Vintage Views

Mysterious places that “defy” gravity have beckoned Michigan travelers since the 1950s and 1960s.

Michigan’s tourist industry is too often taken for granted. Michigan wasn’t always the vacationers’ paradise it is today.

The summer cottage offers perhaps the most popular pleasure and recreation today, just as it did in the early part of the 20th century.

Before the days of jet travel, when winter vacationers stayed closer to home, winter was a time to celebrate. Several northern Michigan communities celebrated...

Aroad along the Lake Huron shore had long been a dream for the people of northeastern Michigan. And as early as 1858, the state...

Long before 2006 when the “Pure Michigan” campaign launched, different slogans were used to promote Michigan as a travel and tourist destination.

The popularity of summer camps swelled in the 1950s with the baby boomers. A 1952 booklet published by the Automobile Club of Michigan lists 391 summer camps in Michigan; by 1956, the number was 404.

Social dancing was once a popular form of recreation in Michigan. From the late 1880s, dance pavilions sprung up across the state, many of them built on waterfronts.

It is fairly uncommon to find interior scenes of cottages. Almost all that we have are “real photo postcards” — black and white photos from the 1930s to 1950s, usually printed in small quantities.

Michigan saw a boom in vacation travel after World War II, but it wasn’t only in the summer months that Michiganders enjoyed the state’s recreational offerings. The ’50s and ’60s saw a number of ski lodges built in Michigan, many in the Mid-Century Modern style.