinations in the region.
Seeing an opportunity, four white land developers and their wives organized the Idlewild Resort Company (IRC). Erastus and Flora Branch, Adelbert and Isabelle Branch (from nearby White Cloud, Michigan), Wilbur M. and Mayme Lemon, and A.E. and Modolin Wright (of Chicago), organized IRC during the pre-World War I era. To secure land rights, Erastus Branch built a cabin, homesteaded the land for three years, and eventually obtained the title to the land through his Branch, Anderson & Tyrrell Real Estate Company, which became the central focus of the resort community.
One folk saying suggests that the community's name refers to "idle men and wild women".[10] Current residents embrace this version of the story by selling playful T-shirts with this phrase at the annual Idlewilders summer festivals.[11]
IRC organized excursions to attract middle class African American professionals from Detroit, Chicago, and other Midwestern cities, taking them on tours of the rustic community, and selling lots. Their ads in major news media offered lots at $1 down and $1 per month, and cited the hunting, fishing, boating and horseback riding opportunities.[12] A 1919 pamphlet used by IRC to promote the community, entitled "Beautiful Idlewild", describes it as "the hunter's paradise" renowned "for its beautiful lakes of pure spring water" and "its myriads of game fish". Promoters of the area also emphasized the lack of prejudice and the freedom of movement for blacks "without ostracism and hatred", in a town where they could truly feel like "American citizens".[13]
One prominent personality to relocate to Idlewild was Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, who in 1893 was the first surgeon in the United States to perform open-heart surgery. Williams, Herman O. and Lela G. Wilson of Chicago, three of Williams' associates from Chicago and Cleveland, and twenty others were among the first group of African American professionals to join IRC's excursion. Later, tours were conducted by train from Chicago, Indiana, Detroit, Grand Rapids, St. Louis, and other cities.
Madame C.J. Walker, the first self-made U.S. woman millionaire of any race, owned property in Idlewild, Michigan.
IRC had acquired over 2,700 acres (11km2) of land. The company sold a good deal of that land, and then turned the island in Idlewild Lake over to Williams and Louis B. Anderson of Chicago, and Robert Riffe and William Green of Cleveland, who collaboratively formed the Idlewild Improvement Association (IIA) and helped build the clubhouse. IIA sold property to such notables as NAACP co-founder W.E.B. Du Bois, cosmetic entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker, Fisk University president Lemuel L. Foster, Albert B. Cleage Sr. of Detroit, Fannie Emanuel of Chicago, and novelist Charles W. Chesnutt.[2] 3 IIA was also responsible for recruiting other middle-class professionals, such as NAACP field secretary William Pickens, H. Franklin and Virginia Bray (a missionary and his wife who together founded the first formal church in Idlewild), and the Reverend Robert L. Bradby, Sr. of Second Baptist Church of Detroit (who contributed to the development of the Idlewild Lot Owners Association). IIA encouraged this new influx of community leaders to foster racial pride, economic development, decency, and respect to Idlewild.
The annual Idlewild Chautauqua was organized by Baptist Minister Reverend Robert L. Bradby[2] in the 1920s and 1930s.[14] These week-long events added an intellectual flavor to the recreational life in the community, attracted people from across the country, and were praised by Michigan Republican Governor Fred W. Green.
The height of popularity (1920s–1964)
After segregation and enforced segregation of Jim Crow laws made it nearly impossible for African Americans to thrive in American society, many searched for a safe haven. Idlewild became a place where one could be within miles of prominent cities such as Chicago, while remaining concealed within the surrounding woods of the newfound African American community.[15] As this new black intelligentsia began to settle in the community, some relocated as activists and members of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), some as followers of Du Bois' National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), others as believers of the late Booker T. Washington's political machine, and others as potential investors. For the majority of these professionals who brought their families, the idea of land ownership conveyed black social status and membership in this community, something that enforced segregation prevented African Americans from obtaining beyond the community of Idlewild.[16] Eventually, Idlewild would become known as the "Black Eden of Michigan".
