“Atlantic City of the West”: Public Works, Tourism, and the Development of South Haven

Abstract

“Atlantic City of the West”: Public Works, Tourism, and the Development of South Haven By Patrick R. Hudson During the first half of the nineteenth century there was a strenuous political debate, beginning with Patrick Henry’s support of state’s rights versus Alexander Hamilton’s federalism and continuing through to Andrew Jackson’s Democrats and John Quincy Adams’ Whig party, on how to encourage settlement of the United States. The debate focused on the need for infrastructure improvements and whether or not they should be publicly funded.1 This question is central to the “big government vs. small government” debate. South Haven’s history, from pre-to post-industrial setting, demonstrates in microcosm the hypothesis that public policy, outside funding, and changes in transportation technology affected the development of all cities, not only the larger urban areas. Because of South Haven’s small, uncomplicated size, the effects of changes in transportation upon the physical layout of the city is easier to see, along with other historical changes. Over South Haven’s century and a half of existence, the value of its location appears to be partly a function of geographic factors—geology, soil, climate, and vegetative ecology—and partly due to various modes of transportation. Transportation in the city has been affected by technical, physical, and financial changes that in turn significantly impacted the physical character and layout of the city. Differing cultural factors also play into geography, such as philosophies of government, ever-changing cultural fads and fashions, the role of human genius, and the force of powerful personalities. South Haven’s Historical Setting Prior to the organization of Michigan for statehood there were no actual ports along the territory’s Lake Michigan shore, and settlement consisted of only a few fur trading posts, usually on rivers several miles 1 Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 18151848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 243-284. The Michigan Historical Review 41.2 (Fall 2015): 1-32©2015 Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved 2 The Michigan Historical Review upstream from the lake. These few settlements in the territory were accessible only by water or Indian trails.2 The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 proved the need to move more agricultural produce into the expanding settlement areas of the country.3 Private enterprise by itself had failed to provide adequate transport for the needs of the western settlers, despite the experimental steps of Congress and state legislatures to provide incentives for the private sector to build roads, canals, and bridges to support agricultural settlement of the trans-Appalachian region. The greatest success for the Northwest Territory was the Erie Canal, which linked the Great Lakes with New York City; this not only helped make the city the commercial capital of the country but also allowed northern Ohio to develop. Southern Ohio, meanwhile, found its commercial transport and settlement impetus in the Ohio River and the port of New Orleans; Indiana and Illinois followed suit.4 Michigan’s development was set back an entire generation, until the 1830s, by settlers’ inability to penetrate the swampy interior of the Lower Peninsula before construction of the Detroit-to-Chicago military roads.5 Even then, though interior settlement remained isolated and at subsistence levels, there was a high enough population level to allow Michigan to be admitted as a state in 1837. Statehood meant that Michigan’s new legislature could now turn to full development of the state. In 1837 the legislature—and the writing of the state’s constitution—was controlled by the Whigs, whose philosophy of government was based on public funding of physical infrastructure so that all of society could benefit equally, thus the greatest opportunity for economic growth. In order to fund roads, bridges, canals, railroads, and ports, well-regulated banks were required.6 This national discussion over how to establish and manage banks eventually had a significant impact on Michigan. 2 Caroline Kirkland, “A New Home—Who Will Follow: or Life in the Clearings,” in David D. Anderson, ed., Michigan: A State Anthology (Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1983), 81-89. 3 For millennium rivers and seas remained the fastest modes of travel...