A Multitude of Vessels on Round Lake
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The East Park Waterfront

A Multitude of Vessels on Round Lake, also, The East Park Waterfront. . Manitou Shoal Lightship, ca. 1934. Lighships were used to guide vessels past certain hazardous navigation points along Lake Michigan’s maritime lanes. Manitou Shoal west of the Leelanau Peninsula was one such spot. Until 1935, when a lighthouse was finally placed there, its lightship often wintered in Charlevoix. Round Lake here is almost ice fee, just before the vessel left to resume its place between North and South Manitou Islands. , The Dorothea, ca. 1905. The Dorothea was being built as a palatial yacht in Philadelphia in 1898 when the man who commissioned her died. The U.S. Government bough her unfinished and converted her into a military boat. In 1901 the State of Illinois borrowed the Dorothea to be used as a training vessel for its naval militia. She steamed north for exercises on Lake Charlevoix every year until 1909. , The North American, ca. 1960. The 280-foot North American was launched in January of 1913 and began calling at Charlevoix in March of 1918. She and her sister ship the South American were two of the most popular passenger liners ever to vis here, never missing a year up until the mid 1960s. Boch vessels were taken off the lake because of their unsafe wooden superstructures. , The Manistique, July 26, 1908. The 338-foot train car ferry Manistique used mainly for shipping iron and copper ore and lumber, became an excursion vessel to Charlevoix twice in 1907, and twice more in 1908, coming down from Manistique in the Upper Peninsula. Here, she carries 600 passengers from a Swedish choral singing society, who packed Bridge Street from end to end. , The Joseph Gordon, ca. 1900. The small passenger seamer Joseph Gordon was built in 1881, one of many steamers that serviced ports and stops on Lake Charlevoix from the Bridge Seret waterfront. In February of 1907 she was abandoned on the north shore of Round Lake, and later towed out to Oyster Bay cast of Charlevoix for a proper burial. , Venetian Festival, 1990s Venetian Festival has been a mainstay of Charlevoix’s July summer scene since the 1930s, the peak of the tourist season. Traditionally, an illuminated boat parade capped by spectacular fireworks has taken place on Round Lake to be witnessed by tens of thousands of locals and visitors gathered for what is now unofficially the annual homecoming of Charlevoix lovers. , Clinton Street Dock, ca. 1892. The old Clinton Street dock, where you are now standing, is currently occupied by the harbormaster’s stone building. Since it was so close to the Bridge Street business district, this area and the flanking wharves were the main point in Charlevoix where schooners, like the Porter seen here, unloaded and took on cargo. Rarely did a passenger vessel use this dock. , Round Lake West Waterfront, ca. 1895. When sudden squalls erupted on Lake Michigan, for which the lake las long been notorious, schooners sailed to Charlevoix’s Round Lake, considered by many mariners to be the finest naturally protected harbor on the Great Lakes. Often they tied up abreast for several days until their sails dried our and they could venture back out on the big lake. , Brand New East Park, 1938. After the Hotel Charlevoix on Bridge Street burned in June of 1935, the city fathers saw the view through to Round Lake and realized the potential for a magnificent park. Work began in 1937 with one set of shuffleboard courts. Another set of courts would be added across the center sidewalk by 1939. , Clinton Street Dock. ca. 1896. In the late 1800s, the Belvedere and Chicago Club resorts, both on the opposite side of Round Lake, petitioned the city for convenient low dockage space for their small vessels. The city agreed, so for a few years in July and August a portion of the Clinton Street dock was reserved for the resorts’ use. , Round Lake West Waterfront, ca. 1927 The company that owned the cement plant near Petoskey, now the Bay Harbor resort, had a small fleet of lake freighters. It was not unusual for one of them, like the 450 foot J. B. John shown here, to tie up for the winter along the entire future, then dockless, East Park waterfront. , High Water in Round Lake, 1986. The Round Lake waterfront has always been at the mercy of constant fluctuations of the Great Lakes water levels. Record high 1985-86 levels required the city to construct temporary docks atop docks so mariners could reach the park grass over a submerged cement walkway. The present elevated walkway and floating dock system, part of the 2007-2009 transformation of East Park, has taken care of the problem.