Idlewild gained national stature among African Americans during the period between the World Wars. For example, the Idlewild Land Owners Association had members from over thirty-four states in the country. In addition, the Purple Palace, the Flamingo, the Paradise Club, Idlewild Club, Rosanna Tavern, and Pearl's Bar provided summer entertainment for tourists and employment opportunities for seasonal and year-round residents in the community. The Pere Marquette Railroad built a branch line to the area by 1923, a post office opened that same year, and the Idlewild Fire Department was established soon after. Following the flow of these significant establishments, a host of new entrepreneurs began entering the community. With new establishments on the rise, and the growing population of people, Idlewild began to mirror the appearance of a prominent American society. By the mid-1920s, over 6,000 people had purchased some 17,000 lots in the area.[12]
The Pere Marquette Railway ran the Resort Special with sleeping cars from Chicago and Detroit via Grand Rapids from June to September, stopping in Baldwin five miles to the west.[17][18] The Pere Marquette Railway ran trains west from Idlewild's station to Baldwin, then Ludington; and trains went east to Saginaw. At Saginaw the trains were timed to meet with separate Bay City-originating trains to Detroit. The PM's successor, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway ended the Ludington to Saginaw trains through Idlewild in the latter months of 1949.[19][20]
Following World War II, Idlewild attracted what some sociologists have labeled the new African American "working" middle class. With the construction of a few paved roads in Idlewild, a reinvestment in the township's only post office, and greater availability of electricity, a new generation of entrepreneurs began to invest in Idlewild. Phil Giles, Arthur "Big Daddy" Braggs, William N. "Sunnie" Wilson, and a host of other African American businessmen and women took advantage of the market by purchasing property on Williams Island and Paradise Gardens, and began developing these areas into an elaborate nightspot and business center. (According to one reliable source, Braggs financed his Idlewood business with revenues from illegal activities.) [21]
In 1952, the Detroit Idlewilders Club was founded by Sunnie Wilson and other prominent Detroiters who spent their summers in Idlewild. The founding purpose of the group was to aid in support of charitable and civic endeavors and promote social entertainment and recreation in Idlewild.
The cottage started by Albert Cleage in the 1940s was expanded by his sons Louis, Hugh, and Henry.
In a 2017 interview, local businessman John O. Meeks recalled the past. "At its high point, between the '40s and early '60s, nearly 30,000 folks would descend on here in the summer. Hundreds of black-owned businesses thrived. This place was hopping ... We had a roller-skating rink for the kids, our own fire department and a post office".[9] Other sources indicate 25,000 visitors as a more common number during peak times in summer.[12]
The Paradise Club showgirls and chorus girls, with guest entertainers, performed not only in Idlewild but also on the road in the off-season as the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue. The appeared in cities such as Montreal, Toronto, Boston, Kansas City, Chicago and to New York; in Manhattan, the group performed at the Apollo Theater.[23] Braggs' show helped Idlewild become a major entertainment center and contributed to the financial prosperity of the area.[24]
Following the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, business in Idlewild declined. Other vacation resorts were beginning to accommodate African-American visitors, and with federal law requiring that they be accepted anywhere, African Americans began taking advantage of this opportunity. Many went to the Florida beaches and Las Vegas casinos, for example, limiting the number arriving at Idlewild.[26] According to National Public Radio, "it was integration that killed Idlewild. Blacks no longer had to remain invisible".[27]
In 1966 Idlewild lost its last nearby train access in Baldwin when the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway terminated service on its Grand Rapids-Traverse City route (shortened from its Petoskey terminus), with a timed transfer in Grand Rapids to Chicago-bound trains.[28]
The national recession in the early 1970s further contributed to an economic downturn in Idlewild, which led to a population decline as local employment options dwindled. Idlewild became a lesser-known family vacation and retirement community, primarily attracting retirees who remembered it from its boom period.
In the 1970s township officials organized a planning commission, zoning board, and other initiatives as a way to encourage community input and to offer specific practical solutions to improve the community. Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) were obtained for demolition, additional roadwork, and other structural changes, which resulted in a complete makeover of the island, renamed "Williams Island" in honor of early community leader Dr. Daniel Hale Williams. In the 1990s, with federal and state funding scarce, attention was turned away from building projects toward the renovation of existing township properties. The federal government designated Lake County as an "Enterprising Community", which facilitated the development of sewer and natural gas systems. Businessman John O. Meeks purchased and renovated the Morton Motel, and founded organizations to develop and promote the community, including Mid-Michigan Idlewilders and the Idlewild African American Chamber of Commerce. Nonetheless, by 1998, the economy was in a "dismal state" according to a reliable source, with many residents on welfare. By that time, the Paradise Club had been torn down and the Flamingo had been closed down.[26]
The state of Michigan invested funds for a 10-year strategic plan for Idlewild completed in 2013 as the Tourism Development Strategy For Idlewild, Michigan.[29][30]
The Idlewild Historic and Cultural Center was open Saturdays in 2019 and offered a self-guided driving tour of the community with stops including the remains of the Flamingo Club, the Paradise Club, and some of the previous homes of prominent individuals.[31] The National Idlewilders Club continues to organize annual events.[32][12] The Idlewild Historic & Cultural Center displays memorabilia and photographs of the town's most active years.[33]
In a 2017 interview with New York Post, Idlewild booster John O. Meeks described the community as follows. "We have three motels here now. There used to be 35. We have one restaurant. There used to be 25. I don’t expect it to be what it once was, but I do believe it deserves a future." Journalist Salena Zito added that "Idlewild is not a complete ghost town. Its pristine lakes remain home to a couple of hundred people — mostly those left over from its heyday — and a few newcomers such as township supervisor Carrington-Atkins, who recently bought the perfectly preserved home of famed black author Charles Waddell Chesnutt. And yet, many of its houses are empty, its storefronts fallen victim to nature".[9]
In February 2019, East Lansing radio station WFMK described Idlewild as a ghost town "due to the vacated neighborhoods: block-after-block of deserted homes and yards. Many whole blocks are completely deserted & vacant except for the crumbling shacks that were once homes", confirmed by a series of photos.[34] Nonetheless, a series of events was planned for 2019,[6] such as The 5th Annual Idlewild Education, Empowerment and Music Festival weekend (July 13–14), with guests including an original Braggs Fiesta Doll Dancer,[35] Carlean Gill.[36][37]
A 2011 Black Past article summarized the town's legacy as follows: "Despite this decline, Idlewild symbolized the heyday of the combination of race, leisure, and geography to create a briefly prosperous community through niche tourism".[22]
Climate
This climatic region has large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and cold (sometimes severely cold) winters. According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Idlewild has a humid continental climate, abbreviated "Dfb" on climate maps.[38]
Borscht Belt, a similar series of resorts in the Catskill Mountains that accommodated Jewish vacationers who often found securing accommodation difficult due to widespread antisemitism.
The Upper Peninsulaof Michigan—also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P.—is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac. It is bounded primarily by Lake Superior to the north, separated from the Canadian province of Ontario at the east end by the St. Marys River, and flanked by Lake Huron and Lake Michigan along much of its south. Although the peninsula extends as a geographic feature into the state of Wisconsin, the state boundary follows the Montreal and Menominee rivers and a line connecting them.
Merrill Township is a civil township of Newaygo County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 590 at the 2000 census.
Waterford Township is a charter township in the geographic center of Oakland County, Michigan, United States.
Jacques Marquette, S.J., sometimes known as Père Marquette or James Marquette, was a French Jesuit missionary who founded Michigan's first European settlement, Sault Sainte Marie, and later founded Saint Ignace. In 1673, Marquette, with Louis Jolliet, an explorer born near Quebec City, was the first European to explore and map the northern portion of the Mississippi River Valley.
Black Bottom was a predominantly black neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan. The term has sometimes been used to apply to the entire neighborhood including Paradise Valley, but many consider the two neighborhoods to be separate. Together, Black Bottom and Paradise Valley were bounded by Brush Street to the west, the Grand Trunk railroad tracks to the east, south to the Detroit River, and bisected by Gratiot Avenue. The area north of Gratiot Avenue to Grand Boulevard was defined as Paradise Valley.
Idlewild, also spelled Idlewyld, Idyllwild, Idyllwyld, Idylwild, or Idylwyld might refer to:
The Pere Marquette Railway was a railroad that operated in the Great Lakes region of the United States and southern parts of Ontario in Canada. It had trackage in the states of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and the Canadian province of Ontario. Its primary connections included Buffalo; Toledo; and Chicago. The company was named after Jacques Marquette, a French Jesuit missionary who founded Michigan's first European settlement, Sault Ste Marie.
Gerhard Mennen "Soapy" Williams was an American politician who served as the 41st governor of Michigan, elected in 1948 and serving six two-year terms in office. He later served as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and as chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court.
Sundown towns, also known as sunset towns, gray towns, or sundowner towns, are all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States and Canada that were most prevalent before the mid-20th century, which practiced a form of racial segregation by excluding non-whites via some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation or violence. The term came into use because of signs that directed "colored people" to leave town by sundown.
Detroit, the largest city in the state of Michigan, was settled in 1701 by French colonists. It is the first European settlement above tidewater in North America. Founded as a New France fur trading post, it began to expand during the 19th century with U.S. settlement around the Great Lakes. By 1920, based on the booming auto industry and immigration, it became a world-class industrial powerhouse and the fourth-largest city in the United States. It held that standing through the mid-20th century.
Daniel Hale Williams was an African-American surgeon who founded Provident Hospital in 1891. It was the first non-segregated hospital in the United States. Provident also had an associated nursing school for African Americans.
The 1943Detroit race riot took place in Detroit, Michigan, from the evening of June 20 through to the early morning of June 22. It occurred in a period of dramatic population increase and social tensions associated with the military buildup of U.S. participation in World War II, as Detroit's automotive industry was converted to the war effort. Existing social tensions and housing shortages were exacerbated by racist feelings about the arrival of nearly 400,000 migrants, both African-American and White Southerners, from the Southeastern United States between 1941 and 1943. The migrants competed for space and jobs against the city's residents as well as against European immigrants and their descendants. The riot escalated after a false rumor spread that a mob of whites had thrown a black mother and her baby into the Detroit River. Blacks looted and destroyed white property as retaliation. Whites overran Woodward to Veron where they proceeded to violently attack black community members and tip over 20 cars that belonged to black families.
The Chicago race riot of 1919 was a violent racial conflict between White Americans and Black Americans that began on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, on July 27 and ended on August 3, 1919. During the riot, 38 people died. Over the week, injuries attributed to the episodic confrontations stood at 537, two thirds Black and one third white; and between 1,000 and 2,000 residents, most of them Black, lost their homes. Due to its sustained violence and widespread economic impact, it is considered the worst of the scores of riots and civil disturbances across the United States during the "Red Summer" of 1919, so named because of its racial and labor violence. It was also one of the worst riots in the history of Illinois.
African-American neighborhoods or black neighborhoods are types of ethnic enclaves found in many cities in the United States. Generally, an African American neighborhood is one where the majority of the people who live there are African American. Some of the earliest African-American neighborhoods were in New Orleans, Mobile, Atlanta, and other cities throughout the American South, as well as in New York City. In 1830, there were 14,000 "Free negroes" living in New York City.
The Chicago Defender is a Chicago-based online African-American newspaper. It was founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott and was once considered the "most important" newspaper of its kind. Abbott's newspaper reported and campaigned against Jim Crow-era violence and urged black people in the American South to settle in the north in what became the Great Migration. Abbott worked out an informal distribution system with Pullman porters who surreptitiously took his paper by rail far beyond Chicago, especially to African American readers in the southern United States. Under his nephew and chosen successor, John H. Sengstacke, the paper dealt with racial segregation in the United States, especially in the U.S. military, during World War II. Copies of the paper were passed along in communities, and it is estimated that at its most successful, each copy was read by four to five people.
Lottie "The Body"Tatum-Graves-Claiborne was an American burlesque dancer who performed from the late 1940s to the early 1980s. She was given the nickname "Lottie the Body" when she was a teenager working in modeling. She also became known as the "Black Gypsy Rose Lee" and the "Gypsy Rose Lee of Detroit." Born and raised in New York, her career in burlesque began in San Francisco, and later she moved to Detroit. Lottie was renowned for her support of other exotic dancers, musicians, and entertainers. During her lengthy career, she worked throughout the U.S. and in numerous other countries, performing with many of the great singers, comedians, musicians, and dancers of her era.
Lincoln Hills in Gilpin County, Colorado, the United States, was a vacation resort for African-Americans. Lincoln Hills was created in 1922 by E.C. Regnier and Roger Ewalt, and was the only resort for African Americans west of the Mississippi River. Lincoln Hills served as a reprieve from segregation for middle class African-Americans in the 20th century.
The Resort Special was a seasonal night train from Chicago, renowned for serving resort towns such as Traverse City, Charlevoix, Petoskey on the northwestern part of Michigan’s lower peninsula. Begun by the Pere Marquette Railway, it was a rare instance of a named Pere Marquette train continuing after the Chesapeake & Ohio absorbed the Pere Marquette Railway in 1947. In 1960s, the C&O shifted the Resort Special name to a White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia to New York City route.
The Black Travel Movement is a socioentrepreneurial phenomenon that pursues social change by developing travel-related businesses that encourage Black people to travel. The movement emerged in the 2010s, but in the United States its historical roots go back to The Negro Motorist Green Book and to historically Black resorts.
During the decades of segregation in the United States, African Americans established various resorts. The resorts were self-contained commercial establishments. Varying resort accommodations included rooms for rent, meals and fine food, cocktail bars, dancing, sporting facilities, and beaches. Also in some cases entire communities were known as resort areas for African Americans. The Negro Motorist Green Book helped guide African Americans to accommodating and safe places, including Idlewild, Michigan, which was among the most well known.
↑ Woodford, Arthur M., ed. (2012). The Michigan Companion. Detroit: OmniData. p.328. ISBN978-0-9798648-4-1.
↑ Wakefield, Larry; Wakefield, Lawrence (December 21, 1994). "Ghost Towns of Michigan". Northmont Publishing. Retrieved December 21, 2023– via Google Books.
1 2 "Events". Idlewild African American Chamber of Commerce. Retrieved December 17, 2023.
↑ "Pere Marquette, Tables 1, 6". Official Guide of the Railways. National Railway Publication Company. 74 (1). June 1941.
↑ "Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, Tables 50, 53". Official Guide of the Railways. National Railway Publication Company. 82 (3). August 1949.
↑ "Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, Table 53, freight only, November 1950 schedule". Official Guide of the Railways. National Railway Publication Company. 82 (8). January 1950.
↑ Ronald J. Stephens (March 3, 2014). "The Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue (1954-1964)". Black Past. Retrieved February 20, 2019. Braggs showcased stars such as Della Reese, T-Bone Walker, The Four Tops, Roy Hamilton, and Jackie Wilson as headliners who appeared at the Paradise Club. They also toured the nation as part of the Arthur Braggs Idlewild Revue.
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